I guess you can call it a movie for those who can't move on, but honestly, I think you'd like it more if you did not watch The Untamed first. Even if you wouldn't understand a lot of references.

*Story* 7
*Sigh* ... I liked the idea though. The growth of Wen Ning after he left Wei Wuxian's side. There are a lot of things that the movie mentioned about how Wen Ning must have been struggling with that I thought "That's actually a pretty fun topic to make a movie about" Unfortunately, the pace was too fast, the order was messed up, the editing was weird and the plot also too predictable. The whole time I was like "Just like the Yi City Arc". They took so many elements of the Yi City Arc that made face palm so hard. They took so many elements to the point that they could have just refilmed the Yi City Arc. I'm sure a lot if not everyone who had watched The Untamed would have watched it. One thing is sure, this movie was not written by MXTX. You could say that they took all elements of the Yi City Arc... except the parts that made the Yi City Arc good. But even with all the flaws, I still enjoyed it. If you could ignore all the OOC parts and forget the Yi City Arc for a moment, it was actually a pretty okay story. The CG was quite cool and the fight were definitely much better than The Untamed. Wei Wuxian's cameo was also a surprise. Although it was pretty OOC as well, in some ways it also made sense. At least, I think that's how Wen Ning sees Wei Wuxian, but does not fit the message of MDZS of everyone are just humans. But I still liked it. Was it OOC? Yes. Will it make you cringe? Most likely. But did it feel good to see Wei Wuxian again? 100%. But even so, I wish they didn't mention Wei Wuxian's name every 5 sentences. If you're gonna make a separate story, you should focus on yourself. Wei Wuxian might be the lead of MDZS/The Untamed, but the world is not surrounded by Wei Wuxian.

*Acting/Cast* 6.5
*Sigh* ... It was okay. Sizhui was adorable as always, the other new actors was not amazing, but also not bad (At least better than some of the bad actors of The Untamed). Although there were a lot of parts that was not really natural, it wasn't to the point of making me cringe. There were also some parts that they did pretty well. My problem is, it was too OOC. I guess I can understand that they wanted to make Wen Ning more charismatic since he's the protagonist of the movie, but that's not the right reason to change his personality. I honestly would have liked the movie much more if Wen Ning was still the shy, stuttering and kind uncle. His jokes, behavior and personality was all changed. Although the inner struggles I mentioned earlier did fit his character, it was very unnatural to see Wen Ning totally different. And by changing his voice actor did not make it any better. And just like how many people online has mentioned, this movie is more to promote the new actors than a sequel of the drama. It was pretty obvious, but to me, as long as the plot was great, I wouldn't have cared. And in this case, it was definitely a great way to gain experience for them. However, it is still better to see it as a separate work, or else I think you would be annoyed as F as MDZS fan.

*Music/production* 8.5
Like The Untamed, the music was really good. There were songs of the Untamed and there were new songs. It all fitted the movie so, no complains. I do think they invested the money on the wrong parts though. *Cough* The cloud recesses CG *Cough*

*Rewatch value* 6
Did I enjoy the movie? Yes. Will I watch it again? Most likely not. Maybe I will go back to watch Wei Wuxian's cut, purely for the nostalgic feeling and my love for Lu Zhixing, but I rather go back and read/watch the Yi City arc again.