2016 · animation · adventure · fantasy
Big Fish & Begonia
Directed by Liang Xuan, Zhang Chun1h 41m2016
Beyond the human realm, there is a magical race of beings who control the tides and the changing of the seasons. One of these beings, a young girl named Chun, seeks something more—she wants to experience the human world! At sixteen, she finally gets her chance and transforms into a dolphin in order to explore the world that has her fascinated. But she soon discovers that it's a dangerous place and nearly gets killed in a vortex. Luckily, her life is spared when a young boy sacrifices himself to save her. Moved by his kindness and courage, she uses magic to bring him back to life only to learn that this power comes at a serious price. On a new adventure, she’ll have to make her own sacrifices in order to protect his soul until it is ready to return to the human world.
Our read: Big Fish & Begonia (2016) reads as a warm, kinetic, surreal animation · adventure · fantasy entry — gentle in intensity, epic-stakes in scope, tender in temperature, redemptive in outlook.
Warm, kinetic, gentle animation / adventure, surreal in texture. Redemptive, epic, tender.
- warm
- brisk
- surreal
- redemptive
- tender
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How Big Fish & Begonia feels to watch.
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“You want lush Chinese mythic animation about sacrifice, tides, and human longing.”
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