Well, Sang Kancil was our answer, our equivalent to those characters.
And the Sang Kancil of this film is not it!
I hardly saw any wit and wisdom from this famed mouse-deer. This Sang Kancil, is out for blood after seeing his mother killed by some dark force (like literally). It's out for vengeance and that is what the plot of this whole damned film about. There are hardly any showcase of brilliant, and often hilarious wits and wisdom that we expect from the Sang Kancil that I talked about earlier
This one is a bloodthirsty sonofabitch who would trick anyone to get his way and not in any means that can be evaluated as being clever or brilliant. He is just good strategist, that's about it.
And the level of bloodthirstiness. This 2.5D(?) animation is filled blood and gore. Yes, you actually see pool of blood among the bodies (especially the poor rabbits) strewn over, The bad buys (a panther) is portrayed as vicious, violent and vile – the film-makers went a bit overboard to portray him as the sadistic most meanest mofo in the flick, hell-bent in taking over the jungle (there is a colonialism subtext going on, or I am reading too much into the film?).
The animation is fine, by Malaysian standard at least, though it seems that they did borrow heavily from the Disney stock characters and peppered it with some Anime stuff. The battle scenes are pretty well done, I especially liked the fight between the panther and the crock – quite intense actually - until of course, when it gets gory.
Yet, very few characters are memorable. The lead baddie, the panther would probably the deadliest bad guy in the history of Malaysian cinema. Most would like the old Sifu character, a squirrel that's pretty nifty with footwork and was probably funny in three occasions. The rest are forgettable (oh, I also like the fact that in the crocodile gang, the animators included variations, like including alligators and gharials as well).
Things could have sailed smoothly but for the climactic battle that got too violent, too gory and too bloody for a film of this nature – it received a P12 classification – meaning kids below 12 can watch it with parents' guidance. Well, I tell ya this – some can be traumatised seeing the cute fluffy animals' body strewn with blood all over the place. The rating is wrong. The film-makers didn't know where to draw the line.
Plus the voice acting is still at the RTM Drama Minggu Ini or, those early days dubbed Japanese animation standard. Pretty poor, I tell ya. But our country is not abundant with great onscreen talents, and I am sure it reflects on the behind the scene ones too. What to do. We do lots of biting more than what we can chew in this industry.
Finally, it makes sad that they did not adapt fully the actual Sang Kancil mythology to the screen. It would have been an awesome entertainment, instead of some dark Snyder-verse influenced shit they came up with here. Sad.
