The CGI was a bit clumsy only with the "Red Devil" character and maybe the final fight, the rest being pretty spot on. And it was good! Now, the scenes were not really polished, the actors and their dialogues not to the standards that we've come to expect from Hollywood productions, but that's as much a good thing as a bad thing. This film is part of a sort of thematic series, with another Yinyang Master movie from 2020 having absolutely no connection to this one, but set in the same world of Chinese mythology. All they need is some computer graphics, decent acting and some experience and they are set to build fantastical worlds that the Western World hasn't even dreamed of. If you think about it, Chinese folklore has millennia of content, refined for centuries, to inspire movie makers. However, overall, this was a colorful and engaging fantasy entertainment for all ages. It was just a bit of a disappointment for me that the special effects of Qingming's encounter with the head demon Xiangliu felt rushed and was not at par with the rest of the film. The climactic battle on the bridge across what looked like the natural stone pillars of Zhangjiajie was also a breathtaking spectacle, even if the designs of the grotesque multi-tentacled giant hand monster and the bizarre make-up of Cimu (William Chan) were not too well-done. Most remarkable here were the Disney-approximate computer-animated three-dimensional creatures which were in close interactive scenes with the human characters, particularly the naughty ferrets and the delightfully cute Red Ghost. The main locations, namely the Yin Yang Bureau, the Red Tower and Qingming's garden, were all beautifully designed and executed. Among the younger cast members, the most popular is the pretty and charismatic Shen Yue, who played Dong Sanchai in the 2018 reboot of "Meteor Garden." Like the previous Yin Yang Master film, this film was also a rich showcase of the progressive state of special visual effects in China. Chen Kun has also had an acclaimed film career behind him, with films like "The Knot" (2004). Regarded in the same level of acting excellence as her contemporary Zhang Ziyi, Zhou Xun achieved a rare grand slam as Best Actress for her role in "The Equation of Love and Death" (2008). There were some notable actors in the cast. Both had protagonists named Qingming and Boya, but that was just about all they had in common. This new one directed by Li Weiran, entitled simply "The YinYang Master" is a totally different film, and was based on a 3D RPG strategy game also called "Onmyoji" by NetEase Games. This was based on the 1986 Japanese novel series "Onmyoji" by Baku Yumemakura. Earlier this year, there was just another film with a very similar title, "The Yin-Yang Master: Dream of Eternity," directed by Guo Jingming.
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