Annecy Review: Mu Yi and the Handsome General's beautiful animation and music are squandered on a haphazard story

On a remote mountain in the Chinese countryside, there is a small village of women. Most of them are older women, hunched with age and in touch with the traditional spiritual practices of the region. They respect nature, the spirits, the gods, and the rules. The number one rule is that no men are allowed in the village. One of the many rules that rankles teenage Mu Yi, who's best friends with two brothers (one a teenager, one much younger) who have been abandoned by their parents and live nearby. The three of them ride a water buffalo down the road sometimes, where tourist buses pass through, and try to sell trinkets to the unsuspecting tourists. Or, I guess maybe they are suspecting tourists, because they think said trinkets are witchcraft-related talismans, and that the village is a place of evil.

Thus is the stage set for Mu Yi and the Handsome General (also known as just Mu Yi -- it isn't clear what the final English title will be), a film that feels like it never stops setting said stage. Here is a movie that squanders to many strong elements as it struggles to find its narrative footing, jumping between times and places, throwing in more characters than it can handle, and never figuring out what the point of its story is, what message it hopes to impart to its viewer. It's a fantasy adventure, an ode to motherhood, a love story, a feminist manifesto, a coming-of-age-story, and more.

But also less. Because it puts on so many hats, it doesn't wear any of them particularly well. More than halfway through the movie, I was wondering when the story was actually going to get going, and it kind of never does. It's the feeling of being in a car that's been parked in the mud. No matter how many times you tap the gas pedal, the wheels spin and whiz without getting any forward momentum going. You're stuck in place, making a lot of noise and a bit of a mess. Going nowhere, seeing nothing.

I guess the film's main narrative thrust is the arrival of a performance troupe, whose telling of the legend of the Handsome General (from 5th/6th-century China) keeps getting interrupted by said general's restless spirit. They know that this spirit is still seeking a lost treasure, and will not rest and reincarnate until that treasure has been found. Within the legend, the general's treasure is said to be his beautiful face, so stunning that he never allowed anyone to see it. Instead, he always wore a bird-like mask so as not to prove a distraction to his soldiers. But that's not the treasure the story is about.

And that story kind of isn't what this movie is about. Eventually, we do get there. Mu Yi and her friends are joined by a squat blue-skinned wannabe-god who has been tasked with dealing with the general's spirit -- if he can, he will finally be granted full divinity. This leads to the whole gang using the general's mask to travel back in time and intervene in his story, hopefully making it right, finding the treasure, and changing history/destiny. Then the general can finally reincarnate, the blue dude can be a god, Mu Yi can be granted a wish for a new/better life by said god, and the brothers can just keep doing what they do, I guess?

There is so much going on in this movie, but because all of it feels so disjointed and haphazard, it also feels like there's nothing happening. Our attention is constantly being diverted elsewhere, new plot elements popping up without rhyme or reason, the narrative thread fraying as it struggles to connect the disparate pieces. It's an incredibly frustrating watch. The shapelessness kind of bludgeons you into a state of surrender. You just have to sit back and accept what you're watching, try not to think about it too much, and pick out the treasures you can find in the mess.

And those treasures are quite grand, when you find them. I've been looking forward to this movie for a while, mostly because of how beautiful the artwork is. It has that gorgeous ink-brush look that we see cropping up more and more, and is always most pleasing to these eyes. The dreamy environs, suffuse with light, wisps of watercolor softness. This is a great-looking movie, and one that has a score to match. I'm already eager for this soundtrack to get released online, because I need to hear this music again ASAP.

I also really liked a lot of the characters, especially Mu Yi and the brothers. They're easy characters to root for and empathize with, even if it isn't always clear what exactly we're rooting for them to achieve. As much as they feel like pieces on a board being moved by the filmmakers just so there's more movie to watch, their characterization at least makes them consistently enjoyable to watch (especially the younger brother, who's adorable and funny and maybe has even less of a filter than Mu Yi, which is saying something).

It's hard to even know what to take away from this movie. As the credits roll, there's a dedication "to our mothers", which is nice, and feels apt. The movie is certainly about the roles women are forced/expected to take, with one of the elderly women bemoaning that all women are relegated to beauty or motherhood eventually, a dichotomy Mu Yi rejects outright. The village's origins and purpose gradually become clear, and are compelling: a case for women to look out for and protect each other in a world where men and boys are more highly valued. But again, in this wide-ranging, unfocused narrative, even these resonant thematic strands feel strained. It almost feels like the filmmakers weren't confident enough in any of the many elements present, so rather than hone the story, they tossed everything in to see what would stick, and if it would all gel together into some semblance of a legible narrative.

Sadly, it doesn't, but Mu Yi and the Handsome General is at least a beautiful mess. It may not make much of a mark, but I think its heart is in the right place, and any of its elements could've been a strong core for a more decisive movie. But as it is, it's a sore disappointment.