Dragonkeeper

Ping is an orphan girl living with a servant woman tasked with feeding the "Honored Guests" living under her master's care. The "Honored Guests" are actually the last two imperial dragons along with their unhatched egg.

Ping learns that she has the power to control qi or chi which makes her a dragon keeper and she is destined to be the person to take the last remaining egg to a special birthing pool to hatch. To achieve this goal she will need the help of her dragon friend, Danzi, and her mouse friend, Hua Hua, to retrieve the stolen egg.

Ping will have to overcome the sickly Emperor, who wants the egg's qi to heal his illness, and the evil necromancer, Diao, who wants to steal the egg's qi to become an immortal god.

I enjoyed this film very much although I did think that some of the subject matter might be confusing to a child. It's beautifully animated but it was lacking a little something that I just can't put my finger on. My biggest complaint is that it simply didn't feel complete. The film seemed to leave a lot of questions unanswered and feels as though there must be a sequel in the works but I couldn't confirm my suspicion.

Glad I came across it and I hope they are planning to make a sequel simply because I feel there should be more to Ping, Danzi, Hua Hua and Kai's story. I would definitely watch it.

Giving this an 8/10 rating

First off, try and watch the sub version which is Chinese, then the UK English dub, which I saw, has very good voice acting, with Bill Nighy and others, then you will have fun with this. I had a fun time with this Chinese/Spanish production about ancient China, dragons and Necromancers, and lots of magic.

It does look really colourful on a the big cinema screen, where I saw it, and the kids in the audience, here in London, did like it. I see low ratings because of the horrid American dub I fear, so I guess we got it lucky with our English dub, which really is good. The look really is Chinese for sure, and the main lead- the little girl named 'Ping' was to me, likeable more and more, once it got further into the film.

The themes are quite dark in places, but the dragons are great, and the style is good on the eye, some good humor too. I sat down and let it the beautiful visuals take me away. The version I watched was very wide, so there maybe an IMAX of this floating about. But really, watch the trailer of this first. But I paid my money, and liked what I watched.

Adventures, humor, fantasy and action in this 3D cartoon film, this is an attractive movie that younger people will love. Well directed by Salvador Simó, the film adapts the first book of the Dragonkeeper literary saga by Carole Wilkinson, set in an Imperial China where magic still exists. And it's full of imagination, humor and marvellous dragons. The film begins with a prologue that gives a historical chronology: ¨No one remembers the dark times, when the threat of necromancers loomed over the world and humanity was on the verge of perishing. The emperor then turned to the only force capable of saving us. A sacred bond was formed between the dragons and a select few of pure heart who learned the secrets of their wisdom. Together, men and dragons defeated the hosts of Wucheng. But in the ashes of victory germinated the seeds of distrust and fear. The emperor, jealous of his power, hunted down the dragons and pursued their guardians. Dragons had been banished from the kingdom. Ping, an orphan, finds one of the last remaining dragon eggs. Palace guards force Ping to run away in order to return the dragon egg to the ocean and save all dragons from extinction. The fate of ancient China rests on the shoulders of one young girl, who must find the last remaining dragon egg and fulfill her destiny¨. So the mistreated servant Join Ping must find the last remaining dragon egg as she becomes who she was always meant to be... the DragonKeeper. Ping seems to be the last hope.

Fantasy, magic and adventure for the whole family come together in this Spanish-Chinese animated film about a a very special girl, a dragon (the last of them) and the power to change fate. So the plot follows the adventures of enslaved girl 'Ping' with her dragon companion 'Long Danzi' during an ancient imperial age. The story begins years after the union of dragons and humans managed to finish off the necromancers. Now there are hardly any dragons left, and the last ones are locked up by order of the emperor, jealous of his power and that of the guardians. There is continuous non-stop entertainment with frenetic action, good staging and adventures of all kinds in which our starring will face a thousand and one dangers in order to achieve peace and save dragons. The film is technically acceptable with a colorful pop approach accentuated by contrasts of time and space. The story, with basic positive messages, action enough and continous amusement, but it does not stand out for its inventiveness in humor, originality or the keys it handles. As the director. ¨Dragonkeeper¨ takes us on an adventure where fantasy prevails over everything else, although everything else is equally exciting. Here we have the rebellion of an orphan girl who wants to make her decisions, the overcoming of traumas of the apparently brave and determined heroine who has suffered past slavery and loneliness.

There's a good and lively musical score by composer Arturo Cardelús. The film was well directed by Jianping Li and Salvador Simó . It was nominated in Málaga Spanish Film Festival 2024: Golden Biznaga Nominee Best Spanish Film Salvador Simó and Jianping Li. Salvador Simó formerly worked in animation department of various films, such as : Midsummer Dream , Goofy and son , Howl , Las tres mellizas , El Cid : the legend , It's Christmastime Again, Charlie Brown , among others. Being his big hit : ¨Buñuel en el laberinto de las tortugas (Buñuel in the labyrinth of the turtles 2018) that was winner of the award for best animated film at the Goya and at the European Film Awards. Dragonkeeper(2024) rating: 6.5/10. Decent computer generator animation particularly advisable for the youngest members of the family.

Watched this with my 11 year old today ... the first 30 mins were very harrowing & upsetting; we almost left the cinema, but stayed for the surely inevitable happy ending? Which actually didn't really materialise to any great degree . The whole thing was an endurance test and we left drained and depressed. I can't believe this is a PG. We should have left after 20 mins ! Do not take children to see this unless they like very the, dark often grim stuff.

The dubbing was also very poor, but we could have put up with that. Some of the CGI was excellent but many of the human faces were pretty poor.

I put this on for my son who is 5, it was immediately obvious that this was re dubbed from a Chinese version. Some if the voice acting is awful, with voices nowhere near matching the physical look of the characters. That said you can live with tha, and my son surely would never notice it.

But what bothered me most was how dark the whole tone of the movie was. My kid asked me why everything was dying and absolutely nothing positive or uplifting happens until the very end of the film.

Children's films are becoming increasingly dark these days and that probably reflects society. I've a feeling Dragonkeeper is reflecting current Chinese society. But with themes like slavery, bullying and murder, I probably wouldn't have let my kid watch this had I known.

I also believe there's something that's lost in translation with this movie, but somebody cleverer than I can analyse that.