MsShirlyS

It seems nobody talked about this, but I've been having the question during the entire movie as soon as I saw the almighty genie: is it possible for a guy who has to work so hard to raise his family not asking for a fortune from the genie?

Yes, asking money can be cheesy and money won't always do good things. But it's definitely reasonable and pretty much every ordinary people's wish, isn't it? To not asking for it makes the main actor looks off, the writer look lazy, and the entire movie feels wrong at the very first beginning, even just as a silly holiday movie. To make it worse, all the wishes asked are not surprising or fun. The only moment that I laughed was for the wish "go to the hell". It's especially ironical that the numbers the genie left for the main character was considered to be lottery numbers. It is the only time the movie talks about money, and it feels nearly stupid. Unfortunately, Melissa's good performance is not enough to save this movie.

I can see that Yimou Zhang tries really hard to have multiple twists in the movie in order to surprise the audience as much as he could, and the movie has some fun moments for sure, but I am not convinced by the final twist - the purposes of the gang, which is to pass on the poem written by Yue Fei before he was executed. This just seems too nationalistic, political, twisted and pointless, and literally makes this movie more like a propaganda movie than a piece of art, as the core value is so twisted!

People's lives are more precious than anything. It's a great deed that people sacrifice themselves to save another's life, but it's just a brain wash that people are willing die to pass on the love to their ruler.

It's really sad to see the twisted value in so many Chinese movies nowadays, and Yimou Zhang just contributed another.