My intuition is telling me this is an Adaptation of something, because it shows all of the hallmarks and evidence of vandalism and Adaptation scars. There's WAY TOO MUCH Gloss and Pageantry, which works at first, but it's covering up the corpse of whatever franchise was murdered for the parts. Perhaps this is the pinnacle of Chinese Wuxia/Xianxia (Heroes vs Magic, or more accurately, Martial Arts vs Taoist/Spiritual Factions & growth) stories. Swords and Pagodas instead of Swords and Sandals.
This is a movie that probably belongs to a franchise or paradigm I know nothing about, since it's missing half of the context, and smiling or bowing cardboard cutouts are used instead of people/characters. It looks like a better movie. It feels like a better movie.
Until you look back and realise, this is probably Adapted. There's signs of tampering and vignette moments that make me think this is Adapted. The scale is wrong, the characters don't belong in the world or the story, and the sets look either 400 years or 40 minutes old with scaffold sets.
The moment it falls apart is once you realise the placeholder characters are the movie's foundation. They're likeable at first, which is the intention. But once the action dies down, the "plot" is randomly chosen to happen. random characters die.
Maybe this is China's "Solo a Star Wars Story" or "The Last Jedi" or "Warcraft". Or, if you were unlucky to see it, "Dungeons and Dragons" or "Eragon", or "Artemis Fowl", "Death Note", "Dragonball Z", "Avatar The Last Airbender", etc.
There's story elements and pieces from all of these films that could be identical. Adaptations that are butchered and sliced into movie scenes that are supposed to represent the book/game. It could also be ferociously Amazing in China/HK... but it makes too many amateur writing mistakes, along with a Ferocious High Budget CG and set designed world that works ... but only for a minute.
This is the "Episode #650 story" of a franchise that has given up, so they're now following side characters and locations you're supposed to know, placed in a high-fantasy event, with other characters you're supposed to know. You keep waiting for the hero or the villain to show up. But instead, it's the background characters of a better story.
That's Double World. It's the Martial Arts Fantasy equivalent of following Mario & Luigi's highschool friend's distant cousin... If Mario and Luigi were Warlords or Royalty in a Chinese Martial Arts Fantasy world.
Act 1 is missing a lot of Character and World Building, Act 2 is Action-packed, Act 3 spins on a dime and almost tells an entirely different story.
Maybe i'd enjoy this ... if I knew 80% of the story from a previous movie or knew who the characters were supposed to be... but it's just stapled together. All I have is questions that will never be answered. Characters are tropes, to the point of spinning a wheel of fantasy tropes. The War which precedes the story should be more influential, but it's not evident. Characters are entirely missing backstory that the movie gives more scene time to their untimely death than to personality.
The Grieving scenes are broken and possibly parody, the "Feel Sad" music starts and I'm trying to recall why. Did I fall asleep and forget this person?
Is hand-holding supposed to represent deep passion, they've known each other for what seems like 3 days. More time is spent focusing on Hand-Holding than world building. It's probably a culture thing, or sliding past the censors, IDK.
There are characters who exist, to die. Some just disappear with the exception of "named" characters who are injured first, to show bravery or some virtue before being disappeared.
To some degree, this fits the "Conan the Barbarian" level of plot/story development where if you didn't know the source material was janky, you'd think the movie was mis-edited to fit 10 minute CGI montages around. The story isn't garbage, but it's missing purpose or message, or intent.
I don't really care about the characters, the power struggle, the empires or the bad guys. But, it's Shiny and Glossy.
Shout by luckzBlockedParent2020-07-27T00:12:00Z
Decent Chinese fantasy action movie, apparently based on an MMORPG. Funny and compelling, with at times vastly overdone CGI. Imaginative visuals but cliché plot.
Sadly I can't find much about the game it is based on (in English).
Not sure if the actors dubbed their own characters in Mandarin or voice actors did this, but quite often the performances sound fake, most notably the protagonist (Henry Lau).