Animation has had a couple of banner years, and, as a result, there’s far more than Disney’s multiplex offerings to choose from. Squeezing onto Hong Kong screens — around The Odyssey and Spider-Man: Brand New Day — this weekend is a trio of animated family films that couldn’t be more distinct from each other — visually, thematically and in terms of storytelling. It’s a welcome mix and a welcome way to end the summer.
A Mighty Adventure, Hong Kong animator Toe Yuen’s long-awaited follow-up to the underrated Sherlock Holmes and the Great Escape released way back in 2019, lifts a page from both Flow (2024) and Robot Dreams (2023) for a dialogue-free romp about three friends trying to get home as they travel from the city to the country. The catch is that the three friends are a butterfly, a spider and a grasshopper. Debuting director Mu Zhengyang’s All Wishes Come True! also lifts from other sources, most notably from the anonymously authored Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) story The Eight Immortals Cross the Sea. The film puts a fresh spin on the legendary xian — immortals — of Chinese mythology. And straight down the middle is Cal Brunker’s Paw Patrol: The Dino Movie, the latest film based on the long-running and hugely popular Canadian kids’ series about an ageless boy and his crew of rescue puppies who patrol their community and save people that need saving.
Adventure isn’t pure animation. Yuen juxtaposes his anthropomorphic 2D-animated insects and arachnids against real, immersive environments. Finding their way around a drop of water, a child’s paint set and across a busy street are among the challenges the trio faces, learning a little more about their world, themselves and each other, in the process. Yuen’s beautifully drawn film is a brief, bittersweet romp that might have the anti-anthropomorphization crowd up in arms, but is nonetheless a delicately moving story of resilience, finding one’s identity and knowing when to let go.
There’s a chance that there are some Chinese-mythology purists out there as furious with Mu as ancient-Greece buffs are with Christopher Nolan. However, judging from the surprise $200 million-plus box-office haul for All Wishes, the majority of the film’s audiences are willing to lean into the Avengers-meets-immortals on a heist job conceit of this revisionist interpretation. And in fairness, the fun, frothy, painterly 3D imaging of Zhongli Quan (voiced by Chen Hao) as a master thief, Lyu Dongbin (Li Shaozhe) as the keeper of the Yu Xu Lantern, and He Xiangu (Li Dong) as a master swordswoman, and of course the ragtag group of ne’er-do-well mortals plotting to rob the Penglai vault disguised as immortals, is a blessedly novel and modern one. Notably, Mu’s vision ultimately aligns with the community-forward, redemptive storytelling that powered Ne Zha (2019) and Nobody (2025) to success.
Finally, Paw Patrol: The Dino Movie brings the most conventional animated storytelling to the cinemas, but in that singularly Canadian way, it’s a wholesome, optimistic, egalitarian tale. The cast of characters consists of Ryder (newcomer Henry Bolan) and his Paw Patrol comprising Dalmatian firefighter Marshall, his best friend Chase, a German-shepherd cop, pilot cockapoo Skye and the new dog, Rex, a paraplegic Bernese who’s been stranded on an island where extremely friendly dinosaurs never went extinct. After discovering the island, the patrol is called upon to save it from getting blown up by the miscreants led by its nemesis, Humdinger (Ron Pardo).
Paw Patrol knows its audience, and kids will embrace the bright colors while absorbing a positive representation of disability — and demand some new toys right after the show.
