This review may contain spoilers
The Nie brothers of the Untamed!
The Untamed spinoff: Fatal Journey is worth to watch for anyone who loves The Untamed and especially the Nie brothers.When starting the movie, you got to give it some slack since the movie is only under 1h 30 mins long. The budget is on the low side, but if you really like the story of The Untamed, it helps you understand Nie Huaisang better. I suggest watching The Untamed fully to be able to understand anything in this movie.
STORY:
This movie tells about the relationship of the Nie brothers, Nie Mingjue and Nie Huaisang.
The story is about Nie Mingjue, Nie Huaisang and Nie clan's disciplines going to their Sword Sacrificial hall, the Nie clan's ancestral hall for their clan's sabers. The brothers need to seal their clan's sword spirit, as it is creating trouble.
MY OPINION:
The story itself is okay, I liked seeing Jin Guangyao, Nie Huaisang and Nie Mingjue again. We get some more background info on Nie Huaisang's and Nie Mingjue's relationship. We get to understand how important Nie Mingjue really is to Nie Huaisang and how intelligent he really is. I was a little disappointed on how Nie Huaisang found out about Jin Guangyao being the bad guy. The movie felt a little boring to me, as I felt like there was not much going on. Everything was dealt quickly except for the fight scenes. I wish there was more interaction between the brothers and Jin Guangyao instead of them running from danger in their sword sacrificial hall. The CGI was not great, and I wasn't a fan of the CGI on the instruments when they were playing.
I would give it a solid 7.
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I will recommend it, since it is a nice piece of further information but it would be at the bottom of the list about which order to watch all the parts in.
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For CQL Fans
Between Fatal Journey and The Living Dead, this is definitely the better spin-off movie, but it's still missing some cohesion. I watched this mostly because I wanted to see Nie Huaisang's perspective as he started his grand plan, but the story really focuses instead on the actual ancestral tomb incident and the jump to the mastermind prequel is really sudden and feels tacked on at the end.I think Nie Mingjue is the most true to his character in this movie, and it was wonderful seeing the relationship between the brothers, but on the other hand...Nie Huaisang actually feels kind of out of character. He was always characterized as someone who didn't want to take on responsibility and just wanted to enjoy life — until he was forced to act. There were several moments here where he became really courageous and outspoken about justice and it just didn't really feel like him.
I do think this was good fanservice and as a huge fan of CQL it made me happy to see everyone again (even (especially) the villains).
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I would say that the content of Fatal Journey is quite heavy. At times, I need to pause the movie so that I can absorb what was happening. Fatal Journey is not as scary as The Living Dead (another side story of The Untamed) and has less jumpscares. There were one or two gory scenes but the level of goriness is quite low, just to take note.
The acting is good. Their emotional scenes may make you cry, and they delivered the mood/atmosphere appropriately. Since there are a few intense battles in this movie, do expect screams while they are swinging their swords. They screamed often for the movie to be more intense and a bit dramatic.
The music is also appropriate. There were no music or songs that sounded out of place for a historical drama like Fatal Journey.
I would rewatch this movie often by its own (without rewatching The Untamed first). The story is interesting and always remain relevant in the context of The Untamed. There are little to no negative feedback from me regarding Fatal Journey that prevents me from rewatching this movie.
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Absolut masterpiece that should've been included in the main series.
As I mentioned, it's an absolute masterpiece. As a Fanboy of fan boy (I'm so not funny) this was great!I felt the emotions and everything.
I wasn't the biggest fan of the Nie clan leader in the series because he always felt a bit flat to me but this made everything better!
The CGI is a bit wonky and silly but it doesn't really take away.
The music was beautiful I almost cried, even though the flute playing is timing wise even worse than in the series (which I thought to be imposed).
The acting was phenomenal and I will 10 outta 10 watch it again.
It's 100 times better then it's counterpart 'The living dead'(even though I enjoyed that too).
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This review may contain spoilers
Nice accompaniment to The Untamed
Just had the chance to watch these 2 accompaniments to the much loved The Untamed (too lazy to suscribe to wetv vip before. Lol).First thing first, i think, if i havent read so many untamed fanfic before, i might be a little bit confused regarding the storyline. Lol. The saber spirit is not very well explained here (because of the timing constraint i think). But at least we can clearly see how Nie Huaisang turns from such a docile person to a manipulative director Nie in the untamed. Point is, never underestimate the sibling bond (Jin Guanyou, yes i was talking to you!)
Ji Li did a good job here. And the new character Nie Zonghui is such a nice add on. I have a sweet spot for Nie Zonghui from the fics, and it was nice to see him in flesh. Lol. And I like how he carries double saber, just convenient to hand one over to Nie Huaisang in emergency who of course very notoriously known for always leaving behind his own saber. Lol. And of course, the sibling bond between Nie Huaisang and Nie Mingjue *chef kiss
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This is a very short movie, about 1 hour 20 minutes long, with a lot of computer graphics and special effects. The whole movie revolves inside the Nie sect ancestral burial mausoleum. It's basically about how powerful the sword knife spirits are and how treacherous it is to suppress them. Inside the mausoleum, it has the vibe of a Christian crusader knights' chamber, with a stone knight statue and ossuaries. Some of the flying stunts with fighting in midair by the actors are rather commendable.
It's nice to re-listen to some of the very familiar tunes from The Untamed and I enjoy the orchestrated Nie brothers theme music. I wish the English subtitles have been better. Though it has a slightly more pleasing backdrop than The Untamed, it's not a movie I would go all the way out to watch.
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This review may contain spoilers
To start off the moive was great! The actors were phemonenal. Everyone did a great job protraying their characters. The tear jerking scenes were so touching and emotionally heart wretching. I love the interaction between the two Nie brothers and their disciplines. Could you watch this moive without watching the Untamed? -Absolutely not. Honestly and quite frankly the moive can be quite confusing if you have never heard or watch The Untamed prior this. The moive is missing alot of character and story development, which is explained in the The Untamed of course.
Yes, you should watch this movie, if and only if you want to better understand the relationship between the the Nie Brothers, who have very little interaction with one another in the Untamed. Despite saying that the moive was great, I do have to say that it story plot was very predictiable along with the events. I do however enjoy the moive giving Nie Huai Sang a chance to shine as the genius he truly was. He was a genius, who was misunderstood by many because of his inability to properly wield a sword. However his unique way of thinking allowed him to save him and Nie Mingjun when all the odds were against them.
Another highlight, is Nie MingJun character whom is known to be this stoic man who never waviers at any adversity, however this moive dipict him as more then just the legendary Blade Master. He is compassionate and benevolent man whom only wish to see his brother succeed. Plus his fight scenes were amazing.
Here are some problems that I had with the film.- For starter, it was too short. I felt that the moive should have been alittle longer and a little better developed. More bromance between the two would not have hurt. Another problem that I had was, that ending fell short of my expectation.
What I was anticipating from the moive. I knew that the moive was going be surrounding the relationship of the two Nie brother, but I was expecting a better ending. No, I already knew that Blade Master was going to die, so I was not expecting a mircle to happen. My only expectation, was to see the logic of how Nie Huai Sang figured out that Jin Guangyao was the person behind the death of the blade master. Yes, that scene does exist in the moive however that scene was too fast and honestly I wanted more, I wanted to see Nie Huai Sang finding the mistake between the song of clarity and the song of Clamity. I was also expecting to see him appoarch the orginally Mo Xuan Yu and then we can fill in the rest with The Untamed.
Overall, Production value was great and the acting was wonderful. It was worth the watch, but the ending is a bit disappointing.
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I love the backstory of both the brothers and Nie family.
The theme song is my favorite. So needless to say that I love everything about this movie.
There CGI and fight scenes are top notch. I hope that there will be 3 more spinoffs and Ji Li will be part of them.
I will be rewatching this along with rewatching The Untamed original series to see what I have missed.
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It's bro time!!!
From my perspective, I liked how the film filled in the empty space while WWX was dead. (If he didn't know where he was, I don't want to know either.) The many events that changed the relationship dynamic between the Nie brothers in addition to A-Yao stealthily revealing his true colors give a clearer picture of why HuaiSang does what he does in The Untamed. There's a reason why myself and my partner affectionately refer to HuaiSang as the Devil. Watch carefully and find out.Speaking of the brothers' relationship dynamic, it was really interesting to see it go from one of strict, overbearing, perpetually angry, more dad than bro vs lazy, spoiled, easily intimidated, more son than bro to something on more equal footing given their positions of power. All it took was something REALLY scary to happen to make one grow up and the other calm the f* down. Nothing like a little bit of staring too long into the abyss to bring two brothers closer. Simply put, no one messes with the Nie brothers and gets away with it.
The effects are kinda cheesy at times, but I like cheesy. I need comic relief when the actors are not in a position to provide it. That's just *my* opinion. The music, especially at the beginning, is good. Yes, the beginning is very good. It almost ventured into horror. I'm not the best judge of actors. As long as they don't give me a headache, I'm usually ok. No headache occurred during the viewing of this film, so the acting was good from my standpoint.
Overall, it's good for a watch. It made me despise A-Yao even more as a character than I already do and love the Nie brothers much more than I thought possible. The one thing that will irritate me is how much cooler MingJue's sabre looks in the donghua compared to the drama. Baxia deserves more love. Again, *my* opinion. Everyone else has their own, so it doesn't matter in the end. As long as the film is good, that's what counts in the grand scheme of things.
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The main actors did a good job!
Especially the nie brothers.
You guys deserved an awards really..
What I like about the story is is focused on family, bond of brothers. This is good for the youth to watch. There are alot of learnings. These kind of stories should be aired. Not always about love , lust or being in love with opposite sex. We should prioritize our family. This is really a good one..the unatmed is really a good one. Best drama series!! And now best movies.
The untamed never failed to make me cry.
More of this! Pls.. or can we see everyone back together again? Pls. Missed everyone
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This review may contain spoilers
For the Fans
I went in knowing this was going to be more for fans of the show but I was about 45 minutes in when I realised that this whole film, 1hr 20 mins, is going to take place in a tomb LOL Damn, I was so excited hearing the Untamed theme song play as they marched off on their horses LOL.Consider this film being more like 2 cut episodes of the Untamed rather than a stand alone movie. It pretty much just gives a little bit more insight into why Huasung does what he does in the Untamed series. I imagine most people get the point anyway but this just gives a little extra information, with a ton of computer game cgi. The brothers were close and the elder brother wasn't such a tough guy, he genuinely cared about people, which is why he kept sparing Yao. And we all know that Hua trusted Yao, so the hurt runs deep.
Alas, again, I was robbed of the Ghosts. The film opened with some promises of giving me what I didn't get in the Untamed and then just resorted to this cgi fight.
Since it's depicted as an extra episode, I would have loved to have had it end with some sort of throw back to the original series like Hua meeting Mo or lingering outside the Mo Manor while the sacrifice ritual begins, or even how he came up with his revenge plot to start with, but it just sort of ends with Hua realising he was tricked by Yao. Revisiting the sets might have been difficult but I would have liked something like that.
Overall, it's really just something for the fans to enjoy esp with they loved the Nie brothers.
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