The Legend of Hei


I feel bad talking about this Chinese movie because it will probably never get a western release... But GOD! It is stunning! Probably my favorite movie this year! (this came out September 2019)

Legend of Hei is a prequel story to a web series called The Legend of Luo Xiaohei. Luckily, the web series can be found in many sites, including youtube. The creator of the web series was the director of the movie.


The movie tells the journey of XiaoHei, a magical black cat. Hei has a very negative impression of humans, after all, they did destroy the forest he was living in, forcing him to move to a city. His life changes after he gets stuck traveling with a human that previously attacked him and his newfound friends. Surprisingly the two grow close and Hei starts to think about how he feels about humans and humanity. There is a more or less war going on between humans and non-humans, and Hei has to decide which side he will take. The core idea of the movie is learning to understand others and accepting differences.








The animation in this movie is ridiculously smooth and the way fight scenes use space is done so well it makes other movies seem bland and boring. The backgrounds are painted and detailed throughout most of the movie but during short comedic scenes switch to just having 1 colored backgrounds, which is something the original web series did a lot. The character design also takes influence from the original web series. The designs aren't too complex and the thickness of the lineart is uniform.


I am not surprised in the least that this movie rose to be the current number 1 movie in theaters in China, beating Fast and Furious: Hobbs and Shaw. Those who don't know, the Fast and Furious franchise is HUGE in China. And yes, Legend of Hei is that good! I really do hope some company gets the rights to release this movie in the west, it really would be a shame for most of the world to miss this movie. The movie has currently has had limited viewings only in China and Japan.

If anyone is interested in checking out more about the character designs, backgrounds, and scenes, this websites have all kinds of things listed.
Legend of Hei

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