"if you must blink, do it now," is probably one of the best lines in Kubo an.d the Two Strings
I'm going to explain the title of my vlog
despite the fact that the movie did a crap job of explaining its title.
And I'm gonna tell you right now, this is a negative movie review.
Vlogging Every Day in August!
Whoo! LA edition! So angry!
The Game hosted an advance showing of Kubo and the Two Strings in LA yesterday.
There's a link to an article about it in the description. I went to that advanced
screening because I definitely wasn't sure I wanted to spend money on what looked
like an incredibly appropriative film, just pulling all sorts of stuff from
Japanese culture while giving nothing back. And I'm glad because that's exactly
what it is! Let me tell you the positive first: The same production company LAIKA
that made Coraline and ParaNorman (good movies) and then Box Trolls which had
transphobia has its villain, and then now Kubo and the Two Strings --this production
company has made a beautiful movie. Visually stunning! It looks like silk
paintings from Japan have come to life!
However, not a damn single person in the main cast of this movie is asian, let
alone Japanese. Animation takes a long time to finish so this is a film that I
read was about a decade in production. 10 years ago were they aware that they
should not be casting all white people
Yes, they were still aware of that! But they did it because they think that the
draw of a big-name white Hollywood person is important enough to ignore the
appropriative aspects of casting nothing but white people to voice
definitely Asian characters. I mean two of their names are Kubo and Hanso! Those are
Japanese people. The beetle and the monkey are definitely Japanese
characters. The girls wearing Noh masks? They're definitely Japanese characters!
The entire village was full of Japanese people and I believe only two Asian
voice actors! George Takei was one of them.
He's great,
but come on! It was nothing but MacGuffins! They didn't make any sense!
The, the structure as it goes from one act to the next doesn't make any
sense!
I'm gonna talk about a spoiler here: how can an origami figure, brought to life by
apparently the spirit of Hanso, lead the characters to the armor parts when
Hanso himself didn't succeed in doing that and became a giant beetle? What?! Why
does nobody care that Kubo has magic? At least people freaked out about a talking
monkey but then they didn't seem to really freak out that much at a giant
man beetle? What? They never explain the title! Samisen, the three stringed lute
from Japan, has three strings. The instrument that we see Kubo playing
throughout the entire movie always has three strings he does pull two bracelets
off of his wrist to use at the end that are the hair of his, I think mom and a
hair of the monkey? And I thought, "Okay, here's where it's going to turn into a two stringed
instrument!" But, no, he pulls his own hair in to make a third-string leaving it
still a samisen, a three-stringed instrument! The, the title doesn't make any sense and
requires that you know that samisen means "three strings" as it is a play on that,
which again says that they are appropriating Japanese culture! It's a purposeful
appropriation of Japanese culture and folklore while doing shit for Japanese
people. And then the climax doesn't make any sense.
Kubo can somehow fight against a god, the moon king, with just his magical Samisen
playing abilities?
That's-- Is Kubo a God? What? Then at the end, even though his parents are dead,
he can somehow repre-- resurrect ghosts of them that looked as they did as humans...
and that's somehow a good end-- that's not a good ending! So I guess if you, if you
want to see really gorgeous animation, that's a reason to see it? And maybe
you'll love the story, I don't know. I found it-- just-- I had to grit my teeth
through the whole--
Also, the jokes didn't land--
The jokes didn't land, except for the visual jokes! That means the people who
are voicing the characters didn't tell the jokes well! Nobody laughed in my
theater at any of the verbal jokes, only the visual ones! Oh my gaaaah! In case you
didn't know Big Hero 6 had actual Asian actors voice the Asian characters. Steven
Universe right now has a couple Asian voicing[?] actors on their show.
Fresh Off the Boat is a mainstream TV show that is full of Asian actors! Don't tell me this
bullshit about how these white people were the best possible choices, because
they flipping weren't! If you must see Kubo and the Two Strings, please offset that
action by, I don't know, buying a digital copy of Big Hero 6 or subscribing to a
season of Fresh Off the Boat, so that at least actual Asian people will get some
of your money.
I hated that movie despite the fact that is beautiful.
Tell me your comments. Have you seen Kubo and the Two Strings? How wrong am I or
how right am i? How do you feel about what I'm describing here? Or tell me
anything that matters because i want to know what matters to you.
Thank you for watching all the way to the end of this vlog. The end is where I
always say:
Tomorrow
will be even better!