It is crazy to believe Another World is a Hong Kong production considering how unprecedented it feels. It is an imaginative labour of love, a technical marvel and an emotional powerhouse. The quality is off the charts, there’s no denying that its 7 years of production time bleeds through the screen.The world building, themes of incarnation and visual designs are all exceptional. The filmmaker delivers a stunning plot revelation, and multiple super hard-hitting moments that put me near the brink of tearing up…Unfortunately the movie also stubs its toes by having really amateurish voice performance. Not gonna lie, this is among the rarest examples of an animation feature that suffers from a voice acting problem. You don’t know how important it is until it is not done right. Even though I really really want to like the movie due to its spellbinding visuals and evocative music, I couldn’t bring myself to immerse in the story at all due to the flat, forced-sounding voice acting. This is a classic example of “I can tell they are trying super hard, but it just doesn’t work.”Apart from this major criticism, I also think the first half of the movie is very uneven. You can argue the final revelation justifies its sporadical structure, but I think the ends don’t justify the means, at least not to the extent that it borderlines on boring, inconsistent and overtly forced. I can’t help but wonder the story would probably flows a lot better if they don’t over explain the expositions, and let the visuals do the talking.I also think the actual meat of the story is quite superficial and cliche even though the plot revelation is unique and well done. The core relationships focus too much on “form” rather than actual character development. Character motivations are vague and thin at best, the directing and visual-music marriage do a lot of heavy lifting.I also think the movie ends somewhat poorly. The last scene should be cut and the end credits (although separately is a nice song) fits poorly with the melodramatic tone of the movie.Overall this movie is still a much appreciated and needed animation miracle from Hong Kong. Just one that is quite flawed.Verdict: 78
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