You don't have to be fascinated by the oceans like me to enjoy it. All you need is an open mind and enough curiocity. Even better, some social conscience and humanity.
The director Jacques Perrin said that this is a movie made for cinema and he meant it. I took my parents to the cinema to watch it and all I could say is "Awesome." At some point, I was bordering on "Inner Cow Full Face". Well, I am exaggerating a bit but I was indeed so moved that I felt like shedding tears.
We all agree that there are only a few movies that require cinematic experience. This is one of them. And what makes it stand out among the few that deserve watching in the cinema is that it is a treasure for all of us, old and young , and more importantly will stand the test of time. I'm very confident to say that it is a treasure for generations to come.
The visuals are extraordinarily breath-taking and the accompanying scores add drama to the story telling.
The undercurrent beneath the free, peaceful and harmonic living environment was brought to surface 2/3 through the movie with brutal and disturbing scenes of human predation. The sharp contrast was poignant and painful to watch.
As I was watching the movie, great memories about oceans came back to me.
"We belong to the sea" was one of my favorite songs by Aqua.
I also have a fixation on movies about oceans or with oceans as the backdrop, including "The Big Blue" (Le Grand Bleu, by Luc Bay Pine), "The Whale Rider" and "Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas".
What I enjoyed most in Orlando, Florida was not one of the theme parks from Disney but Sea World where I got to see hundreds of rare creatures from the oceans and watch sea lions, sea otters, whales and tiger whale put on great shows.
I also went to the great aquariums in Seattle, in Baltimore and in Seoul, Korea.
Nothing compares to watching this movie.
It was a real bless that we watched it in the cinema and I am sure I will miss it in the future.
The only drawback I would think of is that it would be better to cut 5-10 minutes at the latter part of the movie. Many kids could hardly sit though the whole 96 minutes and I started to feel time passing at that point (before that it was totally engaging and I could not take my eyes off the screen, neither could the kids )
It is also worth noting that Jiang Wen was the narrator to the movie. I mistook him for Zhang Hanyu at first but kept wondering how he turned a coarse voice and a different tempo of speech.
Verdict: an almost perfect 10
2011.8.24
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