I’m surprised this movie even exists. Light Chaser Animation 追光动画《zhuī guāng dònghuà》 previously brought us two movies about the legend of the White Snake (White Snake and Green Snake) and two movies adapted from characters/storylines from the Ming dynasty novel Investiture of the Gods: New Gods: Nezha Reborn and New Gods: Yang Jian. All fantasy/mythology films. Now for this outing they thought: Hey, let’s make an animated movie about the lives of two Tang dynasty poets!

That’s what Chang’an 长安三万里《cháng’ān sān wàn lǐ》 (lit. 30,000 Miles to Chang’an) is, an animated movie about the lives of two Tang dynasty poets: Gao Shi 高適《gāo shì》 and Li Bai 李白《lǐ bái》. You’d think, it being an animated movie, that there would be some wacky hiinks, maybe an escapade that stretches history to the breaking point, maybe having Li Bai on some swashbuckling adventure where he fights off the rebel An Lushan and saves the empire and the majestic thearch and his Precious Consort Yang are narrowly saved from the cluthes of death.

Nope. There’s no breaking of history. There’s no fantastic adventure. There’s not even any depiction of the majestic thearch (in this case that would be Xuanzong) or Precious Consort Yang at all, not any scene taking place in the imperial palace.

There’s no romance.

There’s no villain.