Los Angeles: Streaming site Netflix purchased global rights outside China to The Yin Yang Master, a Mandarin language fantasy feature film.
Netflix is yet to set a date for the premiere that opens in mainland Chinese cinemas on Friday and will compete for Lunar New Year holiday audiences.
Online movie news site Deadline said Netflix bought distribution rights from production banner Huayi Brothers Media.
Huayi Brothers Media globally co-distributed blockbuster Chinese war drama The Eight Hundred last year.
The film shouldn’t be confused with a movie by a similar title The Yin-Yang Master: Dream of Eternity that draws on the same source material.
The Yin-Yang Master, which stars Chen Kun of Mojin: The Lost Legend fame and Cloud Atlas star Zhou Xun, is a game-to-film adaptation of Onmyoji.
Onmyoji is directed by Li Weiran, who is known for his work on Love Will Tear Us Apart and Welcome to Shamatown.
“In The Yin Yang Master, the world is on the verge of a devastating war with the monsters who are coming back to retrieve the Scaling Stone. Yin Yang Master Qingming (Kun)’s life is in danger and he travels to different worlds to prepare for the coming assaults.On his journey, Qingming finds the key to all the calamities is embracing his hybrid identity of both human and monster,” reads the film’s synopsis.
Kun’s Qingming and Xun’s Bai Ni are paired opposite each other, with William Chan playing Ci Mu, a sophisticated character that shifts from good to evil.
Chen Kuo-fu and Chang Chia-lu, who earlier tied up for films such as Huayi’s Detective Dee franchise, are the producers.
Japanese composer Shigeru Umebayashi, known for his work on Wong Kar-wai’s classic romance In the Mood for Love, scored the music.