The Guardian Brothers is a Chinese movie filled with Chinese culture and atmosphere. When I saw this movie on Netflix I was excited to watch the original Chinese version, as I believe dubbed movies can never be as good as the original. Unfortunately for me, Netflix does not have the original Chinese version, just the English dub. So I watched that instead.
I was right.
The English dub of this movie is atrocious. Not only does the animation not sync with the voices, but even worse, there is simply no emotion in said voices. The voice of Bella Thorne as the main character "Rain" is especially bad. She sounds like she was high during recording, and knowing her, she probably was. Her voice does not suit a small child, nor does she have the talent to put emotion into her voice. She sounds flat and uninterested. I didn't like any of the other voice actors either with the exception of the person who voices Shen Zu. He isn't all that great, but he all least tries and I'll acknowledge that. Edward Norton as Yu Lei was a huge disappointment as well. He is a great actor in my opinion, but in this, the emotion was just not there. He never sounded angry, happy, sad or scared enough. I know voice acting is hard, but come on, put in some effort.
AND
To add insult to injury, the music in this movie was absolutely terrible. I don't know what the music is like in the original Chinese version, I don't know if it's the same. But the music felt tone-deaf. Imagine this: the Nian has just appeared. It looks even more gruesome than you imagined. Yu Lei is on the verge of death, Rain may or may not be injured and Shen Zu is panicking. The monster roars and seems to become bigger. Yu Lei wakes up, weakened. He has to defeat the monster.
Then, as you inch closer to your tv Kungfu Fighting by Carl Douglas starts playing
What in the actual hell were they thinking? Where is the drama? Where is the sweeping action music? I know this is a movie meant for kids, but this is not Kungfu Panda, people. And even Kungfu Panda took itself more seriously some times. This film doesn't know what it wants to do. Does it want to be a children's comedy in the vein of Despicable Me? Or does it want to portray Chinese culture and tell a dark story about forgotten gods? It succeeds in neither.
The tone shifts in this film are horrible. It will shift from Rain celebrating her new soup recipe to Yu Lei dying in a temple, BAM, just like that. The comedy in this film is the worst part besides the voice acting, in my opinion though. I know humor is necessary to keep the little kids entertained and to keep the story from become too dark. It's pretty dark as it is. Bloom, the maybe love interest of Yu Lei ?, dies by fault of Yu Lei and it is never addressed + Yu Lei is a morally grey character (which is very rare in a children's film).
I think I could've enjoyed the original Chinese version of this film quite a lot more. The animation is beautiful and the story isn't half bad. The tone shifts are a bit jarring, but I would've been able to look past that if it weren't for the other major flaws of this film. There are some plotholes. Some of which are very obvious (Yu Lei aged every time he destroyed a seal. Shen Zu destroys the last seal, yet he does not age?). But it's a children's film, I could've looked past that as well.
But what we ended up with with the English version is barely watchable. Maybe it's enjoyable for small children who will enjoy anything colourful that's moving on screen. But that's it. That's the entire audience for this film.
I was right.
The English dub of this movie is atrocious. Not only does the animation not sync with the voices, but even worse, there is simply no emotion in said voices. The voice of Bella Thorne as the main character "Rain" is especially bad. She sounds like she was high during recording, and knowing her, she probably was. Her voice does not suit a small child, nor does she have the talent to put emotion into her voice. She sounds flat and uninterested. I didn't like any of the other voice actors either with the exception of the person who voices Shen Zu. He isn't all that great, but he all least tries and I'll acknowledge that. Edward Norton as Yu Lei was a huge disappointment as well. He is a great actor in my opinion, but in this, the emotion was just not there. He never sounded angry, happy, sad or scared enough. I know voice acting is hard, but come on, put in some effort.
AND
To add insult to injury, the music in this movie was absolutely terrible. I don't know what the music is like in the original Chinese version, I don't know if it's the same. But the music felt tone-deaf. Imagine this: the Nian has just appeared. It looks even more gruesome than you imagined. Yu Lei is on the verge of death, Rain may or may not be injured and Shen Zu is panicking. The monster roars and seems to become bigger. Yu Lei wakes up, weakened. He has to defeat the monster.
Then, as you inch closer to your tv Kungfu Fighting by Carl Douglas starts playing
What in the actual hell were they thinking? Where is the drama? Where is the sweeping action music? I know this is a movie meant for kids, but this is not Kungfu Panda, people. And even Kungfu Panda took itself more seriously some times. This film doesn't know what it wants to do. Does it want to be a children's comedy in the vein of Despicable Me? Or does it want to portray Chinese culture and tell a dark story about forgotten gods? It succeeds in neither.
The tone shifts in this film are horrible. It will shift from Rain celebrating her new soup recipe to Yu Lei dying in a temple, BAM, just like that. The comedy in this film is the worst part besides the voice acting, in my opinion though. I know humor is necessary to keep the little kids entertained and to keep the story from become too dark. It's pretty dark as it is. Bloom, the maybe love interest of Yu Lei ?, dies by fault of Yu Lei and it is never addressed + Yu Lei is a morally grey character (which is very rare in a children's film).
I think I could've enjoyed the original Chinese version of this film quite a lot more. The animation is beautiful and the story isn't half bad. The tone shifts are a bit jarring, but I would've been able to look past that if it weren't for the other major flaws of this film. There are some plotholes. Some of which are very obvious (Yu Lei aged every time he destroyed a seal. Shen Zu destroys the last seal, yet he does not age?). But it's a children's film, I could've looked past that as well.
But what we ended up with with the English version is barely watchable. Maybe it's enjoyable for small children who will enjoy anything colourful that's moving on screen. But that's it. That's the entire audience for this film.
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