Chinese l'enfant terrible, Han Han, is merciless in his continuing critique of the Confucius movie.  Chinasmack has the goods:

The failure of Confucius is triumphant news for Chinese cinema, and perhaps a turning point in Chinese film-making. Thank you, people who made Confucius!

Movies
should use imagination to create things that reflect people’s ideals,
but China’s films mostly reflect the government’s ideals. Of course, if
one day the two become the same, then not only will [Chinese] films be
successful but the government will be successful as well. Perhaps it’s
that movies on ancient topics with traditional meaning are politically
safer, but I’m already fed up with them.

Ouch.  It is from this piece that we also learn that Confucius now seems to be out of Chinese movie theaters.  Which means I'll have to buy a DVD….

Also, if this headline from Shanghai Daily is any indication, they did not like it in that metropolis: "Confucius says flop."  No punches are pulled:

"It was a terrible theater-going experience for us," says Jackie Chen, a white-collar professional. He and his wife walked out.

"Like
many others, we were first attracted by the cast, but found the film
lacked a solid story line and strong script. Some scenes are a poor
imitation of 'The Passion of Christ'," he adds.

I'm not sure that "The Passion of Christ" is what they were going for.  Perhaps director Hu Mei can find some solace in Analects 1.16:

The Master said: "Don't grieve when people fail to recognize your ability.  Grieve when you fail to recognize theirs."