Click here to copy URL

Big Fish & Begonia

Da Hai (Big Fish & Begonia)

2016

Liang Xuan, Zhang Chun

Animation

6.6

1,909

Animation. Fantasy. Drama. Adventure This film became China’s most successful crowdfunding project to date when Director Liang Xuan raised 1.58 million yuan on the Chinese crowdfunding site Demohour.

	Author	Review
United States	Peter Debruge Variety	"This marvelous and mind-blowing animated feature surpasses anything cartoon China has produced before in terms of sheer beauty, even as it defies interpretation."	POS
United States	Sheri Linden The Hollywood Reporter	"Its blend of 2D and CG animation uses a radiant palette, and its story moves between the spirit and animals worlds with an undercurrent of yearning and waves of pure delight."	POS
United States	Teo Bugbee The New York Times	"[The directors] use the flexibility of animation to create visual metaphors that represent the beauty and the terror of passing from one realm to the next."	POS
United States	G. Allen Johnson San Francisco Chronicle	"A sweet and lyrical fantasy film filled with inviting visuals and inventive characters (...) Liang and Zhang finds innocence and honest emotion among the hard life lessons."	POS
United States	Kenneth Turan Los Angeles Times	"It is visually dazzling and made very much in the Miyazaki mode (...) It's all strangely wonderful, and it will take your breath away if you give it the chance."	POS
United States	Simon Abrams Village Voice	"You’ll meet many colorful monsters and/or godlike supporting characters but not a single believable lead protagonist in the busy but uninspired Chinese animated fantasy 'Big Fish & Begonia'"	NEU
United States	Oleg Ivanov Slant	"In addition to its otherworldly visual delights, 'Big Fish & Begonia' uses recent Chinese history to offer thoughtful lessons to an international young adult audience without ever condescending to it (…) Rating: ★★★ (out of 4)"	POS

Return to movie

We encourage you to check the reviews' original sources. Intellectual property rights of these reviews belong to their authors and/or the correspondent media from which they have been extracted. If you'd like to help us to add more reviews to your favorite movies, just send us a message.