Though international viewers might not be as familiar with Chinese donghua as they are with Japanese anime, the 2019 donghua film The Legend of Hei, to be released in the United States this spring, is one that will be easy for anime fans to jump into. Imagine the cuteness and ecological themes of Studio Ghibli's Ponyo or Totoro mixed with intense magical action akin to Naruto or Avatar: The Last Airbender and you have a good idea of what's in store. This fantasy adventure should appeal to otaku of all ages.
Hei, our protagonist, is a cat spirit who's driven away from his forest home when it's destroyed by loggers. Throughout the film, Hei shifts between three different forms: an adorable cartoony cat (often accompanied by another sootball-like spirit), a more ferocious giant cat and a humanoid boy with cat ears and a tail. Another spirit named Stormend offers Hei a home far from human civilization, but when the part-human sorcerer Infinity attacks, Hei is in for a long and challenging journey.
The Legend of Hei's storytelling is impressively sophisticated and morally ambiguous. None of the characters are truly villainous or heroic, though some might choose to interpret them that way. It's more positive about city life than the more pastorally-inclined films of Hayao Miyazaki, but it doesn't sugarcoat the aspects that are environmentally disastrous either.
Other aspects of the film play ambiguously as well, and it's hard to say how much of this is intentional. The Legend of Hei is a prequel to The Legend of Luo Xiaohei, an ongoing web-series that director MTJJ animates himself. Presumably, fans of that series, which has yet to be officially translated into English, will come in better understanding the nuances of the world and its magic. However, these aspects still play well in ignorance, in part because our young protagonist is equally ignorant about the world.
The one aspect that will feel awkward to new viewers is when new characters show up late in the game without any introduction. If you were wondering how cameos in Marvel movies must feel to people who haven't seen the other Marvel movies, you'll know that feeling at one point in The Legend of Hei's climax.
More than anything else, The Legend of Hei is an absolutely gorgeous piece of animation, a clear labor of love for MTJJ and his team. Though the art style takes clear inspiration from various anime, it's doing its own thing. Every scene is animated on twos (as in, one drawing for every two frames of film), offering more consistently fluid motion in contrast to most anime's fluctuating framerates. The cute scenes are extremely cute, the visual gags are funny, the scenery is breathtaking and the fight scenes pack a punch.
Though it might be even more fun for those who know its source material, anyone can watch The Legend of Hei and have a good time. It's the sort of fantasy film adults might wonder if kids will truly understand, only to find out their kids understood it better than they did. Animation fans of all ages should give it a watch.
The Legend of Hei is streaming through March 14 at the New York International Children's Film Festival. It will be available on digital from Shout! Factory April 20 and on Blu-ray/DVD May 11.