I absolutely loved this movie. I loved the story, I loved the acting, I loved the OST and I rewatched it 4 times already. Therefore it is 10/10 for me.

I do understand, why the movie might be confusing to western viewers, especcially if they don't know the story allready. Or why it could be somewhat disappointing for people, who watched the tv-drama first.
I think that is the main problem of this movie - it isn't targeting any audience: people who don't have enough background, might have problems understanding it. Whereas for people who watched the tv drama, the storyline will most certain come to short. But for me it luckily was none of that.

First: I majored in sinology, so although I didn't know this paticular story, I do am quite familiar with the chinese mythology. Even though I didn't know the plot and not everything was explained, many motives were not strange to me and I could follow quite easly or at least guess more or less corectly.

Therefore unlike some other viewers I didn't find the story confusing (+ I dont really need subtitles, so I could concentrate on enjoying the story without getting lost because some scenes switched to quickly to read).
There was one thing I didn't get (the Mo Yan -part) but it did not bother me much either, I just assumed that this is the big mistery in the movie. And since the movie was open ended I simply assumed they left the expanation for a second part and didn't wonder to much about it either.

Second: I did not watch the tv-drama before I watched the movie.

I did it afterwards and enjoed it very much as well. But as it goes for the movie itself I did not have certain pre-expectations or got disturbed because some story parts or characters were missing. I also didn't feel the pressure to compare who is the better lead, which naturally happens if you watched the tv drama first. I watched Yang Yang as Ye Hua first, so he kind of was the original Ye Hua to me. The same for Su Su.

Regarding these two points I think I got very lucky because I really could just enjoy and appreciate the movie - without the expectations or understanding problem. And I just loved it.

I loved the acting of the two leads and their chemistry. I don't understand why some comments say, there were no chemistry between them. They were great together and both acted incredibly well. They both did a great job in expressing emotions, especially Yang Yang . And boy, that kissing scene! That must have been the best kiss on set in the history of chinese cinematography (I will leave the chinese tv out of this, because the kisses in chinese tv-dramas are mostly just ridiculous).

I loved the story itself (I watched the movie in the first place because I like fox motives). It was told beautifully. It might not have been the typical from a to b storytelling. But this kind of made it more intereting to me, as it added some peaceful artistic values to the movie. The sceneries were gorgeous too. And I really fell for the music.

Because of the beautiful tale, I later watched the tv-drama and fell even more in love with the story. Afterwards I rewatched the movie and enjoyed it in a new way because I knew all the details by then.

All in all I recomend this movie - though probably the best way to watch and enjoy it is to first read somewhere the short version of the story to better understand it. But without watching the tv-drama itself:)