User reviews

The Search For Animal Chin is a skateboarding movie, directed by Stacy Peralta, and starring members of The Bones Brigade, a globally popular skateboarding team who formed in the late 80's, and continued to dominate the skateboarding scene until the mid 90's. After releasing two prior videos, 'The Bones Brigade Video Show', and 'Future Primitive', Peralta wanted to make a movie that was less commercialized, but at the same time more ambitious, complete with a story, and acting.

The plot is as follows: The creator of skateboarding, an bearded Asian named 'Animal' Chin has gone missing, and the Bones Brigade, a group of young skaters, set out to find him. The plot is light on depth, but it conveys a general message about how skateboarding became by that time overblown and commercialized, and encourages skating for fun, not money or popularity. The dialogue is very loose and almost entirely improvised, with only a very vague script from surfing journalist Paul Gross. As well as that, the Bones Brigade members don't show much acting ability, and you can see that in some scenes that they are extremely tired and physically exhausted. Despite this, the humor works, in a very camp way, and a lot of the jokes are based around what the Bones Brigade members joked about off set in real life, so some skaters may be able to relate to the humor.

But the real star of the show however, is the skateboarding itself, which makes up the majority of the movie. The Bones Brigade and friends are on top form here, and show the very best of their talents. Especially notable is a young Tony Hawk, who proceeds to dominate the final sequence with amazing trick variety, and style to match. The filming also showcases talent, with some of the first moving camera shots in a skateboarding video (Stacy Peralta came up with this concept), which is now a mainstream staple of all skateboard videos.

In all, The Search For Animal Chin is a fun ride which isn't meant to be taken seriously, that also showcases some great skateboarding with an all star cast of riders. So leave your seriousness at the door, do a bunsen over the junsen, and give it a watch.

There were indeed several other Bones Brigade videos, as other reviewers have mentioned. The full list is: Bone Brigade Video Show (1984) Future Primitive (1985) Animal Chin (1987) Public Domain (1988) Ban This (1989) Propaganda (1990) Eight (1991) Celebraty Tropical Fisdh (1991) Hot Batch (1992) Chaos (1992) Play (1993) Suburban Diners (1994) Scenic Drive (1995) Strip Mall heroes (1998) Magic (1999) Animal Chin is certainly the best one in my book. I think the "classic" Bones Brigade videos ended with "Ban This," depending on how you define classic.

The videos are all available on Powell Peralta's web site.

'Search for Animal Chin' was one of a few mini-skate movies put out by Powell Peralta and featuring their Bones Brigade troupe which featured an all-star line-up of skateboarders like Steve Caballero, Mike McMagill, Tommy Guerro, Lance Mountain, and of course, Tony Hawk. The Bones Brigade commanded the skate scene in the early 80s.

The movie, directed by former Dogtown Z-Boy and co-founder of Powell Perlata skateboards, comments on the quest for the ultimate soul skater. Here, it is represented in the form of an icon known as Animal Chin, the legendary guy who supposedly founded skateboarding some time long ago like during the Confucianism days. We follow our team of skaters around the world on their quest for Animal Chin.

Though Peralta makes a few comments about how overblown and overcommercialized the skate scene has become (as illustrated by the opening sequence with the guy nailing the tv after some old tv spokespeople are blabbing about skating), the movie is really just a demonstration of the talents of the Bones Brigade team just as it is the primary purpose of all skate demo videos put out by skate companies these days, to show off the talents of their pros and amateurs.

The skating is pretty good and the Bones Brigade, being pretty laid back, make a fun hour or so video time. It seems to be about a hundred percent improvised, so basically, you're just watching the guys do whatever it was they felt like doing on camera, probably given some general plot line and asked to carry the movie along. Their skaters for crying out loud, not actors. The skating, too, is pretty good. I think this was filmed just after Tony Hawk built the huge ramp at his house in the Falbrook boonies.

If you like this movie, search out the rest of the hard-to-find Powell Peralta series. I think there was more than "Ban This" and "Public Domain" before the Bones Brigade finally disbanded. I think Animal Chin is the first of the series which struck upon a new way to promote skateboarding. For once, a kid didn't have to pay to see a demonstration or have to pick up a magazine to catch his favorite skaters in action. And of course it has caught on, because every manufacturer seems to have an endless supply of skate movies. Although few seem to try to develop any sort of story and instead are just shot after shot of skate sessions. Which is fine, but then again, with some of the skating that goes one in present day videos (those without a story), you could just as well go out on the street and find a bunch of skaters who are just as good. Because, it looks like just about everyone gets sponsored these days.

The Bones Brigade were really the best of their game--as they have proven, especially Caballero and Hawk who have defined most of the skateboarding tricks out there today.

Even though this movie is directed by Peralta, however, do not expect a mini-documentary resembling 'Dogtown and Z-Boys' or 'Riding With Giants,' two exemplary masterpieces of Peralta's cinematic abilities. These were just like little test pieces soon to be developed into something better. Peralta may have been starting out in his directorial career, going on to do great things.