I Am What I Am

The Music/Songs: There are many original songs composed for this movie, they fit in each scenes very well and resembles the emotion correspondingly. I appreciate those songs even better by reading the lyrics, those words came from down-to-the-earth people's lives and reflects ordinary people's fighting spirit when they denying their destinies.

The screen shots/storyboard: Since this is an anime movie, there are many astonishing scenes with soothing great nature, or powerful actions, or emotional twists of our protagonist's life. I love how these are written down as cut-scenes and directed by the director, and eventually how they are presented in the movie.

Many scenes touched me in the heart.

Traditions, nostalgia and culture: You can get the awe-inspiring scenery from a Chinese traditional village, their life styles in the 90's and the beautiful nature. And you also get the cold and the ruthless from arising big cities where the poor are struggling with lives. These are the common memories of a whole generation.

Tiger dancing is a tradition that comes down from many generations before us but is also fading away with modernization of China. Here you can feel both the passion and sorrow from this transition.

The plot: It's really an easy story, there is no sideways to understand the plot and I think this makes this movie a no-brainer to recommend to anyone who wants to learn a little more about a Chinese tradition and an inspiring story of a child who defies his weakness and stands up as a man.

This animation is one of the 2021 movies that raised a hot debate. But in my personal opinion, I am What I am is an awesome Chinese movie.

The story is about a weak teenage boy called A Juan, who's also passionate about lion dancing, a traditional Chinese art performance in which performers mimic a lion's movements in a lion costume, takes part in the top lion dance competition for the honor and money and his journey of it.

Some criticized it for the characters' appearance, saying it uglifies Guangdong people; some think the Lion dancing learning is too fast and too unrealistic. Well, those make sense in some way, but hey, it's animation after all(not a documentary), we use exaggerations all the time. As a drama/animation, it's nothing wrong when the director puts the focus on the growth of the character rather than discussing how we learn the traditional lion dancing for like 10 years.

The reasons I like this movie are:

a. This movie chooses to tell a story that we aren't that familiar with, which is rather bold a move in China. In most cases, this usually means a bad box office. But this movie conveys a good concept that a good Chinese animation movie can independently discuss local culture and local stories. It doesn't have to be those big IPs like the Monkey Kind(Sun WuKong) or Nezha(Deity), that it can be recognized and appreciated by the audience even if none of the characters are famous.

B. The first half part of the movie is quite relaxing, you laugh with the boys and you look for a master with them. And you laugh because they are funny, the twists are natural, not deliberately designed.

C. The end part is realistic. After A Juan went won first place in that competition, he is still down to earth and went to Shanghai for work. I especially like the part where he already decided to give up but on seeing the competition he just plucks up the courage and goes back to the game. The struggle is impressive and tense.

Excellent animation! Its whole story, animation technique and the main roles' setting are ranked in the first class. I think it can be ranked in the level of Disney or Pixar. I give this animation 9/10 as it is almost satisfying except for some a little fabricated dialogue lines. Another important merit is this Chinese animation is a realistic one concentrating on the current local Chinese society, without any Chinese legends' background such as Sun Wukong or Ne Zha, which means the comic producers in Chinese more and more independent and powerful.

Some so-called Chinese patriotic audience, trolls actually, said the animation is a humiliation to China because the leading roles have long-small-evil eyes like "The Mandarin" in Marvel Universe. Oh come on! Aren't you too sensitive to ignore the true nature of this passionate movie?

The proper way of defending one's country is to make great achievements with so-called characteristics rather than crying out like a baby or cursing online or accusing that you were humiliated. Characteristics like your appearance are your born nature, nothing good, nothing bad, it is unnecessary to express patriotism or hatred to the country with them, and if others do, just ignore them because this is stupid nonsense. Think about the story of the label "Made in Germany", which was first used to mark the poorly-produced goods from Germany because of their lower quality. However, German people tried their best and later made the label became the mark of best quality. See? Did German cried and accused that was a humiliation to Germany? No, of course not, it can only be useless. Only by hard-working and making higher achievements can you change the way others comment on you and eliminate the so-called "humiliation".

This one absolutely inspires! A story with a core inside-or should I say a "ROAR" inside. Everything about this movie is great: the cinematography, the jokes, the culture, and the traditions.

The degree to which it reflects reality is one of the reasons I consider it a success. The main character feels close to you because the background is so relatable in China. The vivid animation transports you to that beautiful southern Chinese village-you can almost smell the grass, feel the flow of the river, and hear the hustle and bustle of the streets during the day. I especially appreciate the contrast between the warmth of the village and the coldness of the city.

A lion's heart means bravery, but not ignorance, because it must come from something bigger than yourself. The main character demonstrates this through his journey of change and evolution of mentality, something we can all relate to when we first start questioning whether to chase our dreams.

Ironically, while some critics attack the production company for being too stereotypical about Chinese culture, this has, in a way, made the movie itself mirror the main character's struggle.

I feel the same way as all charactors in movie and burst into tears.

The technical level is almost perfect in my opinion, and all the flaws in character modeling are finally understood as the need to shape the characters who are look like ugly, but it feels real, as if the people around me may even be myself.

Overall, this inspirational story of people at the bottom sublimated a legend which give me so many Better than expected, more important, it returned to reality at the end of story which made me more sober instead of dreaming. It made me believe that this story could have happened in reality. Of course, the people at the bottom still need to face the harsh reality. It reminds me: Life is going on as before that is not overshadowed by the passion of Inspirational story.

Extremely clever logic!

And Great fit music! The images and scenes presented in the story are full of Lingnan style (the area near Foshan, Guangdong Province, the hometown of Yip Man). It makes me miss Hong Kong cinema at its best in the 1990s. Unique, fresh and full of tradition.