Cardcaptor Sakura Movie 1

This is an OK movie, but strangely focuses more on the action than the characters. There is SOME character development, but it's saved for the end. The majority of this movie is spent either running away from, or fighting, the antagonist.
The art, as usual for a CLAMP adaption, is gorgeous. But the dub is AWFUL, and changes the dialogue around completely. Avoid it at all costs.

A disappointing anime is often more upsetting than a bad one. When an acclaimed series receives a movie and other additional material, it's natural to hold high expectations and hope for an experience at least equal to the original. At times brilliant and more often monotonous, the first Cardcaptor Sakura movie is one that unfortunately falls short of these expectations.

Set after the first season, Cardcaptor Sakura: The Movie takes Sakura to an entirely new environment: Hong Kong. After winning a five-day trip at a local store, Sakura is given the opportunity to travel to a different country for the first time in her life. ... Things are not quite so simple, though, and as several foreboding dreams and supernatural phenomenons soon reveal, there is more to her winning the trip than a mere game of luck.

The first twenty minutes are fairly promising, immediately opening with a tense fight for one of the Clow Cards. Hearing a few beloved tracks from the series once again evokes a sense of nostalgia, and the characters quickly show that they are just as endearing as ever. Kero-chan remains his frivolous, gluttonous self, while Touya continues to tease Sakura for amusing results. Some of the best moments are those early on with the characters travelling through Hong Kong and taking in the sights, and the beautiful artwork makes these scenes all the more breathtaking.

Eyecandy is certainly not something that is lacking in this film. Fluid animation, detailed expressions and stunning scenery all set the visuals of Cardcaptor Sakura: The Movie to a much higher standard than most animated films. Hong Kong is presented as far more than a busy metropolis, with a diverse set of authentic locales being used to effectively portray the culture. Unfortunately, the moments highlighting the characters' experiences with the city are all too fleeting. Instead we are gifted with a trite and highly predictable story for the remainder of the film.

It's around the point where Sakura finds herself drawn to a shrine that things steadily go downhill. Most notably, Li and Meiling show up from absolutely nowhere. In the exact same area of a massive city, with no prior knowledge that either group would even be there. There's even the cliche of bumping into each other in Meiling's case. How is the viewer supposed to take the movie seriously when it relies on absurd plot conveniences so early on? An explanation may have made the scene less silly, but there is not even that. "What are you doing here?", asks Sakura. A question left unanswered.

The rest of the story focuses on a vengeful spirit who drags Sakura into a conflict that is only tangentially related to her. This represents the main issue with this film-- it doesn't have any relevance to the overarching story. None of the characters are developed aside from a few scenes with Li's mother and Clow Reed's past relationship with the spirit. There's no sense of accomplishment once the conflict is finally resolved, and the only emotional value is during a scene with Sakura relating to the spirit's unrequited love. Unless you are a particularly patient viewer, there's a strong chance that you will find yourself bored with anything beyond the first thirty minutes.

Much of the film takes itself far too seriously and as a result, most of the charm from the TV series is absent here. Dramatic moments were common in the main series, but they were always interspersed with comedy and had relevance to the story. Not here. It is ceaseless drama distinguished by superfluous (though pretty) action scenes and vague, cliched lines about destiny. It just doesn't work.

As for the sound, the voice acting is exceptional and the eclectic soundtrack compliments the setting especially well. Traditional Chinese music is used while the characters traverse through the city, and a palatable mix of jazz and orchestral music plays during the action sequences. The ending song is also quite nice and serves as a satisfying conclusion to a bittersweet story. It's hard to find much fault with the technical aspects of the film.

Despite a variety of complaints, Cardcaptor Sakura: The Movie is not bad by any means. Compared to most anime movies, and particularly within the mahou shoujo genre, it is still well above average. Fans of the series will most likely find some level of enjoyment here between the disappointment, and at only 80-minutes long it's hard to go wrong with the prospect of more Cardcaptor Sakura.

Still, considering the quality of the main series, decent just isn't enough here.

I recognize that this is basically just an anime-original episode of the show, and if it was literally an anime-original episode, I may not have minded it. There were plenty of individual episodes that were a bit weak compared to the others, but the big difference is that they were only 20 minutes long and usually at least implied some progression. The first Cardcaptor Sakura movie is a waste of time that lasts for a long 90 minutes.

It's about Sakura winning a trip to Hong Kong during the winter break of her first year as a Cardcaptor. This was a horrible idea, possibly the worst ... time period a Cardcaptor Sakura movie could take place, because all the characters are locked into the personalities they had before their character development over the second year. Shaoran and Sakura haven't even begun to realize their feelings for one another; they're still stuck with their crushes on Yukito that must go nowhere. Meilin just sits in Shaoran's shadow because she hasn't either become truly desperate or come to terms with the fact that he's just not into her. Yukito and Toya don't even hint that they're gay. Tomoyo doesn't really do character development because she is perfect, but she just films Sakura as normal here. They don't even have the classmates as comedic foils to bounce anything off of. The result is a story about people who seem trapped in amber.

I mean, the movie-original outfit and even the movie-original Clow Card were half-assed at best! Not even giving Sakura a new power could save this movie from its doldrums because she gets that card in the first few minutes with no background on it and then she uses it only once, with little fanfare. Because it never appears in the show proper, it may as well have never existed.

There are no stakes more complicated than putting Sakura's immediate friends in abstract jeopardy that takes them out of the narrative. The one-off villain's deal doesn't even challenge Sakura's beliefs about anything.

The animation is fine and the villain's main gimmicks are water and ribbons, which presented some opportunities for interesting fluid effects. But that's truly the extent of it. The jazzy soundtrack probably worked as a standalone CD, but it faded into the background of this boring movie.

Why did they decide to dedicate film resources to this story? I will be forever baffled by this.