Fantastic!

Expected more

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

After his father's death, young Mo decides that it is his mission to fulfill the dream that his father could not: that of finding the mysterious natural power called The Origin which his father had used in the creation of a wooden and mechanical being, Arti-C. With his swordswoman sister Tong at his side, Mo and the artificial creation travel from one realm to another, encountering strange beings, a mystical Goddess and a Prince who may not be exactly as he seems. When they discover the location of The Origin, they all must struggle to do the right thing....This is a very odd film from the Huang family, long famous as master puppeteers; this, their most recent, is a mixture of classic wuxia (a style of supernatural sword-fighting), an environmental message, a created mythology, a bit of steam-punk, occasional humour (at one point a character says he's not from Taiwan, he's a Chinese with a bad Korean accent!), puppets - and 3-D! Not sure what the latter was for, other than some birds and knives coming at the audience, but the film is very lovely to look at even in 3-D, although I was kind of scratching my head for the first two-thirds or so. Still, a film that can make you believe that cockroach-like creatures are cute and cuddly must have something going for it, no?