Not an animation film you would expect

Rating: 9/10 (31 May 2014)

I usually don't watch animation films since I always feel they are for kids even they might portray some adult points of views. However, they are just not deep enough to worth spending time on. Surprisingly, I watched this film twice. Just like Roger Ebert's review about how this movie was made, it leaves the room for the audience to process without telling everything out front. I always believe graphic scenes only applied necessarily to tell stories. A lot of films use them to exploit audience. This is definitely not the one. My parents grew up in Taiwan under Japanese ruling in WWII. I think the experiences of their childhood changed their views of lives profoundly. The scare and shortage of materials threatened their survival. So they are not all kind and nice to others. Competitions are common among people and even in families. I may say majorities of their generation are dysfunctional. Even when the environments present no threats to their livelihood anymore, they still could not abandon their intuitions. This movie contrived the impacts of wars truly. It should be seen by leaders in those aggression regimes. They might think twice to wage wars against others.