AWN: 'massive, confident' worldbuilding

Osmond opened by observing that All Wishes Come True! "has made more than $235 million domestically since July" and opened in theaters worldwide starting August 14, yet "none of the big Anglophone news outlets" had reviewed it as of writing; he wrote that Chinese animated releases "seem weirdly invisible in Anglophone territories even when they're playing in multiplex theaters."[1]

The review reserved its strongest praise for the opening: a 2D intro "in the manner of old-school Chinese cartoons such as 1979's Neza Conquers the Dragon King," followed by a paradise of Penglai rendered "like a Chinese answer to Coco's Land of the Dead," with dragons embedded into the land; Osmond called the worldbuilding "massive, and confident with the massiveness, as with the work of great fantasy architects — Willis O'Brien, Hayao Miyazaki, Peter Jackson."[1]

He also singled out the film's treatment of deadly rival He Xiangu, "treated with impressive respect... with no hint that she could be a love interest," and noted a mid-credits epilogue that "may imply a sequel or spinoff."[1]

Osmond wrote that he "was distanced by the heist plot," resented the fantasy imagery being supplanted by dialogue, and found the action "often too fast, too frenetically fast-cut to parse and enjoy," infuriating given the sense of "a worked-out, choreographed battle under the cuts"; he compared the 143-minute film's visual density and tonal shifts to the Ne Zha blockbusters rather than to Pearl Studio's own earlier co-productions.[1]