Lavish sets and costumes plus eye-popping CGI animation showed so much promise of an A-plus movie, but the script was just awful! Even the heavy star power of the two main leads couldn't save this disastrous attempt at bringing the eternal love story to life, let alone draw in the audience and make us care. The dialogue was stilted, scenes jumped from one to another with flashbacks that didn't seem to connect, the clumsy direction was horrible making romantic scenes seemed cartoonish, lines delivered were either too wooden or too exaggerated...the list goes on. In spite of the gorgeous costumes, the designer couldn't decide whether to showcase the beauty of ancient styles or appeal to the modern mode. The female lead's hair and attire were modernized while everyone else around her was in historical costumes. This caused more confusion to an already chaotic narrative. The ending was the worst part of the movie. I cringed instead of feeling enamored. WTF was that?! Heavy sigh, I was filled with high anticipation and had waited for a very long time to be able to watch it for free...and I'm so glad it was FREE. I would've been more upset if I had to pay. Instead, if you can find episodes free on YouTube, watch the "Eternal Love" TV series starring Mark Chao and Yang Mi.
Review of Once Upon A Time
