“Once Upon a Time” tells of eternal love, namely that between two gods across thousands of years. It starts with Bai Qian, a woman who lives in the Heavenly Realm of Qiuqiiu drinking booze và hanging out with her friend kasdf, who himself can turn into a phoenix & changes multiple colors. When she visits another realm (an underwater place that gives this epic a “Valerian” moment), she comes across a crown prince named Ye Hua (Yang Yang), who has a secret for her: That they were in love once ago, & that his child named A Li is her own. Many questions abound, for the viewer and Bai Qian, who eventually re-falls in love with Ye Hua, và learns the true story of their connection, which includes wire-fu battles gods, a 70,000-year age difference, and Bai Qian"s ability khổng lồ turn into a white fox with nine tales.
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True to the tale"s original book title, their love story is one that spans Three Lives, Three Worlds, Ten Miles of Peach Blossoms and manages to make quite a headache when it comes khổng lồ following the first two concepts. The titular distance of fruit, on the other hand, concerns the pat singularity that fate has just one peach blossom in store for all of us. That"s a rare bit of poetry in a movie that explains in part why fireworks, Hallmark cards and acrobats will always captivate people, in one way or another.
This whole enterprise is filmed, with seemingly few exceptions, on large sound stages. Yes, the sets themselves are filled with floral detail và every bright màu sắc on the spectrum, and the green screen work creates backdrops that seem khổng lồ go on for thousands of miles as softly lit, heavenly landscape (not unlike “The Great Wall,” which director Zhao Xiaoding was the cinematographer for). But the flat nature of this proves to lớn be constricting, creating a deadened spectacle of characters merely walking and talking (and sometimes fighting) around green screens, akin lớn the famously lifeless blocking in George Lucas’ “Star Wars” prequels.
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Proving that even the most experienced cinematographers can be weak directors, Xiaoding boxes in his grandiose characters with consistent medium shots, making us all the more aware that we’re not seeing a fantasy world come to life, but sets with backdrops và limited walking space. The effect is claustrophobic & frustrating: Before it even starts, “Once Upon a Time” brandishes a whopping ten production hình ảnh videos, và yet even with all of that money going into lavish costumes và luminous scenery, it can only present a viewfinder’s perspective of its cinematic universe. “Once Upon a Time” seems prepared for the smallest screens possible, with any screen larger more of a gift lớn the financiers than the viewer.
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This is a busy, precious epic of profoundly limited imagination, where it doesn’t have a vision so much as a shiny màu sắc palette. The story tries to lớn counter such restrictions by going all out with the fantasy, creating a world where there are seemingly few rules concerning mortality, whether or not you can turn into an animal, or how Bai Qian is a blank slate primed for a feature’s amount of expositional dialogue và flashbacks. It all becomes a textbook reminder about how even when fantasy stories go on their own paths, they still need some sense of order lớn guide the viewer along, otherwise even the largest productions fade khổng lồ superfluousness. “Together forever” is not just the emotion at the heart of the story, it becomes the sole piece of lô ghích to go from one albeit pretty sequence khổng lồ the next.
“Once Upon a Time” struggles to lớn leave an uncanny valley when it comes to lớn providing simple albeit stylized amusement. It wants to have a massive scope with endless realms và hundreds of years lớn its characters, but it always feels so small. & even with the goal of providing awe or guffaws, of which it wants lớn be a heavily designed, family friendly fairy-tale with intermittent wire-fu sequences, the movie is constantly at battle with being so bloated and confusing. There are sporadic shiny and/or silly moments that will carry curious viewers all the way to the end of the movie, which features a big battle between barely-shown characters and eternal declarations. But when love is handled as cavernously as this, nothing really matters.
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A goddess falls in love with a human while undergoing a trial in the mortal world. Soon, an old enemy reappears khổng lồ threaten everything that she holds dear.
Show MoreGenre: Fantasy, Romance
Original Language: Chinese
Release Date (Theaters): Aug 11, 2017 limited
Release Date (Streaming): Jan 9, 2018
Box Office (Gross USA): $485.5K
Runtime: 1h 48m
Distributor: Well Go USA
Production Co: Alibaba Pictures Group
Sound Mix: Dolby Digital
Aspect Ratio: Scope (2.35:1)
Cast và Crew
Yifei Liu
Bai Qian
Yang Yang
Ye Hua
Yikuan Yan
Qing Cang
Luo Jin
Zhe Yan
Chun Li
Su Jin
Zhao Xiaoding
Director
Anthony La
Molinara
Director
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Critic nhận xét for Once Upon a Time
All Critics (5) | top Critics (4) | Fresh (2) | Rotten (3)
Full Review… John De
Fore Hollywood Reporter Full Review… Nick Allen Roger
Ebert.com Full Review… Gary Goldstein Los Angeles Times Full Review… Mark Jenkins Washington Post Full Review… David Noh Film Journal International
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