Just some fun facts and interesting tidbits (please don't let them change your mood on watching it):

• This film and the sequel are universally slammed by the Chinese community (by both commoners and critics). Both films are currently 3.8 out of 10 [Do note that the lowest score there is 2.0 cuz the lowest you can rate is 1 out of 5 stars on a 10 points scale] in Douban, the Chinese "IMDB". It's an example of a film that did horrible locally but great internationally. A Hollywood example for this would be Warcraft, which is received much better in China than...everywhere else from what I understand.
• The director, Guo Jingming, actually was also the author of those books. I never really read his work but he was initially an author, so the books being better is...very likely the case.
• He became a self-made director because no one would adapt and film his works, so he's like "fuck it, imma do it all by myself". While his films aren't getting good scores, he had commercial success on his first few films so he eventually got investors and don't need to self-fund anymore.
• GJM had a distinct visual and scriptwriting style. It's not an award-winning style, but you can watch and go "ah, this is a GJM film". Kind of like Bayhem -- you can dislike or like Michael Bay but dude surely is distinctive in his craft (I know some don't believe he has "craft").
• GJM's films are so well-liked in the international scene (largely because they are still relatively new and rarely seen to the international audience) that I don't know why he doesn't try to expand outward.
• Especially so cuz he was sort of hardblocked in Mainland China due to a protest against him for plagiarism.
• His newest film, The Yin-Yang Master: Dream of Eternity, was daily top 5 in Netflix when it's on there last year. But the sequel might be in trouble due to the situation he's currently in with the China entertainment industry. - - Also, the actor Deng Lun, who plays the main character in TYYM was caught for tax evasion two days ago and might meet the same fate as GJM.