Big Fish & Begonia (Blu-ray)

Elsewhere I read that a Chinese anime in wide release with the choice of Mandarin or English is rare. This is my first look into a Chinese version of this film genre. Mostly I have been spoiled by the consistently high level of art in the films from Studio Ghibli. That said, Big Fish and Begonia is beautiful. Family friendly and highly recommended.The story-line is fairy tale but not the Disney version of over simplified classics. Big Fish has more of a dark side and a more complexity than an American audience may expect from a children’s story.The story line: Chun, a 16-year-old girl from a magical world of air and land beneath the sea takes up the tradition of her people to experience the oceans above that are also home to the non-magical humans. In this world she and her fellow travels assume the shape of dolphins, big fish, and have a fixed amount of time to observe. They are also warned that observe they might, but they must not make contact with the humans. Not Knowing the Big Fish are magical creatures, some humans trap and harvest these big fish. Chun is saved from this certain death by a boy who drowns to save her.Chun then makes it her goal to return the boy to life. She makes a deal with the keeper of the souls of dead good humans. The boy’s soul is sold to her in the form of a fast growing little fish. This will become the Big Fish of the movie title.Throughout the movie there are magical moments. Much is wondrously visualized and many themes seem familiar to other fantasy anime.This is a far from perfect movie. At time there are ideas and characters who need more explaining and a lot of time spent moving the growing fish to new hiding places. Never answered is the problem of just how much everyone ese must suffer while Chun fulfills her self-appointed task.But like many fairy tales, the point of view is that of the young girl and the duty she has is the narrative center.Along in the CD is a history of the making of the movie and the film short that was its genesis. Most is English dubbed.

Would highly reccomend

I decided to watch this movie one day when I was sick. I found I really enjoyed the animation and story in it. I found toward the end, the plot moved a bit too slowly for my taste.

This was an interesting movie and I wished I had enjoyed it more. It kinda felt like a loose retelling of the Little Mermaid, with some hints of Avatar (the anime), Spirited Away, and Mulan tossed in. Unfortunately, the movie is rather choppy for a good chunk. There were the occasional time skips, times when scenes just happened for the sake of happening, and then don't get me started on the fact they kept dragging Kun around for like 30 minutes trying to hide him in numerous places. Other than what we get in the opening, there is no world building on Chun's world or the people she lives amongst (seriously, who are those four main guys who seem to represent the season's and be leaders?). While I admire Chun wanting to fix a mistake and save the life which saved hers, I'm not a fan of how blind it made her to everything and everyone else around her. There was no real growth on her part by the end, because everyone else had made her sacrifices for her.I did like the darker themes, like sacrifice in terms of payment (because yeah, nothing is free, no matter how selfless your wish is), I loved the idea of humans coming from the ocean and returning to the ocean when they die, and my favorite character was Chun's friend, Qiu--who honestly deserved so much better than what he got. I also adored the story we got concerning the disney princess grandfather (lol, you'll know when you see it) and the grandmother. It was touching, despite being brief.It's not a horrible movie and maybe my expectations were too high, but I can't rate this any higher than 2.5 stars. It was a decent movie but nothing special or heart capturing for me.*Also, what happened with the rat lady in the end? Maybe I missed it, but for five seconds, they made it sound like her going to the human world was some horrible thing that had to be stopped and then...nothing. I have no idea what happened to her and I'm pretty sure the writers literally forgot about her.

Releases for Chinese animation are rare, quality Bluray releases are even rarer. Big Fish & Begonia is actually available for streaming on different services, but for some odd reason only available with an English dub as 'original audio' (Spanish audio in my local dub), so I was a bit weary with this release.I'm happy to say that the Bluray+DVD combo comes with Original Mandarin audio (that you must select), otherwise you're presented with the English dub. Not only is the film subtitled, but also the bonus of: the original animated short that inspired the film, the main trailer, two music videos (Zhou Shen + LaLa) and a +20min. Making Of, which is the best.A lot of the times, Behind the Scene extras on Asian releases (specifically Hong Kong) tend to not be subtitled, despite the subs on the main film. It's a quality video and audio transfer, on top of quality subs. Top marks for that.

Wonderful, dreamlike Chinese fantasy. Heavily influenced by Miyazaki. Great animation but contrary to some reports that animation did not necessarily take a decade to do. In the special features it details the group of creator's efforts since the early '00s, developing the ideas and story over time and through different media to arive at this final iteration. It's interesting how the project grew over the last decade and a half, but the final animation you see here, did not take that total amount of time.One other aspect to mention: I've had to order this blu ray twice and neither play on my 2009 model Blu-ray player. You may want to be apprised that the disc will not play on some older model Blu-ray players. (Mine is the Sony BDP-S560.)

Alles gut gelaufen, danke!

Der Film hat uns einfach umgehauen, die Story ist richtig gut durchdacht und Animationen sind ebenfalls sehr gelungen.Der Film kann problemlos ab 6 Jahren geschaut werden.Eine wichtige Sache möchte ich nur erwähnen :Bitte, bitte nicht abschalten wenn der Abspann kommt, auch bei diesem Film geht es für eine Minute nach Beendigung der Credit Szenen weiter und genau diese Minute ist sehr wichtig !

Ok

I could not believe it when I watched the extras and discovered that this film took a decade to produce. That's incredible, it's just a pity that the film isn't. It is a lovely story and well crafted, and quite beautiful at times, but the length it took to create really shows in the pacing. The narrative moves along at what feels like a rushed pace, and it does take a couple of viewings to really get a grasp on what's happening from one minute to the next. This does not surprise me when you consider that its beginning and end, in terms of production, are several years apart, suffering from changes in staff and at one point a halt in production and near breakdown of the director. Many hands do not make a cogent narrative; it feels like there are too many stances going on, like the story direction is changing its mind suddenly to quickly move on to the next bit before anyone notices.

Ihr Lieben, es handelt sich hier NICHT um einen Anime, nur weil dieser Film animiert und aus Asien ist. Das hier ist ein chinesischer Animationsfilm, kein japanischer Anime!Die Animation und die gute deutsche Synchro haben mich zunächst positiv überrascht.Der Film spielt in einer Art parallelen Welt, in der Menschen die Elemente kontrollieren können. Diese Welt war wirklich faszinierend, so magisch und vielseitig. Ich hätte gern mehr darüber erfahren, nach welchen Gesetzen sie genau funktioniert, aber es ist auch nicht so tragisch, dass das nicht genauer erläutert wird. Stattdessen hat man das Leben dort verfolgt und das war sehr schön und wunderbar animiert.Leider konnte ich mit der Protagonistin Chun überhaupt nicht warm werden. In der Form eines Delfins wird sie in unserer Welt von einem jungen Mann gerettet, als sie sich in einem Netz verfangen hat. Dabei verliert er jedoch sein Leben (übrigens ist das nicht der Junge mit den blonden Haaren vorn auf dem Cover, wie man vielleicht vermuten könnte). Zurück in ihrer Welt möchte Chun diese Schuld begleichen.Fortan wird sie nur noch von diesem einen Gedanken getrieben. Und das war mir irgendwann einfach zu anstrengend. Während ihr Kindheitsfreund Shon ihr kaum von der Seite weicht, ihr hilft, sie unterstützt und sogar selbst ein unglaubliches Opfer bringt, sieht sie nichts davon. Sie sieht nur ihr eigenes Ziel, ihre Ideale und handelt damit unglaublich selbstsüchtig und undankbar.Im Laufe des Films kommt es auch immer häufiger zu starken Wetterumschwüngen. Die Leute geben Chun und dem, was sie getan hat, um das Leben des Mannes zu retten, die Schuld. Wie kommen die Leute darauf? Und war es letztendlich wirklich ihre Schuld? Der Zuschauer tappt ja selbst im Dunkeln. Die Anschuldigungen wirkten auf mich an den Haaren herbeigezogen und überhaupt nicht nachvollziehbar.Alles in allem ein schön animierter Film, der jedoch aufgrund von Ungereimtheiten und einer wenig sympathischen Protagonistin kaum überzeugt.