Another World for Hong Kong Animation

Whether or not he expected to, Tommy Ng Kai-chung is on the verge of transforming Hong Kong’s film sector. The animator is basking in the glow of his freshly released debut, Another World (世外), which scored nearly HK$5 million since opening on October 29. Those may not be Twilight of the Warriors dollars but it’s a strong showing for an adult animation in limited release up against the juggernaut Japanese anime Chainsaw Man.

Transforming may be hyperbole, but it’s notable in a city where the last home grown feature animation to land was 2019’s The Great Detective Sherlock Holmes – The Greatest Jail Breaker and, before that, 2003’s My Life as McDull (2003), both by director Toe Yuen Kin-to. The next one? Yuen’s A Mighty Adventure. Ng should perhaps be considered someone who’s broadening the animation scene. In reality, plenty of animation is produced by Hong Kong filmmakers, and the shorts sector is relatively healthy. Another World, however, was also designed as foundational IP for other films, games and merchandise.

At the helm is director Ng, born and raised in Hong Kong. Like most locals, he was surrounded by Japanese anime growing up, but he didn’t really take animation seriously until it was time to decide on where to go to university. He settled on Hong Kong City University’s School of Creative Media, which was roughly the same time he realised he wanted to make films.

“I’d always preferred live action films to animation,” he says. “Honestly, I’m not a frequent viewer of seasonal anime series,” Ng begins, referring to high profile shows like Mobile Suit Gundam SEED and Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba, which dominate television and streaming platforms for weeks at a time. “But if I do watch one, I’ll watch the theatrical version. Japanese and Korean films have had a significant influence on me, and Japanese animation is a major part of that.” 

In terms of major influences, Ng points to the realism of Lee Chang-dong (Oasis, Burning), the mise-en-scène of Park Chan-wook (No Other Choice), the fantasy of Satoshi Kon (Perfect Blue, Paprika), and what he describes as “Shuji Terayama’s madness,” the avant-garde poet, artist and filmmaker being renowned for his provocative challenges of tradition and authority. “During my school years, I spent time making films with friends, so I wasn’t drawing every day,” says Ng. “I learnt a lot of techniques on sets, which helped me think more deeply about animation.

Still of Another World by Anthony Ng Kai-chung – Courtesy Edko Films

The power of animation

Ng started his career working as an animator in other media and making waves for his short films, among them Modin (2012), Tale of Rebellious Stone (2013) and Shear Marks (2015), eventually founding his own animation studio, Point Five Creations in 2018. From Point Five he works in advertising and contributes to feature films such the 2017 horror-comedy Zombiology: Enjoy Yourself Tonight – which starred The Narrow Road’s Louis Cheung Kai-chung.

“I really wanted to create [films] like Kon and Makoto Shinkai’s,” he recalls, citing Shinkai’s 5 Centimeters per Second as a landmark in his film education, though it came well after he graduated from the Chinese University of Hong Kong in 2003. “I felt the power of animated films, and I really hoped to have the ability to create such moving work in the future.”

That opportunity arose in 2018 when producer Polly Yeung Po-man introduced Ng to Naka Saijo’s 2015 fantasy novel Sennenki: Thousand-Year Journey of an Oni and the adaptation she was planning with co-producer Chan Gin-kai. At the time Ng didn’t consider whether the material was the right fit for him because he was eager to try his hand on a large scale animated project, not just a commercial or music video. “But this story happened to align with my preferred themes, particularly those of reincarnation, so I decided to help,” he says.

A long process

All over the world, the current production environment is one marked by long, arduous roads. Gints Zilbalodis’s Oscar-winning Flow was over five years in the making, and Phil Tippett’s Mad God took eight years — not including the 20 he shelved it for in 1993; Pixar routinely spends five years on a feature. Another World clocks in at almost seven. 

Year one saw Ng put most of his time into a short film version funded by the Animation Support Program that effectively worked as a calling card in 2019. That was followed by three years of fundraising that resulted in a grant from the Hong Kong-Asia Film Financing Forum, and investment from the Cultural and Creative Industries Development Agency, Full Colour Limited from Hong Kong, Saudi Arabia-based AnimeKey, TMZ Media in China, Japan’s Digital Hollywood University and the Film Development Council of the Philippines.

Production began in 2022 on seamlessly merged hand-drawn 2D and 3D images, vividly rendered as anamorphic wide screen (2.39:1) in bright primary colours. Ng notes the marriage of 2D and 3D is now standard practice in animation thanks to its ability to transcend animation’s limitations, such as with camera movement. Using 3D modelling allowed Ng to craft cinematic sequences of dynamic movement that make the story’s darkest, most violent passages all the more affecting, as well as to maximise the film’s HK$25 million budget. 

Some might argue the film’s lush and varied visuals are a little too heavily influenced by anime, and that Ng missed an opportunity to pave the way for a uniquely Hong Kong animation aesthetic. Gudo resembles traditional Japanese yokai and the physicality of the human characters would not be out of place in any manga-based film. Ng is quick to point out a larger context — as well as defend Hong Kong storytelling as it is. Once, after attending a film festival in Korea where local audiences didn’t see Park Chan-wook’s work as typically Korean, Ng began thinking about where defining visual culture comes from. He argues it cannot be deliberately constructed; it is found in the accumulation of continuous creation.

“Hong Kong hasn’t had many opportunities to produce feature-length animated films, making it difficult to have sufficient data to support what kind of style it is,” he says. “I don’t believe that simply incorporating elements like Hong Kong buildings would define Hong Kong animation. I think the style lies in the spirit and philosophy behind our stories; what kind of society has trained us to think this way and to come up with such stories. Growing up, I absorbed many different cultural and religious ideas, and our team simply translated these ideas into animation, which is our storytelling style.”

Rooted in Buddhist philosophy

Another World had its world premiere at the prestigious Annecy International Animation Film Festival in June — the first Hong Kong animation to screen there since McDull. It screened at the Hawai’i International Film Festival in October, and American boutique distributor GKIDS, known for shepherding films by Mamoru Hosoda and Hayao Miyazaki to success, recently bought the rights for North America. The film is also in the running for an adapted screenplay prize at the 62nd Golden Horse Awards on November 22 — and for animated feature against Yuen’s recent work.

Another World begins with spirit guide Gudo (voiced by The Lyricist Wannabe’s Chung Suet-ying) trying to lead the recently deceased young girl Yuri (Christy Choi Hiu-tung) to the next life. Yuri is resistant, though, as she’s looking for her lost little brother, and more crucially she doesn’t realise at first that she’s dead. As the duo travels through the afterlife in a series of luminous surreal landscapes, Gudo becomes more and more fascinated with humanity and its myriad emotions, and comes to understand how easy it is to allow our innate “seed of evil” to blossom. The constant tension between right and wrong, good and evil propels the narrative in Another World and gives it its universal power and currency for a time of heightened anger and despair. 

That tension in Yuri also threatens to become a world-ending event. The seed of evil turns us into monsters — pure wrath — and Yuri’s monster is particularly dangerous. During the course of their adventures, Gudo and Yuri encounter various characters that find themselves in situations that test their limits of pain, sorrow and tolerance. Goran (Yeung Nga-man) is the Princess of Flower City who turns into a tyrant after the death of her father the King and treason from among his generals; Keung (Will Or Wai-lam) is a farmer forced to give up much of its harvest to the ruling class and the army; Ying (Choi again) and Nana (Chiang Nga-sze) are sisters being exploited at a factory along with dozens of other workers. The injustices test Gudo and Yuri as well, which is why the afterlife Goddess Mira (Kay Tse On-kei) charges her monster-hunting bodyguard Dark Knight (Cheung) with escorting them on their mission.

In adapting Saijo’s book, Ng leans into its Buddhist philosophy and concepts of reincarnation, and the film is rich with its tenets and iconography. But Another World is an adult film; it’s not a cartoon for the whole family, and the brilliantly layered screenplay touches on issues of grief and rage, how those emotions can corrupt us, and how forgiveness and compassion are the only true balms. It’s these universal ideas that make the film so accessible as well as the ones Ng hopes audiences will take away.

“Polly and I wanted to tell a story about forgiving oneself and learning to let go,” he explains. “We understand that concept can sometimes ignore human nature. Some may question why, when oppression weighs heavily on our hearts, that’s the only option we’re given. But what we want to say is, we need to look at the bigger picture.” 

As Ng sees it, none of us needs to believe in reincarnation to do good and have a positive impact down the road; choices made today are the butterfly effect culmination of choices in the past. “We both hope that after seeing the film viewers will understand this point, that we shouldn’t be too attached to failure,” says Ng. “Greater support comes from doing good. Because you may not be able to rewrite the present, but you will definitely have a significant impact on the future.”

Another World is in cinemas now.