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Movies Animation Features

Tad and the Magic Lamp
(Tadeo Jones
y la Lámpara Maravillosa)

Tad and the Magic Lamp
(Tadeo Jones y la Lámpara Maravillosa)

Director – Enrique Gato – 2026 – Spain – Cert. U – 94m

***1/2

In search of Aladdin’s lamp with a powerful villain in hot pursuit, Tad and his companions are transported back in time to (the) Mummy’s ancient, South American civilization – out in UK cinemas on Friday, October 23rd

Gato’s fourth instalment of the Tad the Lost Explorer franchise starts off in London with Tad pursuing a baby through the clockwork mechanisms of Big Ben, a sequence which recalls the climactic sequence of Disney’s Basil, the Great Mouse Detective (Ron Clements, Burny Mattinson, Dave Michener, Juhn Musker, 1986). It turns out that the baby is his and partner Sara’s, and that Tad is engaged in parenting chores while she is out and about with the Egyptian princess researching the magic lamp reputed to belong to Aladdin and rumoured to be in a room in Buckingham Palace unbeknownst to its royal occupants and accessible via a secret passage.

Entry to the secret passage is though a secret door in a pub, which can only be opened with a special dart which Sara tracks down in a Notting Hill antique shop.… Read the rest

Categories
Movies Animation Features

Chang’an
(Chang’an San Wan Li,
长安三万里,
lit. 3 000 Miles from Chang’an)

Chang’an
(Chang’an San Wan Li, 长安三万里,
lit. 3 000 Miles from Chang’an)

Directors – Xie Junwei, Zou Jing – 2023 – China – Cert. 12a – 168m

****

General Gao Shi of the Tang dynasty recounts his life, his struggle to become a poet and his friendship with Li Bai, a more renowned poet – animated epic is out in UK cinemas on Friday, February 28th

Set roughly halfway through the Tang dynasty (618-907 A.D.), this lengthy, animated epic starts off like an historical war movie in the vein of the live action Red Cliff (John Woo, 2008, 2009) but swiftly morphs into something else entirely as this initial narrative about the capture and interrogation of an enemy soldier turns into a frame story – which is rather more than that, popping up repeatedly throughout the narrative with the frame story’s resolution taking centre stage towards the end of the proceedings. Even this is deceptive; while military strategy and conflict is covered, the narrative is far less interested in that than in the overall life of main protagonist and minor poet Gao Shi, his meetings and friendship through the years with secondary character and major poet Li Bai, and the wider poetry of the period.… Read the rest