A great addition

I won't lie: I already loved Huaisang, so needless to say I was super excited about this movie!

No spoilers, but I witnessed one of the most intense drama conversations I've ever seen in this movie, which is saying something! The dialogue is so intense sometimes that I found myself holding my breath.
Other times, I was reaching out at the screen, jumping in my seat, and just generally panicking along with the characters (and sometimes before them because the producers pulled that move where the audience knows something the characters don't... I love that)

So yeah, this movie had all the action and fantasy themes I loved from The Untamed series, plus the sharp and impactful dialogues, and it zoomed in on Huaisang. I could ask for no more!
Plus, A-Yao became one of my favorite villains of all time, after I watched The Untamed series, and it was really nice to see him being beautifully evil as well.

The acting, of course, was fantastic. One of the things I thought The Untamed series did very well was that roughly half of the story is told through the looks on people's faces and the most subtle body language. I have to commend the entire cast for the drama, because all of them kept the scenes immersive and impactful with the details in their acting. It couldn't have been easy, having every twitch of your brow mean something to the audience, but those actors sure did bring their characters to life and I love them for it!
The acting was just as well done in this movie, of course! Huaisang was loveable as always, but you get to see quite a lot more of his personality in the movie as opposed to the series. Mingjue was fierce as ever, only maybe a little bit more fierce, and also he has a much wider spectrum of emotion and character depth than he did in the series. You don't honestly learn anything about A-Yao because The Untamed series pretty well covered his arc, but you do get a really personal and direct example of what was going on in the background with A-Yao and the Nie clan while Wuxian was in a deathly sleep for 16 years. On that topic, I can't say any more without spoiling it, so just go watch the movie ;D And after you've watched the movie, rewatch the series (at least the last few episodes) because this movie really adds a lot to the ending of the series. I promise you, it'll be 100% satisfaction. Don't even hesitate, just do it.

The music was pretty, much like The Untamed series. In fact, they reused several musical pieces from the series, so... it doesn't have much of a standalone soundtrack, but there were a few additions, and I thought it was pretty good. It served the purpose well.

And finally, I always try to take a moment at the end of my reviews to touch on anything I didn't like... which, in this case, it's pretty hard to make a list.
Honestly, the only thing I didn't care for was the over-use of special effects (mostly towards the end). It was seriously cringe inducing sometimes. Still, that didn't ruin the movie for me, or even ruin the scene, it just could have been better. Compared to the lack of special effects that sometimes plagued The Untamed series, I'd say this was a better alternative, but it would be nice to see them find a happy balance somewhere in between too few effects and too many.

Try though I have, I can't really think of anything else I didn't love about this movie. It was fantastic, and if you liked The Untamed series- even if you didn't care about the Nie clan particularly- you will enjoy this for sure!

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