Da Yu Hai Tang (Movie)

*This review contains a few spoilers.* Da Yu Hai Tang presents itself with astounding visuals that few modern japanese Anime can compete with. Under the surface, however, the Movie suffers from bad writing/execution and doesn't have much to offer besides its fantastic animation, especially the highly detailed world, i.e. the nature or mystic creatures. My criticism is directed towards two main flaws of this movie: The story and the characters. The story is haphazard. The scenes don't transition well and the story essentially runs from one tragedy into another. It gives Chun no room to develop herself or to expand on any of the characters atall, instead it tries to encompass more and more different elements into it, most of which aren't even connected to main plotline itself. The main plotline would be Chun caring for the dolphin named Kun but the story develops in a very dark way and it's not even really explained why. Things happen because of unknown reasons and it's really hard to follow the "story", especially because of the lack of dialogue in many scenes (which the animation doesn't make up for). I'm not even sure what the core message of the story is. I understood that it's about life, death and reincarnation but the characters died like 5 million times (not literally) throughout the story and were always revived and I don't see what I'm supposed to learn from that. Apparently, every action of every character is inconsequential as well, as everything turns out good in the end. The characters in this movie are extremely bad. Chun has full focus for 100 min, yet she has almost no personality other than being incredibly selfish. Her decisions seem arbitrary and I think that is also one of the reasons why the story seems so haphazard. Her own stupidity gets her into trouble again and again and after a while it becomes painful to watch. Of course, she receives no character development as well. All she does throughout the story is reviving a guy who saved her in the human world and then she spends the rest of the movie caring for him (reincarnated as a dolphin) and causing drama and more drama. The other main character, Qiu, is just as bad. He helps Chun throughout the story, even going so far as to sacrifice himself for her, but his motives are vague. It's hinted that he is in love with Chun, but I'm not a fan of blind love. All other characters are basically only plot devices with no real connection to anything. I want to highlight the "sort of antagonist" here. Yeah you're reading right: They even introduced some kind of antagonist but made her vanish without ever doing anything notable. Nothing in this movie makes sense. Chun (for reasons not explained) endangers her village and people even die, yet she decides to stay selfish and care for Kun. But apparently the people around her don't care too much about that as her grandfather even sacrifices himself for her. Why would he do that? This movie tries to be a coming of age story, but it's lacking the basic concept of coming of age. Chun faces no real obstacles (besides her selfishness and own stupidity) and essentially learns nothing. This is not how coming of age works. Her sole motive and catalyst for the entire story is Chun feeling sorry because some random boy from the human world (who she knows nothing about) died because he tried to help her. And that wouldn't be even a bad catalyst for the story (even though it's kind of generic). But Chun never reflects on herself if she did the right thing or how her actions could potentially affect her surroundings. She doesn't develop from there and for the viewer there's nothing to learn as well. The movie is crammed with emotional scenes and climaxes, but frankly the high amount results in exactly the opposite: You end up not feeling anything. I think it's sad that the movie didn't expand more on its world. The world is definitely charming and stirring, especially due to the fantastic animation and highly detailled art, but the magic or the mystic creatures are never explored any further. Apparently the people are able to control the elements similar to Avatar but aside from the basic usage of elemental control there is not much more to experience. I don't weigh this aspect too much as this is a "what if?" situation and the movie was clearly designed to be a character-focused drama, but I think if this movie would have just been an action adventure, it would have been way better. If not for the beautiful art, I would have rated this movie even lower. I was compelled by the art during the first few minutes but I quickly began to lose interest as this movie has nothing to offer beyond its art.

*This review contains minor spoilers for the sake of humour* China strikes again! But seriously, there are more and more Chinese animations that are coming out lately and managed to capture an overseas audience which is pretty interesting to see to say the least. So we really should find a better one word representation of this because “Chinese Cartoons” is 1 word too many for my mouth. That aside, let’s actually get on with the review. Sound: 10 We are going to start with sound because ear-gasms are apparently a thing. The music and sound effects are really well done and are used perfectly; melding together theart, characters and story into a piece of stunning visual entertainment. Suffice to say, without this the movie would definitely not be as spectacular as it could have been. Also the movie is dubbed in Mandarin Chinese, so if you really picky with your dubs, then you are going to miss out for sure. Art: 9 The animation is great, there is no doubt about that. However, some parts of the movie is CG (like one object in one scene) which might put you off the magnificent art style and animation if you are a hardcore “ALL CG IS BAD CG” fan. Character design is also unique, since it is a fantasy film expect to see many different Chinese mythological creatures (many nekos). Characters: 8 You shall meet three mains: 1 male, 1 female, 1 dolphin; let gender equality reign (unfortunately no apache attack helicopters in this film, since the setting isn’t in the modern world). Female main is called Chun (not cousins with Chun Li), and the story is told through her point of view for most part of the movie. Male-chan is called Qiu (good luck pronouncing that), and he will be accompanying Chun in her endeavours. Dolphin-kun is called Kun (no seriously, I’m not lying), 他 is the drive of the plot of the film, so fairly important. Now the development of the characters is not bad, particularly Qiu undergoes monumental changes from one end of the spectrum (cheeky and selfish) to the other (selfless and super saiyan) in the name of 爱. Chun on the other hand doesn’t change very much which is not surprising if I’m honest since there really isn’t too much of her to change. Kun is a dolphin, that’s ample development. One last thing before moving on though, the side characters do what they needed to do, none of them were there to “fill the numbers” and all of them has a particular personality associated with them. Chun’s granny is a phoenix for goodness sake! Story: 7 Ah, the minor pitfall of this movie. Generally the plot flows, with powerful themes of life, death, love, reincarnation, family, rebellion… as well as philosophical questions like how much are you willing to lose to gain a certain thing. However, some parts of the film was slightly confusing, as it would make you question “why?” or “how?” or “wait, what?” but these don’t detract you from the entire plot point and many are explained/revealed down the line, it’s just the spur of the moment confusion might put some of you off the plot a minute or two. This is coming from a person who understands Chinese to enough of an extent that don’t use the subs so the effect might vary depending on your viewing experience. All in all though, the plot made sense in the end and it does make you question your existence. Enjoyment: 8 It’s a very stunning looking piece of visual and auditory entertainment. There are only a few minor chips and dents in the plot but otherwise everything is great. It might take you a bit of time to understand everything fully but it is well worth your time to watch it. Overall: 8 Da Yu Hai Tang is like a Ghibli film, but instead of Japanese it’s Chinese, instead of No-Face it’s dolphins but otherwise it’s very similar to Spirited Away and explores many deep themes. So don’t be fooled by the visuals and concept, the film definitely makes you think.

This movie ultimately fails in what it is attempting to do. It draws on the idea of faustian bargain but the rules of the trade become convoluted and nonsensical to get to an ending that doesn't make sense with in the context of the overarching theme. Further the love interest of one of the main characters has no reason for being a love interest, they have been shown to have barely any interactions and their relationship does not grow or receive any attention until the very end. It makes the whole premise very unbelievable and unfortunate, because the original idea this character would haveplayed in the movie made it interesting but I couldn't see them fulfilling this role given the narrative. Still as a Chinese anime the art was fluid and the ambiance was comfy. There were some scenes where the writer looped the same sequence several times back to back which made it drag on and made me lose interest in the scene. Still the animation being so clean brought me back in for a while. Overall I'll give it a 6 because it was well animated, though the story was flawed.

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