Introduction
Hello, fellow adventurers, and Gong Xi Fa Cai! Blaziker is back for the very first animated movie adventure for the 2024 animated movies on the first day of Chinese New Year! After almost one month of not much animated movies to cover, we now have three animated movies to check out!
The first movie, Maboroshi (stylised as “maboroshi”) is a Netflix animated movie courtesy of the experienced team at MAPPA by Mari Okada (of which this is the first MAPPA movie she is directing) that follows an explosion at a steel factory that mysterious freezes a town in time. When two students discover a mysterious feral child, it sparked an impulse of love that upends their world. I got to be honest, I had never watched a legendary Japanese studio like MAPPA, the studio behind In This Corner of the World, so this will be my first experience with one of their movies in a long time. Will I fall in love with this studio once again?
The second movie, The Inventor, centres around the real-life Italian inventor Leonardo da Vinci as he tackles the meaning of life while working on his various inventions. This has been a passion project that I am relatively curious about, especially when considering its Rakin/Bass stop-motion style of animation from the trailers I had seen. With that said, will this be another good animated movie for the board?
The third and final movie, Warrior King, is based on a Tibetan tale and tells a story about a Tibetan warrior boy living in exile, in a world surrounded by demons and monsters. Curiously, this movie was submitted and eventually shortlisted in the Oscars for Best Animated Feature, and I say this because I had seen the trailer to this movie and… it does not look good, unfortunately. Even worse, I only had access to the English dub of this movie, which I heard is pretty bad. Given that I watched a lot of really good Chinese animated movies, will Warrior King break the streak of good to excellent Chinese animated movies?
With that said, are we ready for this brand new adventure? I am, so here we go!
Maboroshi
Key Information
- Director: Mari Okada
- Animation Studio: MAPPA
- Country of Origin: Japan
- Rating: PG13
- Release date: 15 January 2024 (on Netflix)
Trailer
Story and Characters
There is a bit of a déjà vu, because there are certain issues on the execution of the movie’s concept in Maroboshi, which if you remember was almost exactly my thoughts on the writing in another Netflix anime movie, Studio Wit’s Bubble back in 2022.
First off, having a concept of a town being frozen in time, as well as the intricate rules and complexities in place makes this movie challenging to watch and indeed, during the first half of the movie when I am introduced to the rules of this concept, it can be very confusing at first on what exactly is going on, which for certain viewers can be frustrating.
However, once the second half kicks in, everything begins to fall in place as the concept starts to come alive, the main characters begin to make their move and it cumulates with an emotional gut punch in the last 20 minutes. It’s not as big of a punch as what I witnessed in last year’s Deep Sea, but it was a good one.
As for the characters, there were some action from the main duo of Kikuiri (Junya Emoki) and Sagami (Reina Ueda) as they had to take care of a mysterious feral child named Itsumi (Misaki Kuno), but as their romance develop, it also meant not much development for some of the supporting cast, which is disappointing to say the least. While the voice acting is great for the most part, it does not excuse lack of character development.
Animation
What is definitely not an issue for me was the animation and just like with the likes of Bubble and last year’s The Monkey King, the animation is carrying the entire movie off its shoulders.
Man, the background animation is some of the most spectacular of the past few months, especially with the night sequences when the movie combines the blue cracks of time with the “smoke wolves” protecting the factory. Besides the backgrounds, the rest of the animation is spot on with decent character designs matched by well-paced movements and great detailing.
I know, for anime movie standards, you would expect the overall quality to be great, and Maroboshi hits that mark with ease. If the writing does not live up to its expectations when it comes to executing the concept, the animation did.
Soundtrack, Other Elements and Level of Enjoyment
Admittedly, the rest of the elements are not as problematic as the writing, as the soundtrack is great with little complaints and the sound editing is also not an issue.
As for my level of enjoyment, I initially did not enjoy the movie at first, but once the second half kicks in and it starts to get better, I was enjoying my time with Maroboshi, especially with its climax. I know it is not high praise, but for what it is worth, it is still an enjoyable experience overall, even if the first half was not off to a good start.
Overall Thoughts
Considering this is the first time I saw an animated movie from MAPPA, I came into this movie blind and while Maboroshi does have its issues, I enjoyed it for the most part.
While the execution leaves a lot to be desired, especially with its writing as well as the execution of its concept, the other elements are great. The writing improved for the better in the second part and its ending which packs a good enough emotional punch. The main characters have some level of charm, the animation, especially with the backgrounds, are spectacular and the score enhances the animation more.
All I can say is that Maboroshi is a great appetiser to start off this three-course rundown on a good note, but be warned, this is a movie that’s not for everyone, so even with my relatively high score for Maboroshi, do proceed with caution.
Blaziker’s Hot Sauce Rating
The Inventor
Key Information
- Directors: Jim Capobianco and Pierre-Luc Granjon
- Animation Studios: Align, Leo and King
- Country of Origin: France, United States and Ireland
- Rating: G
- Release date: 15 September 2023 (in the United States)
Trailer
Story and Characters
I honestly that one letdown for me has to be the writing. It is such a shame because everything else in this movie is fantastic.
Talking about the writing, while it is not a slog in terms of the pacing, one issue is the lack of focus in its writing as it is focusing on pretty much too many things at once. In addition, this movie had a difficulty when it comes to its identity in what it aspires to be, which could result in certain viewers feeling cold seeing this movie. It is such a shame because I liked the messaging that this movie was going for, but it has difficulty determining who this movie is actually for.
While the lacklustre writing resulted in the lack of focus on the characters, there is kind of adequate character development and voice acting to compensate for the shortcomings in the writing. Stephen Fry as Leonardo da Vinci is a highlight for me as he puts in a lot of energy into bringing da Vinci to life and in a great way and the movie puts an emphasis on his inventiveness, which is nice to see.
Honestly, I am very mixed with the writing because there were some good parts of the writing that I saw, but there were issues that held this movie back quite significantly, unfortunately.
Animation
It is such a shame that I had to talk negatively about the movie’s writing, because honestly, the animation is stellar!
One of the best parts about The Inventor was how inventive its animation style is. While it is mainly animated using stop motion that pays tribute to the Rakin/Bass style of stop-motion, it also utilises hand-drawn animation that flows very seamlessly with the movie. It is honestly amazing to see how a proper indie animated movie, with almost no major backing, embracing its various animation styles and pushing them to the next level.
In addition, it almost felt effortless watching the team behind this movie bringing those visuals to life, which goes to show that you do not need a large budget to produce stunning animation, as do a lot of non-mainstream animated movies. Given this was by Jim Capobianco, a former Pixar animator well known for the Oscar-winning Ratatouille, who spent nearly a decade working on this movie, you can tell that he, co-director Pierre-Luc Granjon and their team painstakingly put together a well-oiled machine when it comes to the animation.
Finally, the set designs are very dynamic, allowing the change of scenery in the same sequence which brings forth the versatility in the movie’s animation. Yes, we had seen the big stop-motion animation studios executing the style with ease like Laika and Aardman, but it is rare to see stop-motion animation from a smaller animation studio. The last time I saw an indie stop-motion animated movie was Even Mice Belong in Heaven and it blows my mind into seeing how much animators still love this animation style till this day. The Inventor, again, proves this point.
Soundtrack, Other Elements and Level of Enjoyment
I adore the simplistic but well-crafted soundtrack The Inventor provides, as well as the musical numbers provided. While I was unsure whether the musical numbers are needed, it showcases how a simple soundtrack can go a long away if executed very well.
As for my level of enjoyment, while I was enjoying my time with this movie, I was wondering whether I will fully appreciate this movie. I said this because I was looking through the reviews of this movie before and I wondered on the target audience for The Inventor, and I found the answer once I watched this movie: animation enthusiasts that enjoy animation in general.
I honestly feel that it felt a bit too simple for the adult crowd and too complex for the kids and that is a big issue: when this movie focused more on the animation enthusiasts, you will lose out on the family crowd. However, it could also be this movie’s strength since the enthusiasts that are passionate about producing animation will more likely get inspired to either craft their animation identity, or for reviewers like me to spread the word about the fact that they liked the movie, and they will recommend it.
Overall, it is not that I did not enjoy this movie at all; in fact, I do enjoy it, but I just felt that this movie felt a bit too out there for the general audience.
Overall Thoughts
In the end, I do appreciate what this movie was going for and while not parts of this movie work, I find it to be a satisfying experience overall.
While The Inventor has issues with its writing, mainly the lack of focus on the main storylines and not enough character development, the animation makes up for its shortcoming with a wildly creative animation design that utilises its animation to its fullest, and a well-composed score that ties the animation and lacklustre writing together.
I will admit, The Inventor is not for everyone, but if you are one that is passionate about the future of animated movies and are tired of seeing similar mainstream animated movies, then this one is a good find.
Blaziker’s Hot Sauce Rating
Warrior King
Key Information
- Director: Lu Qi
- Youngsome Pictures Industry Co., Ltd (And too many production companies to count)
- Country of Origin: China
- Rating: PG
- Release date: 25 August 2023 (in Canada and the United States)
Trailer
Story and Characters
Chinese animated movies of the 2020s have well-realised scripts for the most part, even if they are not perfect. This is why a great Chinese animated movie like Chang An can excel in keeping me interesting, even if Chang An is close to three hours long. Coming back to the same subject, Warrior King has a shorter runtime at around 1 hour and 50 minutes, but compared to Chang An, this was a complete bore.
One reason why Warrior King was boring was because this movie focused too much on the story and the exposition around the movie, thus neglecting one other aspect of the writing, and that has to be the characters. In all honestly, the character development is so non-existent that by the time I finished the movie, I nearly forgot all the characters that feature in the movie.
Another reason has to be the pacing, and it is all over the place! Most of the time, the pacing felt too slow, which resulted in story sequences that felt boring and uninteresting while there are other sequences that felt too fast, which resulted in me not being immersed in the movie. For a nearly two-hour movie, this movie felt longer than it should have.
I had also watched this movie in English dub, and yeah, I know, English dubs for Chinese animated movies tend to be bad, but the English dub in Warrior King is worse than I thought! The voice acting performance is so forced with no expression that it makes the characters more boring than first thought.
All in all, Warrior King has a shockingly bad script not seen since I covered Goodbye Monster in 2022, especially with the terrible English dub. However, there were some redeeming elements in Goodbye Monster compared to Warrior King, and one major redeeming element has to come down to the next segment…
Animation
In my short review of Goodbye Monster, one aspect of that movie I enjoyed was the animation, because at least the animation looks great with enough detailing to make them stand out. Warrior King, however, looks pretty bad.
I had mentioned on social media a few times that regardless of whether the movie goes for a photorealistic or stylised CG animation style, what matters is the overall execution, and I would rather have a movie with decent photorealistic CG animation than one with bad stylised CG animation, and Warrior King is a good example of that.
Personally, the animation style felt too over-stylised. It uses a certain cel-animation shading style to make them feel more stylised, but that resulted in a look reminiscent of mobile game-style animation like in Genshin Impact. This resulted in a more cheap-looking animation style that would be unacceptable for today’s Chinese animated movie standards. Pretty much almost every human character design has the almost same-long aesthetic, which also amplifies the boringness of this movie.
This bad animation style also translates to certain backgrounds feeling a bit lifeless. While the snow animation is not the worst I had ever seen, the other backgrounds just feel boring, and that is also not to mention how awkward character movements are! This is reminiscent of Ang Lee’s Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk where the frames per second used are wrong, except that in this case, the movements felt slower than what was to be expected, unfortunately.
I don’t know what else to say about the animation in Warrior King, but considering that so many Chinese animated movies in recent years, especially with Deep Sea, had amazing-looking animation that brings the animation style forward, Warrior King’s animation just does not look good for 2020s Chinese animated movies standards.
Soundtrack, Other Elements and Level of Enjoyment
I honestly do not care much about the soundtrack because the major elements are so bad, I could say that the soundtrack is just… meh.
As for my level of enjoyment, Warrior King felt massively boring, so much so that it reminded me of me not enjoying much when I was watching Goodbye Monster in theatres. Because of its bad pacing and awkward animation, Warrior King felt like a chore to watch, which makes my experience pretty bad.
Overall Thoughts
It is often disappointing when a promising animated movie fails to deliver, but it is even more frustrating when the difference between my expectations and the actual overall quality is this significant.
Warrior King is an absolute misfire on all cylinders when it comes to Chinese animated movies overall. An overall horrendous screenplay that focused too much on exposition and not enough on the characters which resulted in almost non-existent character development, not to mention the story being very predictable and uninteresting with almost non-existent cohesion, not to mention animation that felt too over-stylised with boring character designs that resulted in the animation being reminiscent of the bad Chinese animated movies of the 2000s to early 2010s and a soundtrack that does almost nothing to salvage this movie. To save the worst for the last, this is one of the worst English dubs of Chinese animated movies I had to endure, even when considering the bad quality of English dubs of Chinese animated movies overall.
The only good thing about this movie, if you can call it one, is that Warrior King is at least watchable enough to avoid getting a much lower score. Still, there are other Chinese animated movies that not only have well-crafted writing but also fantastic animation, such as I Am What I Am, Deep Sea and Chang An, so it is best to avoid Warrior King entirely and give the better Chinese animated movies the recognition they deserve.
Blaziker’s Hot Sauce Rating
Conclusion
Wow, what an interesting start to the 2024 animated movies, even though all three have been released last year. We got two movies that are pretty good, and one that was bad, but that is how the cookie crumbles.
We got a few more adventures coming our way, so I will see you next time when we finally get to start on a couple of mainstream animated movies coming to streaming services. Until then, see you on the next adventure, and have a prosperous Chinese New Year to all!
