The new animated feature Dragonkeeper is coming to UK Cinemas. “The fate of ancient China rests on the shoulders of one young girl, who must find the last remaining dragon egg and fulfil her destiny.”
An animated film about dragons? Sign me up immediately and give me a big bag of popcorn. There will never be a day I don’t react like that because these are two of my favourite things…animated movies and big scaly lizards that fly. Needless to say, I was pretty pleased to be given the opportunity to watch Dragonkeeper.
I do have some issues with it that I’ll go into shortly, but first I have to say that this is a beautiful, heart-wrenching story that is full of heroic characters, legendary monsters, plenty of action and an appropriately evil villain. The story is set in ancient China, where dragons are real and locked in cages, used for their body parts when they die.
At times it is quite dark, especially one moment where the young female protagonist watches from a hiding place as a group of men cut a dragon’s body into pieces. Luckily you don’t see that onscreen, but the moment that a young child sees that is heavy watching. The history of the story, told at the beginning, talks of necromancers who tried to take over everything before being defeated by the dragons.
But the dark parts are balanced out by the overarching message of the film, that in the darkest moments you can always find some hope, some light, some way for the goodness within to emanate out into the world. The balance between the two sides of darkness and light is something that is prevalent throughout the film, and often swings to extremes.
The issues I have with it are two-fold. The animation of the dragons, scenery and backgrounds is beautiful and detailed, and really helps elevate the story…but the characters seem to be done very simply and, honestly, not quite as well. The style is the same, in as much as it all fits together, but something about the people almost gives a slight uncanny valley feeling. It’s not bad but something isn’t quite right.
The other issue I have is with some of the voices chosen, and the performances therein. Bill Nighy is the voice of the dragon Danzi and has the gravitas you would expect from his voice. It’s great, but some of the other vocal performances just aren’t as strong and some of the accents (notably cockney-style accents) just seem really out of place. In all honesty, I would love to have watched this in Mandarin with English subtitles, but that’s just me.
Overall this is a really solid film. While it’s no How To Train Your Dragon I did have a really good time watching it. It’s definitely something I will watch again, on the big screen if I can…but if not for sure on streaming. I was heading for a 4 but the issues with animation and voices have to be taken into account. All that being said it’s getting a 3.5/5, with a recommendation to give it a go if you can.
Dragonkeeper will be in UK Cinemas from 27th September courtesy of Vertigo Releasing.
Dragons, scenery and backgrounds are beautiful and detailed
Movie title: Dragonkeeper (2024)
Movie description: The fate of ancient China rests on the shoulders of one young girl, who must find the last remaining dragon egg and fulfil her destiny.
Date published: September 16, 2024
Country: UK
Duration: 1h 38m
Director(s): Jianping Li, Salvador Simó
Actor(s): Bill Nighy, Naomi Yang,
Genre: Adventure, Animation, Fantasy
Summary
The animation of the dragons, scenery and backgrounds is beautiful and detailed, and really helps elevate the story.
