That get your attention? Good

I’ve never done a blog before, but I guess it’s finally time to give it a go and see where it all ends up! Since I am a student working to become an illustrator I have classes in animation, and I’ve begun to search for more movies and short films to watch and gain inspiration from. Now, I’ve seen almost every animated movie that came from english speaking countries and other western countries, so I’ve now begun to go into eastern animation (Russian, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, ect.). I’ll share my findings with all of you as a sort of review, both in the sense of story and artistic direction. I’ll make a review whenever I watch a movie so it can be a little sporadic, but you’ll normally find them during the weekday as the weekend for me is usually busy with work, cleaning, ect.

So for the first movie to kick things off I’ll share with you one of my favorite Korean movies.

Leafie, A Hen into the Wild.

Now I’ve seen live action Korean movies before, and they were all pretty good, but their animated movie scene had been a mystery to me up until now. I can tell you I’m not disappointed. Since I’ve seen this movie I’ve delved deeper into their movie culture and I have found more gems since then, but this is where it all started.

The movie is a film adaptation of the book of the same name, and apparently it’s extremely popular (it hasn’t come out in english yet, but when it does I’ll totally buy it). The book and movie is about a hen named Leafie who lives on a chicken farm. From her tiny cage she can see the outside world and is determined to escape her prison and live out in the yard. The film is about her escape, and eventually ending up not in the yard, but out in the wild beyond the gates. She meets a mallard duck named Wanderer who helps her escape from the hungry jaws of the Weasel, who is the story’s main antagonist and constantly shows up to spoil everything. Some more events occur and she’s left with taking care of an orphaned duckling, and the story takes off from there as she experiences motherhood in this harsh environment. I will warn you, the ending to this movie is EXTREMELY sad, and many of you will probably cry. If you decide to watch the movie watch it as the original film released in Korea, as I’ve heard other countries cut the ending when they released it, dubbing it too depressing. But don’t worry, the movie isn’t all sad and drab, they’ve got some humor in it. But, there are some strange moments in the movie that just make you want to yell “Why?!” but they are very few and far between.

Onto the actual art and animation technique! The animation was very smooth and clean as I’ve come to expect. I’ve learned from my professor that eastern animators use a higher frame rate than 24 (the minimum before an animation becomes choppy) for action scenes to make it flow better and so you can see every movement as fluidly as possible (that’s why they always look so awesome). Now in anime made for tv that means quality of other less action packed scenes can suffer due to time constraints and low budget, but when you’ve got a full blown movie with a high budget like this then quality stays pretty consistent. Line and style also changed throughout the movie helping to make you feel a certain way. Most of the movie is done in clean lines, flashbacks were done in a more blocky, oriental, nearly line-artless style, and during some intense moments you could see more loose, powerful lines. colour was done spectacularly with different tones and colours for each season of Leafie’s life. colours in the hen barn are quite dull and limited in colour, while the outside world abounds with light and has a wider colour palette. Spring and summer in the beginning of the movie were full of colour, while winter at the end of the movie had more subdued, dark tones and colour.

Overall this was a good start to my journey into eastern animation, and proves to still be one of my most favorite movies of all time.

You can readily find this movie online on some anime websites with english subs.

If you've seen the movie than by all means comment about your experience with the film!