The Yin-Yang Master: Dream of Eternity

A demon in the form of a serpent is close to waking beneath the imperial capital. Four Yin-Yang masters hold it down, each bound to one direction. There is a young empress in the palace, and one of the masters is killed. Qingming is summoned and given a guard named Boya. Guo Jingming directs. Mark Chao plays Qingming and Deng Lun plays Boya. The source is Baku Yumemakura's Onmyoji novels. The interesting thing is the visual design. Guo Jingming came to directing from fashion and design in China and it shows directly: costume, palace décor and colour palette are pushed so far forward that they get ahead of the narrative. The film proceeds less as a tale than as a catalogue of images. The source is Japanese; Yumemakura's novels are set in Heian period Japan. The Chinese adaptation moves the story into its own history, which is why audiences in the two countries have looked at the film differently. It was shot in 2018 and opened in China on 25 December 2020; Netflix bought the international rights before the theatrical release. Another Chinese film from the same source appeared shortly afterwards, and the two are frequently confused. Who it is for: viewers who like Chinese fantasy and visually loaded production. Who it is not for: the story is weak, the characters are thin, and in some scenes the effects fall behind the design.