Da Yu Hai Tang (Movie)

In an old mythical world, there reside spirit-like beings who oversee the natural order of the mortal realm. One of them, a young girl named Chun, has just come of age and must undergo her rite of passage by experiencing the human world for herself. While there, she gets caught in a fishing net during a storm and is rescued by a human boy.

However, the boy ends up drowning during the incident, and Chun returns to her realm full of guilt. Afterwards, she meets the Soul Keeper and decides to revive the boy in exchange for a part of her lifespan. Little does she know, meddling with the natural order of the world has severe consequences.

Da Yu Hai Tang is a story about sacrifice and redemption as Chun comes to terms with the limitations of her powers and deals with death, love, and her own emotions. She must decide if she will sacrifice everything to save the human boy or forsake her moral obligation for the order of the world.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Qiu Main

Chiba, Shouya Japanese

Chun Main

Amamiya, Sora Japanese

Po, Ling Main

Kun Main

Kun's Sister Supporting

Yoshida, Kiyoshi Music

Placha, Mônica ADR Director

Reviews

Feb 6, 2017

Muuu

Recommended

I made an account on here just to write a review for this, since no one else has! This is such a beautiful movie. In my opinion (and I know not many will agree with me but whatever), this by far surpasses any Ghibli movies, as well as Kimi no na wa. Of course there were a few things it could have done better, but honestly, everything was too superb for me to notice many flaws at all.

Art: 10/10. Literally so gorgeous. The vibrant colors and scenery were incredibly majestic and stunning, and the whole time I felt completely immersed. Not to mention, all of ... the characters were super well done. The men were really attractive, which is a plus for me, but in general -- everyone had their own little quirks about them instead of being bland and repetitive.

Animation: 9/10. I would give it a 10/10, just for being so smooth and extremely well done, but the use of cgi at some points was a bit annoying. Even so, the studio still managed to meld it together without it being too standoffish. It was unique, if anything, so I had almost no problems with it.

Story/Plot: 10/10. I might be sounding super biased, but honestly, I've never seen such a well done plot revolving around reincarnation, and the concept of life. It's perfect to me, and because I was raised around this type of belief, it really hits home to see something depicting it in such a way.

Voice acting: 8/10. There were some parts - especially towards the beginning of the movie where I was not yet used to the voices - that I felt the emotions were not being portrayed as powerfully as they should have been, and were lackluster. But overtime I was able to adapt quickly to it, and throughout the movie it almost felt like the voice actors themselves grew, as I was hearing much more depth in the tones they were taking on. I did, in particular, really enjoy Chun's older voice. Very wise sounding (as she should be, after all she went through).

Soundtrack: 10/10. I loved it. It's not too over the top, yet still very impactful. There were no scenes where I felt that the ost was out of place.

Characters Development: 8/10. I didn't see much of this with Chun, honestly. She seemed to stay the same throughout the whole movie, and I didn't feel like she grew very much. Qiu, on the other hand, went through a heck of a lot of development. He was somewhat selfish at first, caring more about what would happen to Chun than listening to what Chun herself actually wanted, and then ended up sacrificing quite a bit for her wishes nearer to the end.

Overall: Deep storyline, beautiful message, and lots and lots of much appreciated heartwarming feels. To me, it was perfect, and I will most definitely be re-watching this again.

Reviewer’s Rating: 10

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Jul 10, 2017

Scotlette

Mixed Feelings

Finally watched this movie after I lost the name a year ago and found it again last week. I got to know about it because it's a collaboration between a Chinese studio and the Korean studio that made Korra.

The art and animation are next level revolutionary. The character designs, flora and fauna, music, voices and everything visual are like endless orgasm for your eyes. You can see the Korra and Ghibli influences in it. I loved it. BUT it was a real real pity - the entire film happened too fast, it was one tragedy to another in minutes, too many characters that seemed ... important but were never or sparingly expanded on or explained. The girl made her decisions too fast without a period for developing her feelings to a realistic intensity. A lot of things happened that were hard to understand and messy. They missed out the opportunity to present and explain the beautiful world and concept they created for the movie. It felt like they tried to cram in too many emotional scenes to the point they some of them didn't feel emotional anymore. Not to mention the two main characters probably died and revived 3 times throughout the movie.

Could have been a 10/10 film if not for the very bad presentation/execution. It was really the amazing art that saved it. I still recommend it cuz I think it's worth the watch for the art.

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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Jan 19, 2019

Garma

Not Recommended

*This review contains a few spoilers.*

Da Yu Hai Tang presents itself with astounding visuals that few modern japanese Anime can compete with. Under the surface, however, the Movie suffers from bad writing/execution and doesn't have much to offer besides its fantastic animation, especially the highly detailed world, i.e. the nature or mystic creatures. My criticism is directed towards two main flaws of this movie: The story and the characters.

The story is haphazard. The scenes don't transition well and the story essentially runs from one tragedy into another. It gives Chun no room to develop herself or to expand on any of the characters at ... all, instead it tries to encompass more and more different elements into it, most of which aren't even connected to main plotline itself. The main plotline would be Chun caring for the dolphin named Kun but the story develops in a very dark way and it's not even really explained why. Things happen because of unknown reasons and it's really hard to follow the "story", especially because of the lack of dialogue in many scenes (which the animation doesn't make up for). I'm not even sure what the core message of the story is. I understood that it's about life, death and reincarnation but the characters died like 5 million times (not literally) throughout the story and were always revived and I don't see what I'm supposed to learn from that. Apparently, every action of every character is inconsequential as well, as everything turns out good in the end.

The characters in this movie are extremely bad. Chun has full focus for 100 min, yet she has almost no personality other than being incredibly selfish. Her decisions seem arbitrary and I think that is also one of the reasons why the story seems so haphazard. Her own stupidity gets her into trouble again and again and after a while it becomes painful to watch. Of course, she receives no character development as well. All she does throughout the story is reviving a guy who saved her in the human world and then she spends the rest of the movie caring for him (reincarnated as a dolphin) and causing drama and more drama. The other main character, Qiu, is just as bad. He helps Chun throughout the story, even going so far as to sacrifice himself for her, but his motives are vague. It's hinted that he is in love with Chun, but I'm not a fan of blind love. All other characters are basically only plot devices with no real connection to anything. I want to highlight the "sort of antagonist" here. Yeah you're reading right: They even introduced some kind of antagonist but made her vanish without ever doing anything notable.

Nothing in this movie makes sense. Chun (for reasons not explained) endangers her village and people even die, yet she decides to stay selfish and care for Kun. But apparently the people around her don't care too much about that as her grandfather even sacrifices himself for her. Why would he do that?

This movie tries to be a coming of age story, but it's lacking the basic concept of coming of age. Chun faces no real obstacles (besides her selfishness and own stupidity) and essentially learns nothing. This is not how coming of age works. Her sole motive and catalyst for the entire story is Chun feeling sorry because some random boy from the human world (who she knows nothing about) died because he tried to help her. And that wouldn't be even a bad catalyst for the story (even though it's kind of generic). But Chun never reflects on herself if she did the right thing or how her actions could potentially affect her surroundings. She doesn't develop from there and for the viewer there's nothing to learn as well. The movie is crammed with emotional scenes and climaxes, but frankly the high amount results in exactly the opposite: You end up not feeling anything.

I think it's sad that the movie didn't expand more on its world. The world is definitely charming and stirring, especially due to the fantastic animation and highly detailled art, but the magic or the mystic creatures are never explored any further. Apparently the people are able to control the elements similar to Avatar but aside from the basic usage of elemental control there is not much more to experience. I don't weigh this aspect too much as this is a "what if?" situation and the movie was clearly designed to be a character-focused drama, but I think if this movie would have just been an action adventure, it would have been way better.

If not for the beautiful art, I would have rated this movie even lower. I was compelled by the art during the first few minutes but I quickly began to lose interest as this movie has nothing to offer beyond its art.

Reviewer’s Rating: 4

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	Poll: Da Yu Hai Tang Episode 1 Discussion ( 1 2 ) Mirorin - Jan 13, 2017	61 replies	by Thisas »» Nov 11, 8:47 PM
	Chun's family's house is based on tulou (Hakka communal house) in Fujian Khashishi - Jul 7, 2023	2 replies	by almightybismarck »» Oct 18, 2:29 AM
	Trailers Eudaimonia - Jul 17, 2012	8 replies	by Fabrizio00 »» Aug 25, 10:07 AM
	First 10 Minutes of the Film Stark700 - Jan 1, 2014	8 replies	by Sapphire »» Oct 30, 2016 1:13 AM
	Release Date Finalised sauveterre - Apr 19, 2016	4 replies	by zetsu_shoren »» Aug 8, 2016 11:44 PM