REVIEW: Ne Zha (2019)
Ne Zha was one of the surprise box office hits of 2019. A computer-animated feature by first-time director Yang Yu (aka Jiaozi), it broke box office records in its own country, managed to break into...
View ArticleREVIEW: The Super Mario Bros Movie (2023)
Oh, it’s fine. Universal and Nintendo’s animated collaboration brings the venerable Super Mario Bros videogame series to cinemas for the first time since 1993’s abortive live-action effort starring Bob...
View ArticleEEFF: Aurora’s Sunrise (2022)
If there wasn’t evidence all over the Internet to prove it, you would never believe Aurora’s Sunrise was real. This animated blend of drama and documentary relates the story of Aurora Mardiganian, a...
View ArticleCHIFF: Dragon Princess (2021)
The late film critic Roger Ebert once observed that ‘nine out of ten children’s movies are stupid, witless, and display contempt for their audiences, and that’s why kids hate them’, which seems...
View ArticleREVIEW: Tatsumi (2011)
Tatsumi is a wonderful and distinctive oddity. It’s an animated film, made in Singapore and Indonesia in 2011, although it’s performed entirely in Japanese. Part of it is an animated documentary on the...
View ArticleREVIEW: Stormy Night (2005)
A young goat named Mei takes shelter from a storm in a pitch-black barn, not realising that a wolf named Gabu is doing exactly the same thing. In the darkness, unable to see or smell each other, Mei...
View ArticleREVIEW: Professor Layton and the Eternal Diva (2009)
Will there ever be a great motion picture adapted from a videogame? Certainly there have been a few reasonably enjoyable ones, and a fair share of watchable yet critically flawed attempts, but it seems...
View ArticleREVIEW: The Tale of Princess Kaguya (2013)
Fans of Japanese animation house Studio Ghibli will debate its best feature film until the end of time. Many will say it is My Neighbor Totoro (1988), while others will name Kiki’s Delivery Service...
View ArticleREVIEW: The Boy and the Heron (2023)
It feels like a momentous occasion to watch a new Hayao Miyazaki film. The Boy and the Heron marks his first feature-length work since The Wind Rises a decade ago, and sees the acclaimed director...
View ArticleREVIEW: The Emperor’s New Groove (2000)
So the short introduction is this: at the height of their post-Little Mermaid ‘renaissance’, the Walt Disney Feature Animation studio embarked on an ambitious adaptation of The Prince and the Pauper...
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