Leafie - La storia di un amore

I watched this wonderful Korean animation with my mum and by the end we were both uncontrollably crying.

A short little plot of the movie: A hen escapes the barn and somehow becomes the 'mother' to a duckling, they bond beautifully but later their differences create tension and conflict.

This movie has a nice soundtrack and the vibrant colours and settings of nature are really appropriate for a kids movie but this is so much more!

The pictures sort of have an anime feel in the action scenes and is usually accompanied by music for highly emotional scenes. It's hard not to feel your heart sink at these moments. If you want your kids to watch it with you then be warned: there will be tears so be careful not to take the little little ones so that they aren't wailing about how sad and yet beautiful the ending is.

The post-movie feelings are hard to describe because you can't help feel that it should've ended better in terms of the story line but I think that's what the real preciousness of the movie is, it really captures the rareness of ultimate love and sacrifice that you really have to appreciate what happens.

A definite must-watch and I assure you watching it as a family is incredible.

Anyone who ever had, or ever was a loving mother owes it to him or herself to watch this masterpiece of Korean animation.

This is definitely one of the most touching, poignant movie I've ever had the pleasure to see. It will hit straight into your heart and awoken feelings you forgot you could experience.

Everything from the vibrant art style, flawless animation, well structured narrative, good balance of humor and drama and brilliantly orchestrated score brings this movie to a state of perfection few other animated features have achieved before.

Little warning to parents: Leafie deals with some pretty heavy stuff. I mean, you should definitely go watch it with your older kids, but the younger ones should probably sit this one out. It was, after all, based on a book for preteens and contains scenes of violence (don't worry, nothing too graphic, and this is definitely NOT one of those hyper-violent mindless summer blockbuster) and some heavy emotional investment that might not be suitable to younger audiences.

In brief: I recommend Leafie heartily to everyone, it's a definitive must-watch, but be ready to cry a river.

The first 10 minutes dubbed was ridiculous compared to the first 10 minutes of subbed. I recommend watching the original Korean language with subtitles.

The movie was serious and good up until the strange otter character decided to show up. Things just get stupid after that.

I put this on for my not-quite-3-year-old son.

Within the first five minutes, it features:

• The horrors of industrial chicken farming, including filth, depressed chickens, and mass death of chickens.
• A wheelbarrow of corpses (of chickens), with the protagonist tossed on top.
• A mass grave (of chickens).
• A homcidal animal attack (which, okay, animal stories always have these).
• A physically and verbally abusive patriarchal male figure (a rooster) attacking the protagonist... and then, when she stands up to him, he beats her down again and her resistance effectively achieves nothing but more abuse.

I am not a believer that kids' entertainment needs to sanitize out all the ugliness in the world, but... neither does it need to be this nasty. But that's the first five minutes. It's less brutal later on, mostly, and there are nice moments. Unfortunately, that's not the end of the cartoon's problems.

The other big problem is the plot arc: it's arguably sexist to have a protagonist whose primary character development is, "She becomes heroic by learning to make the sacrifices involved in being a good mother." When you're aware of the social setting in which this film was made-where lots and lots of women are similarly consigned to defining themselves primarily as mothers, to the point where they're even called "_______'s mom" instead of their own names, there's something a little off-putting about it.

Not that there's anything wrong with parenthood being valorized: it is a heroic act in many ways, at least when done right. But when's the last time you saw cartoon about a male animal being heroic by making the private, quiet sacrifices of being a good dad? Not even in this film do we see male characters making comparable sacrificing in the name of fatherhood, which... well, it's kind of hard not to notice. (It's also hard not to notice the duckling she adopts is a male character: heaven forbid a female character sacrifice and struggle to parent a *female* child.)

In sum, the cartoon struck me as heavy-handed, tin-eared, and sexist.

People seem to think this is original, but it is much like Doggie Poo and the English dubbing is painful at best. I really wanted the hen to get killed off pretty early on. She is pretty much a very dim stalker. I watched it and just thought of movies like Single White Female. As far as being more real, not at all, you want a hardcore animation, Watershed Down, Plague Dogs, When the Wind Blows, or any number or movies. This one was very basic and half though out. I had chickens far braver than this one and far smarter. This movie just bugged me on so many levels. It was like "are you my mom" but if the mom had no clue if she was, or like the ugly duckling if the duckling's mother was a psycho chicken. Young kids may like it, but nothing was good in this film other than some animation. There is far better Korean animation out there. Also I just watched Song of the Sea and I was a bit sad during parts of it, but this movie had me looking at the clock and never once felling any emotion (and as I said I had both chickens and ducks as a kid and think there were fun to have around).