Despite room for improvement in the script, Tian Xiaopeng’s “Deep Sea” brings Chinese animation to a whole new level
As Shenxiu wakes one morning from uneasy dreams, she finds herself transported to the middle of a vast sea, floating on a giant inflatable duck. This is the beginning of writer-director Tian Xiaopeng’s new animated film—and the least miraculous part of its young protagonist’s journey.
The story of Deep Sea follows Shenxiu, a depressed young girl abandoned by her mother and neglected by her father who’s remarried and had a son. During a cruise with her father’s new family, a sea spirit brings her into a dreamy underwater world full of life and color and on board the Deep Sea submarine restaurant where she meets its clownish head chef, Nanhe, and his adorable crew of sea otters and walruses.
The sea spirit seems to possess both the solution to saving Nanhe’s debt-ridden business—the experimental menu offering oyster ice creams and chocolate sausages might not be for everyone, after all—and the knowledge of Shenxiu’s mother’s whereabouts. But the magical creature escapes and the motley crew of seafarers embark on a perilous journey to its home, all while being threatened by a slimy red monster that engulfs everything in its path.
Amarsanaa Battulga is a Shanghai-based film critic, researcher, and associate editor of ChinaNauts, an online magazine on contemporary China. When he is not watching, researching, or writing about films, he enjoys playing board games, practicing classical Mongolian, and thinking about going to the gym. He cannot ride a horse.
