Category: Animation

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Animation Movie Reviews

Weathering With You – A Must-Watch Japanese Anime

This weekend, I took my wife to a cinema and watched Weathering With Me. To be honest, I did not know how this would turn out. I am a big fan of Japanese anime. The Japanese have a wild imagination. Out of the world kind of wild imagination. It is a story about a runaway boy, looking for a job and earned a living by writing stories in a magazine. Soon he came across a girl who can control the weather. A special bond was developed.

I must confess that the beginning of the movie was a bit slow (the rain didn’t help) and I was trying very hard not to fall asleep (my wife did initially). As the story developed, it got more and more interesting. Exciting too. The artwork is beautiful. The story is very well written. A strong recommendation from me. My wife loves the movie a lot, which is a bonus.

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Animation Foreign Movie Reviews

Chico And Rita – A Spanish Animation Film Of Love And Music

A Spanish animation film

The 8th Spanish Film Festival in Singapore is ending soon.  See if you can catch Chico & Rita (2010) at The Arts House today.  Admission is free on a first come basis.

Chico & Rita is a Spanish animated feature-length film.  The first that was nominated for the Oscar.  The artwork is beautiful.  Each frame could well be made into a wall painting.  The soundtrack throughout the film is equally beautiful, especially for the jazz music lover.  Set in Cuba, a pianist called Chico meets a singer called Rita.  And they have fallen in love.  However, circumstances seem to often get into their way.  Chico & Rita is a journey of love and music from Cuba’s Havana to New York and Las Vegas in a span of five decades.  Due to the rich history behind Chico & Rita and the fact that many of Havana’s pre-revolutionary buildings had decayed, the filmmakers have looked into the photograph archive in order to recreate the era and the mood.

This story is rather dark.  So is the mood.  Perhaps it is the pain the gives forth such beautiful music and inspires such exquisite artwork.

The drawing of Chico & Rita is exquisite.

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Animation Foreign Movie Reviews

One Piece Film: Z

A film originated from manga.

I have not heard of the manga One Piece until I watched a movie adaptation of the manga.  Naturally, I love anything that is Japanese.  When I first saw the gigantic promotional poster displayed at one of our beloved cinemas, I said to our buddy TK, “Let’s watch this!”  To that he replied, “On!”

Apparently, One Piece is a very popular manga series in Japan, for a very long time.  In this particular movie One Piece Film: Z, there are pirates the supposedly protagonists (I think).  There are the marines who hunt down the pirates.  And there is Commander Z who was a marine, went rogue, and now rages war against the pirates as well as the marines that get into his way.  Each pirate, meanwhile, seems to possess at least one unique power (think X-Men).  As you can imagine, there are tons of combat scenes between the characters.  More or less like a video game.

Unlike other more artistic Japanese animations Cynthia and I have seen, One Piece Film: Z does not require too much thinking.  Just sit back and enjoy the humor and the action.  I am not entirely convinced that the English subtitles convey the original essence well.  I wish there were Chinese subtitles as well.  Usually, for Japanese animation, Chinese subtitles work better than the English ones.

One Piece Film: Z is not a story exploring the abstractness of nature or the emotional vulnerability of character.  It is a film with a decent amount of humor and action that entertains.

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Animation Movie Reviews

Wreck-It Ralph: It Touches Gamers’ Hearts For Sure

What a heartwarming movie!

I had no idea what this film was.  Imagine my surprise when I realized that Wreck-It Ralph is about video game characters.  A villain who gets tired of being the bad guy, for a decade, inside an arcade machine.  He too wants to win a medal and be a good guy for once.  That sets him into a journey into a first person shooter machine and later on, an arcade racing machine.

As a passionate gamer, I love how this film portraits different aspects and eras of video gaming.  Plenty of game references.  As for the story, Wreck-It Ralph seems a bit slow in the beginning.  I wish the Hero’s Duty segment was a lot longer.  Fortunately, the pace does pick up once we get to the arcade racing game Sugar Rush, when the villain Ralph meets the adorable Vanellope.  There is even a moment when my heart weeps a little.

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Animation Movie Reviews

Puss In Boots – Too Cute To Even Think

Life can be like scenes from your favorite movies.  Take today as an example.  I felt like being Rachel McAdams in “Morning Glory“.  I was excited to face the day, with added responsibility as one of our colleagues was on compassionate leave.  No problem.  In our team, we watch over each other’s back.  We are there for each other.  I entered into a multiparty conference call, with close to zero knowledge of the specific work this colleague of mine is doing.  After some harmless introduction, we entered into a moment of silence.  Then all of a sudden, questions were shooting from everywhere, and onto me.  That scene, reminded me of Rachel McAdams’s first day of work in that movie.  Coupled with the meetings that were within my domain of work, I had half a day worth of non-stop meeting.  On the last meeting, my reaction time was so slow that I had to apologized.  My brain was fried.  Fortunately, I have so many nice people around me at work.  They understood.

After watching “Puss In Boots”, Cynthia asked if I know the story of Jack and the Beanstalk.  I said no.  What about Princes and the Pea?  I said no.  Rapunzel?  I asked, “How do you spell that?”.  Red Riding Hound?  I said, “Like the movie by Amanda Seyfried?”  Cynthia gave up.  Well, in Hong Kong, we studied legends of the Oriental.  The culture is different there.

Back to “Puss In Boots”, it is loosely based on some well known fairly tales that of course, I am not familiar with.  That does not bother me.  This movie is hilarious.  Puss is mightily cute.  Cynthia observed that “Puss In Boots” has a strong reference to Banderas’s Zorro.  I do not disagree.  It is one of those movies that by the time a week passes by, you would not remember much about the movie.  Is there a moral to the story?  I really can’t think of any.

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Animation Foreign Movie Reviews

Tatsumi Directed By Eric Khoo

For some strange reasons, my public life as you can see here is so full of movies these days.  I can assure you that my passion lies in a sea of ocean, including tracking that lost penguin on a daily basis.  Poor Happy Feet.  We have not heard from him since September 8.  Fairy tales exist only in the realms of Disney, Dreamwork, and etc.  I am not that optimistic to be honest.

Yesterday, Cynthia and I attended the gala premiere of “Tatsumi” in Singapore at GV Grand sponsored by HP.  It is a big deal because Eric Khoo is a Singapore film director.  We do not have that many films gracing especially the Cannes Film Festival.  At the event, the Japanese manga artist Yoshihiro Tatsumi was present.  So was the voice actor who acted in six different characters (no, I don’t think I can tell which are the six) and some of the crew members.  The Japanese crews reassured us that “Tatsumi” although directed by a Singaporean, produced at Batam, and powered by HP machines is as Japanese as we can get.

“Tatsumi” is dark.  I am unsure of its classification.  But I am sure it will not be PG rated.  It is in essence a biography of the manga artist Tatsumi interlaced with five standalone stories written by him.  It is hard to describe the artwork.  It looks raw.  It is as though the essence of the comic is preserved and presented on a big screen.  It watched like an animated comic book.  What is amazing about the end result is that through some minor tweaking of simple object shapes and lines, the underlying emotion is revealed.  Yes, I can feel the emotion.

In “Tatsumi”, the narrator Tatsumi himself takes us back in time.  A time when Japan was still at war.  A time when Tatsumi has started drawing manga.  It is 70% story writing and the rest, drawing.  Perhaps that is why the simple 2D animation does not bother me.  It works because the focus is on the story.  All five short stories (I think there are five, if not five and a little bit more) are memorable, constantly shifting us to see a story from a totally new perspective.

You may need an open mind to fully enjoy this movie.  One thing for sure, there ain’t many animation films like “Tatsumi”.

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Animation Movie Reviews

How To Train Your Dragon (3D) – So Darn Cute!

And so my obsession with the dragons continues.

Knowing that we are having a road trip heading north the next day and when we are back, we will probably pick that Titan show to watch, we have got to catch this animation ths week.  So we did.  Again, in 3D.  Seems like a trend these days.  Honestly speaking, I have no clue which version is better: 3D or non-3D.  But I enjoy “How To Train Your Dragon” in 3D a lot.  Perhaps because it is a full animation, unlike Avatar and Alice In Wonderland.  Very likely I would invest the Blu-Ray format of this movie for the keeping.

Just about 100 minutes, “Dragon” grips me from the beginning till the end.  Gosh, I want more!  Cynthia and I are both big fans of “Lilo & Stitch”.  That dragon in the poster reminds us of Stitch.  Little did we know that Dreamwork has hired the directors of “Lilo & Stitch” for this children book adaption.  No wonder, eh?

I once met someone in the military service who likes to derive “morale of the story” for all the well-known animations.  I wonder what he would say about “Dragon”.  If I may, I would say that endless violence can be evaded by seeing the same you in another person’s eyes.  And together, we may eliminate the root of violence that is not us or them but something else.  Something we have not thought of.

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Animation Movie Reviews

9, Is No Corpse Bride For Sure

9

I had high expectation for the animation film “9” that bears the logo of Tim Burton.  Later on, I read that Tim Burton only produces the film while the director and writer is Shane Acker.  “9” is a decent animation.  Just that I love “Corpse Bride” so much better.  The quality of the image animation is top notch, no doubt.  I gasped at the details and the motions of those dolls bouncing and walking.   As far as the story goes, 9 dolls are brought to life, caught in the war between mankind and the machine, and incredible as it may sound, even as the entire human race was brought to extinction by those machines, the dolls seem to have a decent chance against the aggressors.  Unlike “Corpse Bride”, which idea is built upon well known yet abstract concept of the ghosts and the living beings, underworld and the living world, “9” merges science and fantasy that leaves me more questions than answers.  I mean, what is the purpose of these dolls’ existence?  What is the purpose of the entire story?

Tim Burton was impressed by Shane Acker’s student project titled “9” created in 2005.  You could easily find it in YouTube.  I must say, it looks very impressive as a student project.  What a dream comes true for Shane Acker to adapt this short clip into a full movie shown on big screen.  A promising artist for sure and I look forward to watching his next production.

PS. For those who have watched “9”, I swear I have spotted a key hanging on the neck of “6” and thought that key has a connection to the lock box that “9” has found.  Apparently, there isn’t such a connection.  And I wonder what is that key for besides being a piece of decoration.

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Animation Foreign Movie Reviews

Ponyo On The Cliff By The Sea – That Can’t Be A Gold Fish, Can That Be?

Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea

Japanese imagination knows no bound, I must say.  A gold fish that looks like a baby girl to me except the missing limbs and the ability to live both in and out of water.  Am I the only one who wonder if I was reading the subtitles correctly?  It is beyond the visual art on the big screen.  It is about changing of perceptions from within your head.

Here is a brief summary of the story (skip this paragraph if you don’t want to read this mild spoiler).  A gold fish (more like a little girl) fathered by a sorcerer and has a Goddess as her mother escaped her fish tank within the ocean one day for what?  I don’t know.  But she found a 5 years old little boy who falls in love with her.  Thereafter, this gold fish is recaptured by her father but defies the law of the Universe, tries to become a human being, and in the mist of all these magical intervention, Ponyo (the name of the gold fish given by the young boy) brings along with her Tsunami onto the city of the young boy whom she must meet again.

It is almost a flawless outstanding piece of story crafting.  That is to compare with Hayao Miyazaki’s previous work “Spirit Away (2001)” that is quite possibly my favorite of his films that I have watched so far.  From the color and grandeur and style point of view, “Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea” has Miyazaki’s trademarks everywhere – just like “Spirited Away (2001)” and “Howl’s Moving Castle (2004)”, both I enjoyed watching a lot.  From the animation perspective, the character’s movement looks convincingly natural.  From the artwork perspective, I love the clever use of the illusion of light and dark.  Looking at that two hot bowls of instant noodle, Cynthia and I looked at each other, swallowed hard feeling very hungry at that very moment.  That is realism on 2D.

What “Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea” lacks is perhaps a true villain.  I almost say that the ending is kind of weak.  But then again, it is so darn cute and memorable.  It is a strong recommendation to those who have watched 68 years old Hayao Miyazaki’s previous works.  On average, it takes him 3 to 4 years to create a new animation.  I can wait.  I think his next project will be on global warming.

Categories
Animation Movie Reviews

WALL·E – Quite Possibly A Must Watch Movie of 2008

I have high expectation on WALL·E.  Somewhat close to the level of anticipation I had with “Lilo & Stitch”.  And the movie delivers.  What a magical experience.  Don’t compromise.  Watch WALL·E in a digital format.

I walked into the theater with little knowledge of what the story is about beyond what I saw in the trailer.  What a lovely journey of discovery.  And I won’t spoil it for you here.  All I can say is that WALL·E is a timely movie talking about our environment and going green.

The jaw dropping budget of $180 million (equals to the budget of “The Dark Knight” and “The Golden Compass”) has the jaw dropping computer animation to match.  The beautiful scene of the galaxy, dust and explosion that appears so real, there are so much details that I wish I could slow down the frame rate and admire.  Beyond the eye candies is the characters’ ability to communicate feeling and emotion without words.  The filmmakers are able to mimic the essence of human body language and make the animated robotic characters alive.

I love sci-fi stories so naturally I love to watch this movie.  There are three nods from three of us in the Movie Review Squad.  So what are you waiting for?  And if you have time, check out the official site listed below.  It is quite possibly one of the most elaborated film website I have seen.  I can’t help but to marvel at the art of the animation.

Related Website: Disney Pixar WALL·E Office Site