Panda and the Magic Serpent

[Xenorama ™]

this is a very cool cartoon movie. apparently it's the first Toei movie ever. i never saw it growing up, and apparently the US version is now PD, as this movie was a buck from Sprawlmart. thanks to Mike Bogue for sending it to me!

it's a version of the Chinese Legend of "White Snake". a young man falls in love with a spirit, and a well meaning but misguided wizard tries to save him from her. his friends Panda and Mimi (a fox) help out in getting the couple together.

it's a beautiful movie- color wise and well animated. the print here is rather scratched, but that shouldn't hamper your enjoyment of the movie at all. there's some truly funny bits with the animals.

i'm not sure who dubbed this. Marvin Miller narrates it for us, and fills in the gaps of some of the plot. there is some various Mandarin and Japanese language still in the movie, which is kind of cool to hear. none of the voice cast is credited though, except for Marvin.

still, for a buck it's very entertaining.

David

[RedKing]

This is a great movie! That chinese song during the opening credits has stuck in my head for years! Mel Welles does a couple voices in the movie, and the music is by Chuji Kinosmega who did the score for WAR OF THE MONSTERS. What year was this originally made anyways?

[Shonokin]

Hey that looks pretty cool. I watched a couple of clips on youtube. I wonder if there's a decent print out there in the world somewhere.

[August]

Toei Video released all of their early animation features on DVD. These used to play on TBS all the time in the late '70s and early '80s. The last time I saw one of these broadcast was LITTLE PRINCE AND THE EIGHT-HEADED DRAGON (one of my personal favorites), which I got on VHS off-air. It's not so much Ifukube's score for this film—which is mostly re-arrangements of earlier scores—but the animation and design which foreshadows SAMURAI JACK. Discotek released a couple of the later films, such as PUSS N' BOOTS and ANIMAL TREASURE ISLAND, but I think the pinnacle is LITTLE NORSE PRINCE, which is simply brilliant. I hope someone of a higher calibre than Discotek (for all of their good efforts) licenses this film, and gives it the deluxe treatment it deserves, considering it's place in history—it's considered the first "anime" film.

[Shonokin]

Maybe there's a certain somebody at BCI you could talk to about that. wink wink nudge nudge!

[Xenorama ™]

i agree. i'm watching this film again and even in this scratched up print form it's really a fun film and just beautiful. i certainly do hope someone realizes it and re-releases it. i greatly enjoyed the Discotek movies as well.

and let's see ALAKAZAM get released!