The difference between The YinYang Master & Yin-Yang Master: Dream of Eternity on Netflix

Every year in February, it has become a trend for big blockbusters to be released to ride on Chinese New Year festivities. Oftentimes, these movies are based on myths like Journey to the West and the like.

Think of them like Christmas movies we see in the West, but with even more crazy CGI.

Recently, two movies have caused quite a stir after having very similar titles and release dates. If you were like us scrolling through the web, you might have seen a show titled “Yin Yang Master”. Specifically we found out there are two titles – The YinYang Master and The Yin-Yang Master: Dream Of Eternity. 

So what exactly is the difference between the two?

Let us start off with The YinYang Master. The movie is an adaptation of the mobile game – “Onmyoji”, a world filled with monsters that seek the Scaling Stone. The Yin Yang Master, Qingming (Chen Kun) is in danger as he travels to different worlds to defend his home. 

This movie was released in China on February 12 as one of the Chinese New Year films. It will be available in Singapore on March 19. It will also be available on Netflix but there is no streaming date confirmed yet. 

Next, we have The Yin-Yang Master: Dream of Eternity. The movie is based on the novel that inspired the video game – “Onmyoji”. Long ago, there were 4 masters that took the challenge of trapping an evil serpent demon in the Empress of the Imperial City.

The Empress was protected by four stone guardians. But now, the serpent threatens to escape and the four masters band together again and awake the stone guardians to stop the serpent. 

This movie was released in China on Dec 25 2020, and was released on Netflix globally on Feb 5 2021. Both movies are in mandarin Chinese but Netflix will very likely input subtitles. 

Being based on very similar sources, the two movies were bound to have some identical scenes. But it wasn’t until the director of The YinYang Master: Dream of Eternity, Guo Jing Ming, apologized on Weibo for plagiarising a past movie he wrote.

This raised questions about the validity of his current movie. The online community speculated that there were scenes that were similar to the 2016 Marvel movie Doctor Strange. These rumors were so serious that the movie was pulled off China cinemas indefinitely. 

But for now, The YinYang Master: Dream Of Eternity is still on Netflix while we will have to wait a little longer for The YinYang Master.

If you’re still confused, we cobbled together a quick graphic to help figure things out –

This article was first published in Geek Culture.