Zodiac, The Race Begins (Singapore)

Animation Effects : 4.25/5
Story Effort : 3.25/5
Sound Effects : 3.75/5

Zodiac, The Race Begins, is Singapore's maiden attempt at animation, thus i will say the visuals in "Zodiac" are a good enough attempt... I do understand if u were to make a full movie-length of full 3D animation movie, there will be a whole lots of works need to be done behind the screen... Singapore Industry r unlike Hollywood or whoever, which had already accumulated many experiences by doing many 3D-animated movie... Thus, i see in between some scenes of 3D animation, some 2D paper animation can be seen oso... These simple animation, i muz say is done veri nicely... Thumbs up!!! Tat y i will say Singapore had done a pretty good animation in her first animated movie...

Song effects wise... Hmmm... I will say no bad... I like the person tat do the sound for the Ox... Either is tat person vocal is so good to twit his sound like a Ox, or the Sound Production Team had done great job in editing the waves/frequency of the recorded sound to further refine it... The sound for the Great Demon Tree Spirit is oso not bad... Got tat kind of errie sound tat u heard from Old Chinese Ghost Story in the past...

As for the story content... I had my disappointment here... I went to see tis movie wif great expectations for the content... Somehow the story in tis movie, doesn't satisfied my expectation overall...

Tis story tok abt Zodiac... So the main focus shall be the 12 animals... Since there is 12 so many, i dun mind if the producer onli choose some as the focus attention... In tis case, Mouse & Ox played more role in tis movie...

Jade Emperor appointed one old man, to go down to Earth to enlist 12 animals as the Zodiac... Thus tis old man shall selected these animals, based on their contributions to the world... etc... At the end of the day, tis old man had selected the 12 animals... Haiz... For tis part... I'm abit sad... I will like the story to turn out in another way... Having ALL animals from ard the world, to start competing in the Zodiac race... All started from the beginning point, n the first 12 tat reached the finishing line, shall be titled as one of the 12 Zodiac animals... Tis idea is so much better den juz hving to select 12 animals first, den let the 12 animals compete wif each other in a almoz-friendly looking race...

The onli villain in tis story is the Great Demon Tree Spirit. Of coz, for such story, the monster will always be defeated in the end... And for tis part, ONLI the Dragon Zodiac went to fight wif the demon & defeated it...
Quite disappointed... Since tis movie tok abt 12 Zodiac... Den the movie should make into hving 12 animals fighting tis demon together... Making tis final confrontation to be more interesting...

In tis movie, the movie try to make some simple explanation between some animals... Why they hate each other... And how some 成语 is formed... I tink everyone should noe tis, the most common story between cat & mouse...

Fox is jealous of Rabbit, as she can be one of the Zodiac animals... Thus Fox went to psycho Tiger, to go n take care of Rabbit... Tis roughly explained the 成语 of 狐假虎威...

In the final run, Dog is actually in front of Chicken... But when he turned back to see his frenz, Pig, he saw Pig is struggling to run faster... So Dog U-turn back to encourage Pig to run faster... Tis resulted Chicken's ranking to be higher den Dog... Tis small scene oso shows... Dogs & Pigs r always good frenz...One 成语 learnt from here is 猪朋狗友... Another one is, when Dog & Pig refused to lend a helping hand to Snake, whom she was pregrant, n was abt to give birth... Tis oso featured the heartless side of Dogs & Pigs... 猪狗不入

Tis movie doesn't explained for tis 成语, 龙马精神...
Tis movie doesn't show, why elephant is so big n strong, yet he is not one of the Zodiac animals... Coz he was scared to be ard, when he saw Mouse in the presence...
Tis movie show, Monkey possessed greedy personality... which i tink, like not a veri general idea... Juz like when u say Foz is crafty... Plp will agree, but if u say Monkey is greedy... Den it doesn't make strong sense...

Here is one list of personality, which i derived from wat i see from the movie, on individual animals...

Rat : Sweet-talker
Ox : Slow but hardworking, Well-manned plp
Tiger :Tink too highly of himself
Rabbit : Clever to find shelter boss
Dragon : Like show off, willing to admit mistake
Snake : -
Horse : Helpful & Thoughtful
Lamb : Possess slight character of taking plp's advantage (Moneytary, not other else)
Monkey : Wealth-Greed
Chicken : -
Dog & Pig : Frenz of each other... Sometimes, they can be heartless...