Tags: blog, film, animation, fantasy, 2025, essential
Author: KickingK
Date: Thursday August 28th, 2025
Alrighty Meow
Young girl Karin is abandoned by her dad at a temple where she makes the acquaintance of a ghost cat called Anzu.
The most obvious point of reference for this film is Studio Ghibli. This film borrows heavily from My Neighbour Totoro and Spirited Away1 with the obvious limitation that it hasn’t got anything like the budget of those films.
But it turns that into a virtue, this is a low budget film about low budget people. The characters are…well they’re…let’s just say: highly flawed.
Karin is a con-artist, always trying to manipulate people for her own gain, or just to be spiteful. She’s very much her Father’s daughter. Anzu is a gambler who wastes the money he does earn and cheats on the bets he makes. He also goes to the toilet where ever he pleases, because he’s a cat.
For the supporting cast there’s: two doofus boys who are dumb-struck by the new, pretty girl; a gullible temple attendant; a depressed god; a tunnelling frog; assorted sad-sack demons; a bunch of boring forest spirits who just hang around and play cards; and a run-down, Japanese town that’s sweltering, borderline melting, in the summer heat.
Everything feels real and personal. It matters because you recognise these people and their lives. Even the depressed gods. It feels like a British kitchen sink drama, with all of its money problems and annoying scrotes. It is exquisitely well observed and extremely funny as a result.
Its depiction of spirituality felt close to revolutionary. Here, spiritual enlightenment isn’t wisdom, or calm or devotion. It’s the willingness to get the crap kicked out of you in a fight you can’t win because your neighbour needs to be stood up for. To have this stated so boldly, so eloquently, is very timely for the world right now.
This film is a minor key masterpiece that deserves to be spoken of in the same breath as any Ghibli film you care to mention. A heartfelt, joyful, beautiful triumph.
Poster Credit Where to Watch
1. Oh, and Trainspotting. It literally pilfers a scene directly from Trainspotting.
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Tags: blog, tv, comedy, fantasy, 2024
Author: KickingK
Date: Thursday May 30th, 2024
Dead, dead good
The third best thing I can say about Dead Boy Detectives is that if this had been made twenty years ago it would have been one of the most radical pieces of tv of the era. And yet now it’s depictions of same sex relationships feels completely normal. In fact, those relationships are possibly the most ‘normal’ thing about the show. This is a very good thing.
The second best thing I can say about Dead Boy Detectives is the way it handles real world darkness (such as domestic abuse, child abuse, male violence, bureaucratic ‘violence’, homophobia, agoraphobia etc) whilst staying in the framework of a ‘Monster of the Week’ show. It either deals with this stuff head on, via metaphor, or subtly and in the background. There’s a lot going on here, everything feels like it’s about something and the fact that it packs so much in without feeling over stuffed, ponderous or frivolous is a marvel.
And the very best thing I can say about Dead Boy Detectives is that this is just fabulous entertainment. Funny, warm, witty, imaginative, caring. Honestly, the superlatives could keep flowing for pages. The entire cast play their roles to a tee. A special mention has to go to Lukas Gage’s supurrrlative1 Cat King and it’s a wonder that there’s any scenery left at the end after Jenn Lyon has so enthusiastically chewed through it.
Magnificent.
Poster Credit Where to Watch
1. Sorry, not sorry ↩
Tags: blog, film, animation, fantasy, 2026
Author: KickingK
Date: Tuesday February 17th, 2026
Nature vs Nurture vs a giant bloody Dragon
A heavenly decree is made that the Chaos Pearl is split into two and born as living embodiments of it's two halves, the Spirit Pearl and the Demon Orb, with the Demon Orb having a curse on it such that it will be destroyed by lightening in three years time. But a devious mishap means that the Spirit Pearl half is stolen and the Demon Orb half is born to kind and decent noble parents. Which means they have to try to help their son live as good a life as possible, trying to nuture the good in him over his demonic nature, before fate ends his life in three years time.
The plot may be a bit clunky, leaning on prophecy to make sense, but the way it pushes it's characters to make difficult moral decisions is superb. The weight on each character from the decisions they've made and the decisions they are going to have to make feel heavy and important. This extends to the antagonists as well who are believably characterised and motivated.
Unfortunately, the way most of this is communicated is by huge chunks of exposition. Almost the entire plot is explained by one character standing around and explaining it to another character. It's tolerable at the start when it's used to set everything in motion, but when it's still being used deep into the ending of the film it gets a bit wearing.
It's a real shame as when it stops telling and starts showing, it shows real heart. The best, most important scene of the film being a silent game of hacky sack on the beach. We don't need to be told what's happening, we can see it.
The animation is a curious mixture. On the one hand the amount of money and colour that is thrown at the screen is incredible. For anyone who wants to show off a large, high-end TV, this is one hell of a way to do it. But there's an odd lack of artistry. All the characters have that Dreamworks face that makes it look like they've been workshopped to deter as few people as possible. The environments have a stunning level of fidelity but no distinct artistic direction. The animation is vibrant and constantly in dynamic motion but lacks the subtle touches of the best animators.
The result is a kind of blandness which is compensated by a level of commitment to spectacle that is frequently jaw dropping.
The Dreamworks similarities doesn't end there. The side and background characters are pulled directly from the Dreamworks/Disney school of 'comedy sidekicks'. But they lack any kind of warmth or invention, one villager only existing to provide a disappointingly homophobic running joke. Despite the freshness (at least to my western eyes) of it's Chinese mythology settings, the template seems very familiar.
This is entertaining enough and I suspect the sheer velocity of it's action scenes will enthral any kids that watch it. But the amount of exposition got in the way of the story for me. I understood everything but didn't feel enough of it.
I've heard good things about the sequel though, so we'll be giving that a try soon enough.
Poster Credit Where to Watch
Tags: blog, film, animation, fantasy, recommended, 2026
Author: KickingK
Date: Saturday February 21st, 2026
I'll have a 屁 please Bob
Blimey. I had a lot of issues with the first film but I'm pleased to say that this film fixes pretty much all of them whilst retaining what worked.
The amount of exposition has been toned down. There's still a fair bit of explaining to be done, especially at the start, but it's paced more evenly throughout the film and gives way to the action when it needs to.
The Dreamworks/Disney template is mostly discarded, aside from a few residual characters and comedy scenes, and instead leans heavily into the genre of fantasy epic. And it is, indeed, epic.
Within the first fifteen minutes it's already made the battle of Helm's Deep look like waiting for Godot, by the end it's eclipsed Avenger's Endgame by a comfortable margin. It's no exaggeration to say that I've never seen a film so heavy on scale or spectacle before. I described the first film as 'jaw dropping', which I now recognise as a somewhat premature exclamation as I have no idea what body part 'dropping' would accurately describe the sequel.
This would all be worthless if this were all fur coat and no knickers. If the story doesn't hold up then it's just boring flashing lights. Thankfully, the excellent plotting is kept from the first film. Yes it's all contrived fantasy nonsense1 but it puts all the characters in difficult situations with difficult moral choices. Everybody behaves in ways that are believable, even if the magic and the physics aren't. And as a result when it comes to the important emotional scenes, they hit hard. One scene involving a curse and a death had me wincing in horror and sobbing in sympathy, both at the same time.
I'm not a huge fan this type of sweeping fantasy/historical action usually. I prefer films about characters, or ones with more intricate plots. But I'm happy to oblige when a film shows this much ambition and commitment.
There's probably a lot to be said about the importance of Ne Zha to Chinese cinema. With American soft power on the wane, and Chinese economic and cultural visibility on the rise, it's tempting to think of whether we're witnessing a shift in who's able to make the biggest blockbuster movies. I'm not remotely qualified to give my thoughts on that subject, but watching Ne Zha 2 definitely feels like a bar has been raised somewhere.
This is the most blockbusting of blockbusters I've ever seen.
Poster Credit Where to Watch
1. I know Ne Zha is based on ancient Chinese mythology but to this westerners ears it doesn't make any logical sense. But then it doesn't have to, I'm not watching a fantasy film for it's water tight internal logic. It feels right and that's what works.
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Tags: blog, tv, fantasy, comedy, essential, 2026
Author: KickingK
Date: Sunday February 15th, 2026
As the actress said to the alchemist
British pagan folklore rarely gets to feature prominently in British media, at least outside of the Arthurian knights and their derivatives. It sometimes finds a home in horror (like the films of Ben Wheatley or the pages of 2000AD) where the low budget, grimey nature and askew weirdness work well together.
Which means MacKenzie Crook is working, figuratively and literally, in a field of his own, making tv that is steeped in old English folklore. Sitcom the Detectorists was set in the ghosts and echoes of British peasant history. Family comedy/drama Worzel Gummidge positively dives into the ancient magic and superstitions of the British countryside. And now Crook is back with Small Prophets, set in English suburbia which, as anyone who's paid time and attention in such places will have noticed, has never quite managed to remove itself from the ancient pagan culture that birthed it.
Pierce Quigley, finally and deservedly getting a leading role, plays Michael Sleep, a man who's partner disappeared seven years ago and has effectively put his life on pause ever since. Waiting for her to come home, unable to grieve, unwilling to give up hope. Lauren Patel is Kacey, his younger work colleague who forms a bond with him over their shared dislike of their DIY store boss, played by Mackenzie Crook.
On the instructions of Michael's dad (Michael Palin at his jovial best) the pair set out to grow Homunculi in a garden shed, for the purpose of divinating the whereabouts of Michaels missing love.
The way the two of them form a friendship is beautifully drawn. His grief and her thwarted dreams are dealt with in two completely different ways, which it turns out is exactly what the other needs.
In fact, the entire cast of characters are superbly written and acted, each of them being represented as whole human beings with loves and flaws. Only Clive, Michael's neighbour, is portrayed as a complete arse. Never has bedroom decor been employed as such a devastating indictment on someone's character.
Having worked in retail management, I can attest that Crook's depiction of store manager Gordon is eerily accurate. That awkward juxtaposition between being in a position of authority and having almost no actual power is mined for comedy gold. Hopefully I wasn't quite such a dick about it but it was an enjoyably uncomfortable watch to see my profession portrayed so deftly.
Where it really starts to shine is with the introduction of the Homunculi themselves. They are weird, creepy, magisterial and etherial. Nothing like what you would expect and never fully explained, their presence asks profound moral questions. Is it right to grow them, to keep them, to use them? The characters are so wrapped up in their own problems that these questions are barely asked, let alone answered, so there's a deep sense of moral doubt that hangs over the show. A darkness and sadness that maybe the characters are digging themselves into a much deeper hole and an act of self preservation in the final episode could have some dark consequences in the next series. A series I am very eagerly awaiting.
Brilliantly funny, profoundly melancholic and unlike anything else being made right now. A wonder.
