DVD-review: YOBI, THE FIVE TAILED FOX

that combing might be what appeared as slight stammering on my tv.... it felt like there weren't enough frames in the animation to make it smooth enough, but i'm inclined to think your mention of combing is connected, perhaps.

I liked a great many things about it, but overall it was a mess - I think you're being a little too kind to the film. It just felt as if he threw everything he could possibly think of in there just for the hell of it - aliens, toilet humour, first love, childhood nostalgia - without any thought for how well it might work or any time to give half of it any explanation (Why the talking transparent gelatinous bowl? Why? Why? D: ).

And I hate, hate, HATE anything that draws inspiration from... That Particular Famous Children's Fairy Tale (I shouldn't say which one; you'll know if you watched the film but if not it might spoil the end) - I think the original was poisonous, manipulative drivel designed to make children cry and Yobi tends towards its worst excesses far too often. It really does not earn its ending in the slightest.

And while bits of it were certainly beautiful - Korean animation is definitely making giant technological strides - I thought it was severely limited and very, very obviously made on a computer in far too many places, from the "cel-shaded" CG to the opening forest floor - come on, that screamed out "perfectly flat texture with the odd bit of 3D detail dotted about here and there". :p

I guess I was setting myself up for disappointment given I regard My Beautiful Girl, Mari as one of the best films I've ever seen - animated or otherwise. But regardless of that this has to qualify as a letdown. Gorgeous, moving, amusing and entertaining, sure, but also rambling, overstuffed, saccharine, incoherent, and inconclusive. Only gets a very cautious recommendation out of me.

rooks - i kind of agree with what you're saying. it's possible to have an initial response to a film which relates to expected disappointment (as you seem to have) and it's possible to be trying to find where a foreign film relates to particular aspects of judgement that you might be trying to aim at it. what i'm trying to get at is that many seem to automatically apply the sensibilities of watching one countries films to another, others seem to try to find what the sensibilities are, both potentially miss the point or come to different conclusions. 'yobi' is certanly full of the faults of animated features for kids, but it still maintains a lot of stuff that's not so typical (but perhaps familiarly korean) and you can spot more or less from either set of characteristics as you draw your conclusions. for me, nice little film, slightly dodgy disc mastering (combing or stammering somehow) and worth seeing for something ever so slightly different but also strangely familiar. korean animators are heavily involved in outsourced animation for japanese productions too - including ghibli stuff - so there's clear skill, but perhaps there's not much of a market in korea for it's own domestic animated film? whatever the market might be, i would like to see more...

I'm with Aardvark on this one. It's clearly not as strong a movie as My Beautiful Girl, Mari was, but I still enjoyed it - especially the second half. It's charming and absolutely gorgeous to look at. But I hope his next movie will have more substance than pretty fluff. :-)

Ah, but while I admit I'm probably over-reacting to a degree I really don't think it's a typical kids' film (well, not necessarily) or that cultural differences get in the way. Watch the McDull films (or the first two, anyway, I still haven't seen Alumni) if you want an example of how one can throw in a truckload of very, very domestic gags, emotional hooks, cultural references and what have you while never outright alienating a foreign audience - plus how to set up countless setpieces for kids to identify with while layering the narrative with God knows how many different thematic elements adults can puzzle over.

I will also admit the whole cultural differences thing is in itself a school of thought through which I'm colouring my perceptions by not subscribing to it as much as you guys do... :p but I seriously believe that subjectively it's really not anything like the film it could have been. Worth watching, bound to entertain, artistically deserving of praise... but the fact I'm a Westerner watching a Korean production doesn't have THAT much to do with how underwhelming it is IMO. ;)

Well, I stand by my review, even though I can see the point of calling the film an overall mess. I've rewatched it several times and I keep liking it.

I thought the nine-tailed foxes, the shadow, the portal and the spirit of water closets (the talking transparent gelatinous bowl) were all part of the same canon and known to the Korean audience as famous fairy-tale figures.
So for Koreans only the aliens would be out of place in this story.

Spirit of water closets? Huh... if that's the case consider me enlightened, though I still stand by my impressions. McDull has countless references to HK everyday life I can barely place, if at all, as a sheltered little English boy :D - not to mention all the surreal and pseudo-mythical iconography and whatnot the franchise trades in. But it rarely if ever gets in the way. Is there some traditional story that's a direct parallel with the events in Yobi? Why are these different figures all there? "Just because they look cool" isn't enough of an excuse for me. Mari was nice and direct, with nothing wildly out of place - it's very clearly established it's not really important whether or not most of the fantastical elements are actually real, since the film works whichever way you take them and doesn't hinge on that question in the first place.

And that's not even getting into the tissue-thin, saccharine, manipulative nonsense that's the general point of the plot. I don't like being bashed over the head - especially not when the same director's previously come up with one of the subtlest, most graceful, intelligent and even subversive animated films I've ever seen.

I'm not really trying to get you to change your opinion, heh. ;-) I liked the film a great deal, limitations aside, and I want to make time to watch it again. But I still think of it objectively (meant to say objectively in my last post above) as a fairly big disappointment from someone who could have done much, much better.