Wonderful Days (2003)

Director:

Moon-saeng Kim

Writers:

Michael Keyes (writer)
Moon-saeng Kim (writer)

Release Date:

17 July 2003 (South Korea)

Genre:

Action | Fantasy | Animation | Sci-Fi

Tagline:

A fantastic journey to the future begins

Plot:

Civilization has been destroyed by war and pollution, but the survivors have built the last city of Ecoban...

Plot Keywords:

Pollution | Sky | Cloud | Future | Nightmare

Awards:

1 win & 1 nomination

Cast

Marc Worden	...	Shua (voice: English version)
Cathy Cavadini	...	Jay / Young Shua / Cheyenne (voice: English version)
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Andrew Ableson	...	(voice: English Version)
Joon-ho Chung	...	(voice: Korean version)
David Naughton	...	(voice: English version)
Bob Papenbrook	...	Goliath (voice: English version)
Jamie Simone	...	Dispatcher (voice: English version)
Kirk Thornton	...	Cade (voice: English version)
Karl Wiedergott	...	Moe / Digger Foreman
Hye-jin Yu	...	(voice: Korean version)
Ji-tae Yu	...	(voice: Korean version)

Also Known As:

Sky Blue (USA)

Runtime:

86 min

Country:

South Korea | USA

Language:

Korean | English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

DTS | Dolby Digital | SDDS | Dolby SR (US version)

Certification:

Australia:M | Finland:K-11 | South Korea:All | Germany:12 | UK:15 | USA:Unrated | Ireland:15A | Singapore:PG

Company:

End Game Productions Inc.

Quotes:

Jay: How long is it been raining? Forever. Not forever. No. For a 100 years. They say billions of people once lived on the earth. And the temperatures rose. The great cities fell. And this rain came. This terrible toxic rain. Our ancestors saw it coming. The catastrophe...

Soundtrack:

Smack My Bitch Up

Wow

This is definitely more than a pure animation. It's more like a movie, only an animated one. My emphasize here is on the word movie. Not because it has a brilliant colorful animation, that sometimes appears to be 3 dimensional, and sometimes 2 dimensional ( which is spectacular by itself). It has that. But I'm thinking of it as a movie because of high details. Actually, this is direction. When I watch animation, I don't really care who's the director of it. In fact, Until this one I forgot there is one in each animation like in every film. This movie is full of details that make it look much better than other animation. I'll mention some of them, that I found the most interesting.

1. Near the beginning of the movie, there is a scene with a tunnel exit covered by a waterfall, that flows not quite as one could expect of it. You get an explanation of the irrational flow a couple minutes after, but isn't it amazing they thought about it? 2. Flies around a lamp. When was the last time you saw flies around a lamp (in animation), just as part of the view, because they attracted to light and not to portray something ( like trash site, bad smell, dirt or other metaphoric things that flies represent). 3. While Jay was entering the rebel zone a guard watched him through the optics of a sniper rifle. They could show us only the guard, without the mentioned aspect. But no, this is what a direction is about!!! 4. Jay's fight with the army's commander. Just watch the details.

I could possibly continue with some more examples,like shooting scenes from different angles and so, though those were the most vivid to me. Think about it. Think about they thought about it.

In one word the animation was excellent. In some words it was a tasteful mixture, with live colorful characters and places. I don't really think they could do it better. Both the 3 dimensional animation and the 2 dimensional looked awesome. I really don't agree with those who say that the latter was dull and poorly done. As I said, I don't think it could be done better.

Another aspect of this movie, that stroked me with it's uniqueness, at least from western animation, is the brutality and the naturalism. I don't know much animation (again western), where a gun was violently put against somebody's head, shooting it, and spilling the blood all around. I don't think this kind of violence is good or bad, but in a way it completes the movie. I just get the feeling that it's necessary. This also brings it closer to movies because there is some convention (unspoken) that animation is for younger audience.

Well, the movie is not all good. Like every other movie, the plot is a crucial thing. Wonderful Day clearly lacks one. It tries to be scientifically ingenious in it's main idea which makes no sense if one thinks about it (you don't really have to think, its obvious enough). There is another thing that bothers. This movie involves a drama among three characters, which at the end gets exaggerated and too emotional ( emotional not for the viewer but for the characters themselves). There are a lot of animated and non-animated movies with that kind of drama in them. Some of them pass this drama to the audience, while others try but fail. Wonderful Days belongs to the latter. It has a good revealing of the drama at the beginning and the middle of the movie, but in the end it disappoints.

Wonderful Days' flaws are minor compared to its highlights. I would recommend it to anyone who likes animation and is not disturbed with excessive violence.

My rating: 7.5/10