There's a lot of stuff that's "historical", mostly about their heroes and their various wars.
In the old days the films had two persistent characteristics - they were very linear (you would not have an exterior and interior shot without also being shown the actor going through the door) and everything in them was very much black and white, no nuance. I guess the party didn't want much of a thinking stimulus. Also, they were fantastically over-exaggerated, all heroes jump-flying, laying down thousand and so on, like the Matrix fights, but with terrible costumes, garish make-ups and weird costumes and on visible wires.
I've seen one or two "modern" Chinese films and they are basically the same, but the "AI" lets them do it with a lot less effort.
So One can easily understand why it is so popular with their "directors" - when your "creativity" isn't in the plot and acting, but the effects, then you love the toolkit. But that's hardly uniquely Chinese thing, you're seeing a lot of it in Hollywood a lot as well.