Kuiba I (2011) Review
When a representative from Vasoon Animation contacted us with an opportunity to watch Kuiba I (魁拔) (pronounced “kwee-ba”), I was certainly intrigued as I had not seen any Chinese anime (or donghua / 動畫) before. Having seen some good South Korean anime (or manhwa-yeonghwa / 만화 영화) in the past I know that Japan isn’t the exclusive home of great Asian animation, so I went into it with an open mind.
Most of Kuiba I‘s aspects are highly reminiscent of Dragon Ball, with some Naruto, Avatar, and Evangelion thrown in for good measure. The narrative’s uncanny resemblance to that of Dragon Ball can be in part explained by the fact that both stories borrow heavily from the Chinese legend “Journey to the West”, but the similarities in animation style and theme are less excusable. The story, after a very fast-paced, busy, and confusing intro boils down to a powerful apocalypse-bringing person appearing once every 333 years named Kuiba. A bunch of god-like un-aging people in starships wait around for its appearance at every one of these intervals to attempt to blast the Kuiba out of existence before it can even grow up. Wouldn’t you know it, they failed at destroying him this time and thus a monkey-boy named Manji is “born/hatched” with no inkling that he is supposed to be the world’s destroyer. He is adopted and raised as a scrappy but incompetent fighter by a ronin-like man named Master Man and they more or less spend their days trying to make a name for themselves as warriors oblivious to Manji’s dark destiny and the group of people waiting for him on a distant island that want to assist him in bringing about the apocalypse.
The movie is called Kuiba I because it is only the first of a series of five movies that are projected to release every year or so from Vasoon. Due to the fact that this movie only represents 1/5 of the story it spends most of its 80 minutes plodding through exposition and establishing concepts like the fighting style of choice for the characters called “pulsecraft” where the fighters open various channels (represented by floating blue circles) around their bodies to harness the “pulse” around them and form it into attacks. This concept hearkens greatly to the concepts of chi and chakra as adapted in countless other animes, but serves its purpose well enough in practice.
The animation in Kuiba I doesn’t do much to help the slow story either. The simple animation is accompanied by occasional mid-quality CG and it gives off more of the feel of a lower-budget anime TV series than what is expected from large scale film productions these days. Had this movie come out 10-15 years ago it’s animation would have been considered quite decent for a movie, but by today’s standards it still falls quite short.
With the slower pace, aged animation, and five-part nature I can’t help but feel that Kuiba would have been better formatted as a TV series or OVA miniseries instead of a full-blown five theatrical movie extravaganza. With it’s pacing, animation, and format issues considered, though, I didn’t end up hating Kuiba I.
The characters of Manji and Master Man, while still a little flat at this juncture, show enough likable characteristics that you do genuinely end up caring about what happens to them by the truncated end of Kuiba I. As previously mentioned, a lot of Kuiba I‘s aspects are blatantly picked and assimilated from various older anime series, but there are enough original ideas in the mix to keep it on this side of crossing the line into being a farce. When all was said and done I ended up wanting more Kuiba and am eagerly awaiting the release of Kuiba II to see where the story goes.
Kuiba I, as it stands, represents potential that has yet to be fully realized. If Vasoon Animation can learn from some of their missteps with the first entry (and there’s no reason to assume that they won’t) and apply those lessons to the upcoming entries in the Kuiba movie series it could very well end up being one of the better movie series out there. Overall, I’m holding off on final judgement on inclusion in our Movie Guide until I’m able to see more of Kuiba, so stay tuned for more reviews of this promising donghua movie series.
