This could be pretty stock wuxia. The clever idea which makes it different and interesting is making Sun Bin (real life military strategist and author) a kind of idiot-savant character. I'm baffled that the handful of other reviewers, positive and negative, didn't seem to pick up that this was the idea. Sun is played brilliantly by Honglei Sun, and his performance makes the movie.
Otherwise a fairly standard and well-made re-telling of historical events which sticks unusually close to the real history, without a whole lot of fantasy-battles and swordplay. The romance strand, however, is complete fiction, though it's never cloying and is odd enough so it's not too off-putting. I didn't like the ending though (also complete fiction). Someone's been watching too much CTHD.
Otherwise a fairly standard and well-made re-telling of historical events which sticks unusually close to the real history, without a whole lot of fantasy-battles and swordplay. The romance strand, however, is complete fiction, though it's never cloying and is odd enough so it's not too off-putting. I didn't like the ending though (also complete fiction). Someone's been watching too much CTHD.