Dragonkeeper

Dragonkeeper is an adaptation of the books of the same name by. Carole Wilkinson, specifically the first novel. While the overall tone is lighter than the book, it was written by the author herself, so any flawws in the story are within her purview.

The story takes place in an Ancient China where dragons have been hunted to near extinction and where a chosen one can wield chi powers. The latter is kind of a gross misinterpretation of chi seen also in Mulan 2020, but for the most part the movie is accurate to chinese dragon lore, associating them with water.

Personality wise, the characters very very archetypical. There are some missed opportunities; the villain, for example, has a sympathetic scene setting his motivation, but devolves in a card carrying bad guy for the rest of the film. Not a lot of complexity to be seen here.

Overall, if you want a Wuxia fix, this movie will deliver half-way.

I like the movie Dragonkeeper because it is funny and heartfelt.

The storyline is about a slave girl called Ping (Mayalinee Griffiths), who dreams about meeting dragons. Her dream comes true, but one of the magical creatures dies and she goes on a quest to save the dragons and hatch the last imperial dragons' egg. Joining her is a dragon as her protector and a funny "very helpful" mouse. She soon finds out that she has mystical powers and learns to use them to stop bad guys who want to steal the egg and use its powers for evil.

I really enjoyed this film. It's an animated film with special effects. It Also has lots of humor - there are all sorts of humorous scenes like my favorite, where the mouse tries helping. He marches up to the big fight against something 2,000,000 times his size. Or when he rolls the egg away from the bad guys. The movie is also sad and heartfelt because one of the dragons dies. The visual effects are great and really stand out. For example when one of the dragons heals Ping's wound with the power of the egg as shown in the trailer. I do have to admit that some parts of the movie are a little childish. For example, There is a scene about 30 seconds long of two kids blowing raspberries at each other.

The film's message is "you can do whatever you want; only you decide your destiny."

I give Dragonkeeper 4 out of 5 stars and recommend it for ages 5 to 12. It opens in theaters on September 27, 2024. I hope you enjoy it. By Ariel K., KIDS FIRST!

Wonderful film of Chinese and Spanish co production, you can sense the combination of both east and west sensibility. The drawing style is very beautiful with great colors, artistically referencing details from the Han dynasty. This is a great story for kids to understand about friendship, responsibility and courage with a nice touch of humor. The music score gets you really into the emotion and adventure. I have watched it twice with family and friends and both adults and kids enjoyed it. The beautiful ending credit style is a real surprise, a film made with a lot of efforts and love. Really looking forward for the sequels.

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.

With the emperor ailing in his capital, he sends out messengers to secure the one thing that can save him from certain death: the blood of a live dragon. Luckily for the few remaining dragons, though, there's a young girl "Ping" and her pet rat "Hua" who are determined to preserve their last egg and ensure that "Kai" is born in the sacred birthing pool safe and sound. It's quite good fun, this, and I always liked the Chinese depictions of dragons as rather more lithe and nimble then the grumpy, scarred and scaly Western interpretations, but otherwise this is a rather thinly padded out story that might better have tried to incorporate more from this six book series it's based on into it's plot to better build up the characters and fill out the plot. That said, it doesn't hang around and there's plenty of action as the youngster and the ancient dragon "Long Danzi" take on the whole Imperial army - and it's dastardly and scheming agent - whilst trying to preserve this fragile blue egg until it's ready to hatch. There's a gentle moral to the story about self reliance and the odd humorous moment too, and though it's probably not a film that the very young will really get much from, the animation is lively and colourful with some menacing bugs and fiery blue fisticuffs and it's worth a watch on the telly if you like the family fantasy genre.