Dragonkeeper Review: Chinese Animated Adventure is More Than a Box-Office Flop
Copyright © Viva Pictures, China Film Animation
Title: Dragonkeeper
Director: Salvador Simó, Li Jianping
Based on: Dragonkeeper by Carole Wilkinson
Release Date: May 3, 2024
Viva Pictures may be a nuance in today's animated film library. One of their films this year, Epic Tails, is not so bad but it should have done better in its writing and execution. In November, they are going to release Hitpig, which will be a film that uses pop-culture references and a star-studded cast for attention. Nothing else is good in the matter. For today, this review will be about Dragonkeeper, a Spanish-Chinese animated film based on the book of the same name! Its first releases were in Spain and China until Viva Pictures got the rights to release it in the United States this May. Against a budget of €24 million equaling around $31 million, the movie has done so terribly at the box office with a gross of $3.8 million. Albeit it does have its issues in both the animation and small plot holes, Dragonkeeper surprises as a solid family adventure that somewhat nails with its serious tone.
Summary
In ancient China, dragons are going to be extinct. Young girl, Ping (Mayalinee Griffiths), is chosen to go on this adventure with the guiding dragon, Danzi (Bill Nighy). To fulfill her destiny, she must find the last remaining egg to save the dragon species.
Reasons
The magical positives of Dragonkeeper are its faithfulness to the book, story, and maturity. If a book goes into an unpopular company's hands, that does not mean the movie will turn out to be terrible. Coming from someone who has never read the books, the writers did seem to handle it well by keeping a lot from the original story. In turn, this makes for a fun adventure story that the family will enjoy. The lore is not that basic nor complex at all to understand, so kids will be able to follow along with the movie. Compared to Epic Tails, this one actually makes sure its lore is structured properly, but that is mainly thanks to being based on a bestselling book. Before going to the next paragraph, the maturity is what makes this film stand out at younger kids but also at older kids as well. This can be said from the film's depictions of cruelty and extinction because the writers were not afraid to add them to a movie aimed at families alike.
Some other positives that the Dragonkeeper has are also the animation, voice-acting, and themes. Yes, this one may not look the best but the result actually turned out decent. Although the movements are mainly stiff and pretty flat, the detail and settings make the film look beautiful at glance. It shows how the company keeps improving bit by bit. Moving on, the voice-acting did nail it with the British voices that were hired to make it. You got some stars like Bill Nighy as Danzi, while there are some unknown actors like Mayalinee Griffiths as Ping, and they all did pretty well. Still, it would have been better if there were Chinese voice-actors hired to voice the characters instead of British voice-actors, so that the movie has more accuracy to Chinese culture. Finally, the themes are executed decently. Again, this movie stands out well from Viva Pictures' library because of how mature it tends to be. There are themes like purpose, murder, and slavery. They may be mature but they were told in a way that kids would handle it well.
Although this film was surprisingly not bad, Dragonkeeper does have flaws, like the animated stiffness, plot holes, and ending. The animation is not anything so bad but the stiffness is one thing that needs to be fixed. This error is mainly occurring with the human characters where their movements are not so smooth enough. Another flaw that needs to be patched up is the subtle plot holes in the story. Even though they are tiny, the plot holes are apparent in the lore, which makes the movie a little bit confusing. Thankfully, the story has less of these than Epic Tails does. Lastly, the ending did not wrap up the adventure so well. First, the movie ends with a thing needed to be done. Then, there is the aftermath of the characters. It makes for a pretty corny ending because there was not enough substance to close the doors.
Conclusion
Explained again, Dragonkeeper happens to be a solid family adventure that can poof out any low expectations with its magic. To be honest, Viva Pictures needs to make more films like these, so that their catalog does not pander towards little kids most of the time. The fact that this movie is based on a book, along with its mature themes, holds this movie tight and up from going above the average score. Yes, there would have been fixes to the animation and writing but this movie did give a reason why it got chosen to have theatrical release. If you are curious about this movie, go give this one a look or two, even if your first thoughts claim that it is foreign and forgettable.
Comments
Post a Comment