Reynaldi Nickolas

I somehow ended up picking this movie on a theatre bcs a family member insisted. After watching it, I thought the movie was mid, and thinking, "maybe i'm not looking at it right, maybe bcs i don't read the wuxia novel so the film felt mid". After doing a bit of research about the novel and how it should played out, I stand corrected. Overall, the movie plot felt rushed and disorderly, VFX went really wild, lots of unneeded scenes, and not faithfully follows the source material. The only plus point for me is the props, all the outfits are fire. *SPOILER* As a non-reader, a lot of scenes are confusing bcs of not much explanation or supporting back story, only relying on some flashbacks which doesn't explain much. Even after I read and analyze the source, some scenes still doesn't quiet fit to the plot, like the motivation of our protagonist, Guo Jing, on training to be strong. As mentioned by other reviewer here, omitting Yang Kang from the story defeats the whole purpose of Guo Jing travelling. Second, it has a lot of subplots which doesn't connects, and got forcefully merged at the end. Like why Venom of The West after learning the 9 Yin technique, decides to come in the middle of war between the Mongols and Song empire... It does make sense if the reason is to challenge Genghis Khan, but combining it in the middle of war, and then got beaten by SOMEONE who is NOT on Khan's side at the moment (Guo Jing, after taking Song empire side to protect them), fleeing after the battle, and somehow does little to no impact to the war or the story just make me sighed out loud. And that's only one of the scenes. Third, the VFX really goes WILD, but not in a good way. Lots of CGI are so exaggerated and not blended in, almost every landscape you see are CGI. Some movies are able to incorporate CGI really well in the past, especially for making large landscape to cut budget, but this film does it poorly and it does look unreal at times. The martial arts aspect of the movie, which what wuxia novels are all about, also got hit with CGI fight scene, which is not needed. I'd rather watch real fight scene without people posing and exudes aura from their body like One Piece's Haki (not saying One Piece is bad, it's just doesn't fit to replace actual hand-to-hand combat with "magic" martial art) Some 5 stars reviews on Google are saying this piece of art is perfect, representing the art of wuxia novel. But let me tell you, all these people are just glazing. The film does NOT faithfully represent the wuxia novel. Tsui Hark is known for his success in making Once Upon a Time in China, and it has become one of the classic martial arts movie of all time. But this one doesn't cut it. If you want to know the story, just read the novel. It's great, complex, and engaging.