The huge controversy surrounding this film in China
Two days ago the Chinese communist party's main newspaper "people's daily" published an article criticising the Chinese film rating websites, ticketing websites and individual film critiques who posted low ratings (usually around 5/10) for this film with very strong wording, accusing them of "trying to damage the chinese film eco system", "only trying to grab attention and make money" among other things. the accused websites and individuals have received threats from the government body who controls films in China, and one of the website (maoyan.com) have already removed their "critique rating" on all films. the other one of the heavily criticised website douban.com is one of the largest and most popular film database with similar user rating features as imdb, and is reportedly under tremendous pressure from the government.
This obviously has gone viral ever since on social media and people are disgusted and angered now that they can't even say whether they like or hate a friggin flick. reason of this government force feeding scheme given by social media mostly points to the fact that the chinese film bureau was hoping to rely on this film to garner a huge box-office bump during the new year period (usually the hottest film season in China, so that they can claim another big successful year of chinese film market under their leadership, because this film is considered a Chinese film) but has been gravely disappointed so far, in spite of the fact that they have purposefully postponed hits like Rogue One, to help this film. Desperately, they started to blame the websites and famous film critiques.
Chinese government strongly control its film market by limiting only 34 current foreign films (sometimes a few more) each year to be shown here in a bid to limit the foreign cultural and idea influences, while still making money out of them (the local publisher, usually a state owned company, takes 17% of the revenue and the theatre takes 48%, the rest goes to the guys who actually made the film). and needless to say, they also heavily censor films with even a hint of nudity, or any "dubious" lines, but oddly never censors violence. Also, there is no film rating system in China like the one carried out by MPAA. the strong censor also made sure that the vast majority of the precious 34 films are popcorn romance or action flicks or downright pure crap.
So there, all of you, please go and watch this film and help support our great nation and the fine fellas at the film bureau of the great State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television of the People's Republic (yes that's ONE single administration).