After more than half a year of publicity, "Monster Child" - the latest work of Mamoru Hosoda has finally been released. This work was widely anticipated before its release, and Mamoru Hosoda, who is known as "three years of sharpening a sword", has brought us such excellent works as "The Girl Who Leapt Through Time and Space", "Summer Wars" and "Wolf's Rain and Snow". And Mr. Mamoru Hosoda, who has always been good at talking about the topic of family affection, what kind of work did he bring us this time? After looking forward to the long-lost holiday, the author can't wait to go to the cinema to have a look, and next, let's talk about the author's feelings about this work.

Plot and characters

In an interview before the film's release, Mamoru Hosoda himself said, "This will be a rare feature film in recent years that profoundly depicts the self-growth of children through a series of spiritual practices." In addition to maintaining the royal road, it can also bring the audience an incomparable sense of freshness. And after actually watching it, the author really felt that this was a royal animation. The protagonist's name is "Lotus", his parents divorced when he was a child, and he lives with his mother. Suddenly, one day, his mother died in an accident, and the loveless boy who was waiting for his father to arrive rushed out of the house after setting up the ambition of "I want to live alone, I want to become stronger", and then lived on the streets, wandering the streets of Shibuya with a chance bumped into Mao Yu, sorry, and Kiko. One day, Kuma Toru and Tatara and Ren, who came to the human world to look for their apprentices, met unexpectedly on the streets of Shibuya, and Ren, who was chased by the police, followed the two (demon?). Entered the world of monsters. Subsequently, by accident and coincidence, Lian worshiped Xiong Che as his teacher, and received a new name "Jiutai" because he was nine years old at the time, and since then he has begun to grow stronger in the world of monsters......

This kind of script, in which a teenager encounters something incredible or adventures in another world, and constantly transforms into a new one, has been seen in summer animated films over the years. And the Japanese friends around me also admit that this film is indeed fresher than previous works. But slowly, this fresh audience refers to the Japanese audience, and it may not be felt by friends in Japan. Because Mr. Mamoru Hosoda still has some words in the back: "The creative inspiration of this film is drawn from many movies of Jackie Chan and Bruce Lee, and I hope to present you with a wonderful action movie with high entertainment." "Yes, the content that domestic friends feel more should be a lot of familiarity from Chinese martial arts films. Friends who like martial arts movies can take a look and should find some very classic scenes.

Other than that, the themes of the film are actually quite rich. From the beginning to the end, light and dark clues are entangled, primary and secondary contradictions erupt one after another, and there is rarely a blank period in the plot from beginning to end. The struggle between the male protagonist's own identity, the confrontation between the two big monsters, the contrast between the male protagonist's father and Xiong Che, the story of another human child, and the male protagonist's choice to stay in the two worlds, etc. The content of the story is not rich, and the spread of the world is not uninteresting. But wait.,It's not a TV animation.,It's not an OVA work.,It's a theatrical version of the animation that has to be told in two hours.,Want to express so many things.,Is two hours really enough?

The answer is obviously, not enough. In the first half of the film, the plot can be regarded as relaxed, and after half the film, it begins to give people a sense of disorganization, and many things are halfway told, or even just mentioned and then ended in a hurry or simply forgotten. By the end of the day,,The plot is close to going berserk.,The end of the royal road animation has always been very orthodox.,At the last moment, you can still use guò a decisive battle to clean up the mess.,Otherwise,I really don't feel like I know how to end it.。 At this time, it is better to grasp a main line and tell a good story than to constantly blend elements. Especially when Mamoru Hosoda himself was a screenwriter, his mastery of multiple lines was still a little insufficient.

When it comes to character creation, Mamoru Hosoda has always used the best approach: using a story to show you a vivid character. Under the influence of the plot of this film, the characters, especially the supporting characters, have inevitably been affected. The old monkey Duo Duoliang, who is smart and likes to make mockery, the gentle and humble second senior brother Baiqiufang, the grandmaster Rabbit who seems to always be able to solve the qiē problem, and even Lian's teacher Kaede in the human world, these characters are still some characters with distinct personalities, but they have not been able to get more explanations in the story, and the templating situation is relatively strict, and their position in the story is sometimes slightly awkward. Even if the producer invited a rather luxurious cast to dub the characters and "inject soul" into the characters, IMHO, this is not enough to support a living character.

However, in terms of the shaping of the main characters, because there is enough plot support, this film does a very good job in this regard. Whether it is the male protagonist who is constantly growing and getting stronger but does not change his roots, or Xiong Che who goes from a lazy uncle who can't get along with others at all to Xiong Che who becomes a qualified adoptive father and grandmaster, or Zhu Wang Shan, who acts according to the rules but secretly raises another human child with a father's heart, these characters have relatively more changes, more complex personalities, and more real souls.

Graphics and sound

After talking about these unsatisfactory points, let's talk about the plus points of this film. In terms of the plot and characters I just talked about, if the full score is 10, the author personally feels that he can score up to 6 points, which belongs to the category of barely passing. And the picture, the author feels that it can be played ten, because the picture fully plays its due role, and even makes people quite amazing in many places.

The picture of this film corresponds to the overall plot, which is slightly dark at first, but as the plot changes, it keeps becoming bright and light, making people feel relaxed and pleasant to watch normally, and it is very comfortable. The details of the painting are also very good, and the most impressive thing is the wall in front of Xiong Che's house: when the nine-year-old Lian first arrived there, there were two monster couples holding hands on the wall, and eight years later, when the nine Tai passed by here, the wall had become a monster couple holding a little monster. In the fight scenes in the play, the fight scenes set according to the personalities of different characters are smooth and natural, with enough frame rates and a full sense of courage and excellent sound design, which is simply enjoyable when watching it in the cinema. At the beginning of the plot, Tong Guò constantly switches the monitor screen to track the male protagonist, and in the later stage, Tong Guò switches the monitor screen and the display screen to show the villain boy, which makes people feel very good. In the final war, the picture of the continuous switching before and after the slash made people see the turtle school qigong of Kakarot father and son in a trance. And the whale at the end is really beautiful, which can be described as a big surprise in this film.

Shibuya's restoration is a very difficult thing to do very well, although passers-by are three-dimensional to two-dimensional, but shake it, the effect is still very good. Some friends even complained that when they saw real-life scenes in animation, they always felt like they were in a scene in an instant.

The background music and sound effects are super high in this film. The background music in the early stage is close to the animation, one by one, full of rhythm. The pauses and blank spaces in the play that match the plot several times are also just right. In the case of the later plot ramp, the plot is also strung together through guò background music. The abruptness in the later part of the film is not particularly strong, and it can be finished, and the background music can be said to be a great contribution.

summary

"Monster Child" began to promote it more than half a year ago, and I was inevitably a little disappointed when I went to the theater with too high expectations. Compared with Mamoru Hosoda's previous works, the entertainment of this film has been improved a lot, and the music and graphics still maintain a consistently high level. Correspondingly, the script this time can be said to be quite rough, the plot is slightly old-fashioned, and the rhythm is not very stable. But if you're just watching a movie in a relaxed and enjoyable way, you don't need to worry about that.

Of course, the above content is just the author's words, if other friends who have watched this film have different opinions, please point them out and discuss them together.

The film is still in theaters, and as of July 21, the box office has exceeded the 1.8 billion yen mark, and I hope that in the next half month, the film will reach a new high.

(Tencent Animation Columnist in Japan: The Great Magician)