Little Door Gods

Hello, everybody, I am reviewing another movie for TIFF Kids. This time, it's a movie from China called Little Door Gods. It comes from a studio called Light Chaser animation and to be honest just from pictures I saw of it I can say I am intrigued. So, I am going to go over the movie and tell you what I thought of it. This  is my review of Little Door Gods.

Characters: The main characters of this movie are two brothers who are also Gods. Shen Tu and Yu Lei. Shen Tu is the main character and I do like him. He's very caring and nice. Yu Lei starts out as one of the two main heroes but eventually turns into the main villain which I thought was interesting. It's also one of the reasons I like him. Then there is Raindrop. She is a little girl from earth who works with her mother at their family's restaurant. Raindrop does fall into some of the cute little kid character cliches but other than that she's fine. There's Raindrops mother and owner of the restaurant Ying. She seems to care a lot about Raindrop and I like that a lot. Then there's the owner of the restaurant across the street from Ying and Raindrop (I can not remember his name. I apologize for that). He's not that interesting. He is basically every other cliched evil businessman character. And lastly, there's Nian the great evil beast. He's sort of every giant evil overlord ever. So not too interesting. There are some other characters like Colossus and the Earth God but I don't have too much to say about them.












Animation: The animation in this movie is pretty good. I like the character designs as each character looks unique. The background designs are a bit generic but I can overlook that. All the action sequences are actually done very well. So overall the animation in this movie is very good and much better than some other animated movies from America that I've seen.

Plot: The story of this movie is that the Door Gods Shen Tu and Yu Lei are facing unemployment as Gods. After hearing the story of a beast called the Nian Yu Lei decides to release it so that he can defeat it and the humans will remember the Gods. Yu Lei leaves to the human world where he has to destroy three seals in order to release the Nian. Shen Tu follows him into the human world. Along the way, Shen Tu befriends Raindrop and even helps out at the restaurant. I don't want to get too far into the plot because of spoilers. Overall I like the plot some bits I had trouble following. Although that probably has something to do with me not being able to read subtitles fast enough rather the plot itself. So overall the plot is pretty solid.


Conclusion: Little Door Gods is a great movie filled with memorable characters, an interesting plot, and great animation. I really don't have too many major complaints about this other than the subtitles go by a bit too fast. But that might just be me. So I do recommend this movie. So, if are in Toronto go see Little Door Gods. Remember, I will be reviewing more of these TIFF movies for the rest of the month. See you all next time.

The Amazing Wiplala

Hi there some of you may remember that last year I reviewed a bunch of movies from TIFF (Toronto International Film Festival) Kids as an official reviewer. This year I am doing the same thing. If you want to see any of these movies they are playing April 7th through 19th at the TIFF Bell Light Box. So lets kick off these films with The Amazing Wiplala.

We start in Amsterdam where we meet our main characters a boy named Johannes (Sasha Mylanus), his sister Nella (Kee Ketelaar), and their father (Peter Paul Muller). They are all very distant with each other but one day Johannes thinks he sees a Leprechaun and he tries to catch it but it is not a Leprechaun it is a tiny person named Wiplala (Geza Weisz) who has magic powers such as freezing Johannes' cat Fly. Johannes tries to get Wiplala to unfreeze the cat but Wiplala only ends up turning the cat to stone. Johannes takes care of Wiplala while Nella and his father are out looking for Fly. But Nella finds out about Wiplala and promises to keep a secret. Later that day their friend Arhtur Hollidee (Paul Kooij) finds Wiplala but Wiplala gets scared and turns Arthur into a giant statue. That night the father takes them to a fancy restaraunt but Johannes doesn't want to leave Wiplala by himself so he takes him to the restaurant. But Wiplala turns the family's oysters into sushi and hot dogs and they get in trouble with the manager. Wiplala shrinks them down to his size and they escape the restaurant and spend the night in a grocery store.


Wiplala says that there is an entrance to his world through their house and that another one of his people can make them back to normal size. The father sees on TV that the giant statue of Arthur has drawn quite a bit of attention and the city says it will be demolished if who ever made it doesn't step forward. They see that a boy in the shop has a remote control car so they steal it and use it to escape the shop and ride away. They crash into a dog and the father fractures his arm. They go to a hospital where they find a sick child named Lotje (Gabbi Lieve van Waveren) who helps them by showing them to a doctor who takes seeing small people surprisingly well and fixes the fathers arm. But the very next morning they find out that the statue of Arthur will be destroyed the next morning so they need to think of a good plan. They order a pizza and they try to sneak on the pizza delivery boy's bike. But only Wiplala gets on and the rest are left behind. The next morning Wiplala flies in on a pigeon and tries to fly to their house before Arthur is destroyed.

***SPOILER ALERT STOP HERE IF YOU DON'T WANT THE END RUINED***

The pigeon crashes and Wiplala brings a giant statue of the Atlas (Hans Kesting) to life. This scene doesn't serve much purpose to the plot other then some funny lines and some cliche motivational speech for Wiplala. The Atlas' speech gives Wiplala the will to un-shrink the family and they manage to get to their home and they turn Arthur back to normal. Wiplala says he must return home but before going he gives Johannes his jacket (which looks kind of like Michael Jackson's "Thriller" jacket the more I look at it). Everyone has a happy new year (oh yeah this is kind of a Christmas movie I forgot to mention). The End.

***SPOILERS OVER KEEP READING***

This movie has some good points and some bad points. The effects are actually really good and some of the scenes are pretty funny. But the plot is really cliched and feels like it was made in the 1990's instead of recently. This definitely one of those cases where the trailer is much better then the movie. But if it does sound like your kind of thing I guess you could like it but I personally didn't like it but there are still a lot more to go and I'm sure they will be better. See you next time I've got more TIFF to review

The Neverending Story II

Well sequel month is almost over and it looks like I am going to finish it off with Neverending Story II. So let's go back to Fantasia as I review The Neverending Story II and see if it should really be Neverending or if it should have ended.

The movie opens with Bastian (Johnathan Brandis) going to the book store from the first movie where he meets with Mr. Coreander (Thomas Hill) and asks if he can read the Neverending Story Book again Coreander says no but Bastian takes it anyway. Bastian tries to read it but finds out that a lot of the pages are blank and then he goes into the world of the book. Inside the book a villain called Xayide (Clarissa Burnt) wants to take over the world of Fantasia by using a machine that takes away one of Bastians memories whenever he makes a wish with his new powers. Xayide sends her minion Nimbly (Martin Umbach) to try and trick Bastian into making a wish. Xayide sends a small army into the city but Bastian manages to defeat them. Bastian manages to contact the Childlike Empress (Alexandra Johnes) who tell Bastian that he needs to rescue her from Xayide. Bastian gets the help of Atreyu (Kenny Morrison) and Falkor (Donald Arthur) and they set off to find Xayide.




Bastian camps outside Xayide's fortress and try to figure out a plan to get inside. Meanwhile back in the real world Bastian's father (John Wesley Shipp) finds the book and takes it to Mr. Coreander but finds that most of the pages in the book are blank. They distract the guards and Bastian wishes for a way to climb up into the fortress. They corner Xayide and ask her where the Childlike Empress is. Xayide says she will tell them if she takes them to Silver City. Xayide and her minions take a carriage to the city and use the fact that Bastian is slowly using his memories to try and manipulate him into thinking that Ateyu and Falkor are against him and that he can trust her. Bastian and Atreyu get into a fight and Bastian accidentally pushes Atreyu off of a cliff Falkor carries Atreyu away and leaves Bastian with Xayide. Bastians runs away to find Atreyu and Falkor but Xayide and her minions are hot on his trail.

***SPOILER ALERT STOP HERE IF YOU DON'T WANT THE END RUINED***

Bastian can only make two more wishes before he doesn't remember anything. Bastian finds Falkor and Atreyu but finds that Atreyu is dead. He uses a wish to bring him back to life. Back in the real world Bastians father returns to the bookstore to find that whole store has vanished into thin air. Xayide catches up to them but Bastian uses his last wish to wish that Xayide has a heart which ends up making her explode. Bastian saves The Childlike Empress and all of Fantasia. Bastian returns
home to his father who now knows all about the Neverending Story. The End.

***SPOILERS OVER KEEP READING***

This wasn't that good of a sequel. The acting isn't that good and the plot seems a bit overdone. But the sets and make up is quite impressive. So it's a good looking movie just not a good movie plot wise. But if you think you might like it check it out it's still better then the third one. See you all next time.

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

If you remember a while back, I reviewed the first Harry Potter movie, I like the first one so let's see if the second one is any better. Little side note, I am now going back to doing one review a week because it was too hard to do two a week. So let's head off to Hogwarts as I review Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.

We start at Harry's (Daniel Radcliffe) home where his step family, the Vernon's, are having guests over for dinner and they don't want Harry and his magic ruining anything. So they tell him to keep in his room while they have guests over. But Harry discovers a House Elf named Dobby (Toby Jones) in his room warning him to not go to Hogwarts. Harry says he wants to go to Hogwarts and Dobby has no choice but to drop a cake on the head of one of guests and make it look like Harry did it. This causes his family to forbid him from going back to Hogwarts and lock him in his room. But luckily Ron (Rubert Grint) breaks Harry out of his house using a flying car and takes him to his house. When we get to Ron's house we find that Ron's sister Ginny (Bonnie Wright) is going to Hogwarts. Harry stays there and he gets a message from the school telling him what books to buy. They go to Diagon Alley where they go to a bookshop where a famous wizard named Gilderoy Lockhart (Kenneth Branaph) who turns out will be the new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher at Hogwarts. They buy the books and we cut to a few month later where they are trying to make it to the train to Hogwarts. But some sort of magical barrier is keeping Ron and Harry from getting on the train. So they use the Flying car from before to fly to Hogwarts but end up crashing it and the car drives itself off into the woods. Harry and Ron get lucky and don't end up getting expelled.

 School seems to be going normally until one day the resident bully Draco Malfoy (Tom Felton) insults Harry's friend Hermione (Emma Watson) and Ron tries to cast a spell on Malfoy but it backfires and everyone ends up getting a detention. Harry's detention is helping Professor Lockhart answer his fan mail but on his way back to his dorm he comes across the cat Mrs. Norris who has been petrified with some cryptic text on the wall next to it. This causes quite a big panic as you may imagine but that doesn't stop Harry and his team from playing Quitich. When one of balls is possessed it tries to attack Harry and he ends up falling to the ground and breaking his arm. Lockhart tries to heal his arm but ends up making all the bones in his in his arm vanish. That night a student turns up petrified just like the cat did and people are starting to worry. With everything going badly Lockhart starts self defence classes but one of the students summons a snake and Harry finds a way to talk to it which freaks everyone out and makes them think he might be the one petrifying everyone. It also doesn't help that two more people have been petrified. Harry finds a mysterious Diary that apparently has the mind of a former student in it. Harry sees through the memories of the student that the same thing happened 50 years ago and that Hagrid was the one behind it which is why he got expelled. Harry and Ron go to talk to Hagrid and he tells them to "Follow the spiders". They follow some spiders into the forest where they see a giant spider that used to be Hagrid's pet. But the spiders says that he isn't the monster in the school and he tries to eat Ron and Harry. They escape from him and the next day they find out that Hermione has also been Petrified.

***SPOILER ALERTS TOP HERE IF YOU DON'T WANT THE END RUINED***

They find a piece of paper in Hermione's hand which says that the monster attacking everyone is a basilisk which is a snake monster. Ron and Harry find out that Ron's sister Ginny was taken into the Basilisks lair called the Chamber of Secrets. They manage to find the entrance to the chamber and go into it. Ron is separated from Harry due to a cave in but he tells Harry to find his sister. Harry finds her and discovers the person who is in control of the basilisk is Tom Riddle. It turns out through some sort of spell he preserved his 16 year old mind inside the book and used the spell to posses Ginny to do his work. Riddle also reveals that he grew up to be Voldemort AKA the man who killed Harry's parents. Riddle releases the Basilisk but Harry defeats it and saves Ginny. They escape and they are all rewarded for defeating the Basilisk. The End.

***SPOILERS OVER KEEP READING***

This was a great sequel to the first Harry Potter. The special effects are pretty good and so is the acting I love all the different details in the sets. It is fun movie all the way through. I recommend this as a fun adventure movie. See you next time.