Director – Li Jianping, Salvador Simó – 2023 – Spain, China – Cert. PG – 98m
****
Faced by powerful forces of empire and a ruthless traitor, a girl must accompany an old dragon to ensure the survival of its egg – out in UK cinemas on Friday, September 27th
Ancient China. As revealed in a voice-over and an ancient, panoramic, wall-hanging scroll, the empire of the humans united with the dragons to successfully defeat necromancy. But then, the Emperor turned on the dragons, hunting them.
A long time after these events have occurred, a hard-nosed trader Master Lan (voice in the English language version: Tony Jayawardena) and his wallas are receiving some goods at a trading post when they stumble upon an abandoned baby girl. One of the wallas notices strange, blue-lit rocks floating near the baby. The group take the girl back across mountain ranges and vast plains to their small town.
Around eight years later, Ping (voice: Mayalinee Griffith) is living in that town, in the care of an old lady Lao Ma (voice: Sarah Lam), and feeding her pet rat Hua Hua (non-dialogue voice: Jonathan David Mellors) who lives in a hole in a storehouse and often goes with her in her jacket or any container or bag she might be carrying.
Far away in a cave, the necromancer Diao (voice: Anthony Howell) is unable to prevent his mother (voice: Jacqueline Chan) from dying of old age.
Lao Ma often carries a huge wide basket of food beside Master Lan and his wallas up the steep road through the middle of the town to the town’s Honoured Guests. One day, when she collapses, the little girl insists on taking her place and, despite bets to the contrary by the wallas against their master, succeeds in transporting the food to the top where the food is dropped through the big, circular opening to the Honoured Guests below. Hua Hua, who has been hiding in the basket, is dropped too, so when left alone, Ping fetches some rope and climbs down to rescue him.
Down below, she meets the Honoured Guests – two dragons: Lu Yu (voice: Beth Chambers) and Long Danzi (voice: Bill Nighy) who have been incarcerated in an enormous, purpose-built dungeon. They have been waiting for her – indeed, they saw to it that she would fall into Master Lan’s hands years ago – and entrust her with their blue egg, as she alone will be able to help the infant dragon inside come out when the right time arrives. The dragons help the girl (and with her the rat) back up to her dangling rope. Lu Yu is dying.
At this point, the necromancer Diao plus a detachment of the Imperial Guard under Captain Kwan (voice: Andrew Leung) arrive in the town with orders to take Long Danzi back to the Emperor. Ping, growing in independence and confidence, doesn’t want Danzi to leave, but Diao threatens to kill her unless the dragon enters a cage. This looks like it’s going to work, but then Danzi leaves the cage and is shot through the wing as he flies upwards. He is wounded but free. Ping, on the other hand, is rendered unconscious by a flying insect of Diao’s, allowing him to relieve her of the egg, “the Pearl of Longevity”. There is a degree of tension between the necromancer and the Captain of the Guard, as Kwan insists Diao hand him the Pearl for safe keeping. The party return to the Imperial Court.
Ping finds herself travelling cross-country with Danzi to retrieve the egg. She is able to hear him thinking verbally, and he her. He teaches her about Qi, the energy that binds all things together, and that she must learn to control it. They journey on, crossing a perilous rope bridge, towards the Imperial Court where Ping must retrieve the egg and see the dragon inside safely into the world.
But first, they must contend with Diao, who with the help of his much put-upon assistant Wang Chao (voice: Bill Bailey) has built a chamber in which he plans to use the “the Pearl of Longevity” to make himself immortal, having retrieved the artefact too late to perform this feat for his now dead mother. But not before the Emperor (voice: Paul McEwan) has warned him that it would be unwise to wish for immortality, as that state is best granted to those who do not wilfully desire it. Clearly, the necromancer’s designs are very different from those of the Emperor.
Unlike most animated features aimed at the family audience, this largely eschews humour and wisecracking characters, although the heroine’s (non-talking) pet rat provides a degree of light relief from the overall adventure. Otherwise, this is a vision of a harsh land with imperially sanctioned local dignitaries such as Master Lam using their position to cruelly lord it over those beneath them, while further up the pecking order ta similarly minded necromancer is plotting to usurp the Emperor. The latter doesn’t play a major role, and nor does his son the Prince (voice: Felix Rosen), a spoiled child lacking his father’s wisdom who Ping briefly finds herself up against later on.
The pacing throughout is measured and slow, which may fail to engage those expecting the more deliberately attention-grabbing action or comedy template of animation deployed by much contemporary Hollywood and similar. This writer, however, found this very different approach something of a breath of fresh air as it gives the two central characters, the girl and the dragon (and, at times, the girl’s pet rat) space to breathe. Parts of the film recall the pleasures of going on a long journey with a friend; not exactly a road movie, because in places the dragon flies across the skies, and there is the plot business with the egg / pearl to be resolved at the end once the pair arrive at the Imperial Court and surrounding palace and environs, including the necromancer’s cave.
The 3D-rendered computer animation is a step up from the drawn animation of Salvador Simó’s animated drama Buñuel in the Labyrinth of the Turtles(2018), and clearly cost a lot more to make, with all the money visible on the screen. The landscapes are similarly dour and downbeat, often with muted colours, with the vast canvas of the province of China allowing for an epic feel which couldn’t be achieved in any representation of impoverished, rural peasant Spain.
It’s a portrayal of a much wider, less parochial society, and – as such – couldn’t be more different. There’s a real feeling for the way different social types live – the orphaned girl in a hovel with the old woman looking after her; the Emperor and the Prince in the vast, spacious, imperial palace of innumerable rooms; the necromancer in his vast cave free of regulation or prying eyes. One awe-inspiring moment has the girl enter the palace via its rooftops and drop about twenty feet to the next level down: for a moment, I thought my heart was going to stop – and this is animation, not live action, which gives some idea of just how involving this is if you can get on its wavelength.
The whole is based on the first of six (seven, if you include the prequel) fantasy novels by Australian author Carole Wilkinson. The script, by Wilkinson herself and various writers from Spain and China, simplifies the plot of the novel a great deal, but in a way that works very effectively for a 90+ minute movie. Hopefully, this has been done in a way that the other books can be similarly tackled. The environments and characters are visually well-designed, and the animation itself well done. When the dragon walks on land, it walks the way you’ve always wanted to see a Chinese dragon walk, with its body forming a huge curve into the air between its two sets of legs. Composer Arturo Cardelús contributes a memorable, orchestral score. In short, a treat.
The UK release is of the English dub, which includes British rather than American voices, some of them, very noticeably British. It’s a more than adequate dub, with Nighy’s kindly dragon and Griffith’s young heroine the standouts. There is also a Spanish dub and (presumably) a Chinese one too: it would be nice if all three dubs were on the UK Blu-ray / DVD when they come out, not to mention streaming services, with removable subtitles where appropriate.
Dragonkeeperis out in cinemas in the UK on Friday, September 27th.
Trailer: