Xiaopeng Tian’s 3D animation is a maximalist fever dream.

Rendered in super saturated colour and with the addition of 3-D glasses, the story swirls like a kaleidoscope, and barely takes a breath.

Young San Su (Tingwen Wang) is overlooked by her father and stepmother who only have eyes for her baby brother. Her mother is somewhere else, and for an unexplained reason, has no time even to reply to her text messages.

Taken on an ocean cruise, San Su falls overboard and finds a phantasmagorical deep sea restaurant run by the eccentric Nan He (Su Xin). The customers are fish, the cooks are walruses and the helpers are very cute otters.

The story swirls frenetically in an assault of a rainbow colour and detail. It’s like every Studio Ghibli film put into a blender with colour saturation turned up to 11. It’s hard to keep track of the narrative or engage with the characters within the maelstrom.

It eventually slows into something of a dramatic arc and spends the third act adding some emotion through flashback and a lifting of the curtain so we understand the pathos of San Su and Nan He.

It almost works, but I was left feeling like I had eaten a lot of sugar.

Director: Xiaopeng Tian
Origin: China (2023)
Language: Mandarin with English subtitles
Genre: Animation

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