Should you have the privilege to spend any time in China, you’ll come away impressed by the country’s vast wealth of history and thirst for understanding. All Wishes Come True! is a wonderful fusion of those ideas. Combining Chinese folklore with Disney’s classic movie playbook, this mega animated epic was destined for greatness through its inception. And thanks to writer/director Mu Zhengyang, the execution delivers on those wishes the title promises.
The story All Wishes Come True! is based on is the story of the Eight Immortals. In this story, there’s a lantern crafted by the gods that helps keep the world in balance. Unfortunately, that lantern gets stolen and taken to the magical world of Penglai ending up in the Gods of Fortune’s vault, throwing the mortal world in chaos. The lantern keeper Lü Dongbin (Li Shaozhe) is on a rescue/revenge mission to get the lantern back. On that mission, he’s be felled by a thief, Zhongli Quan (Chen Hao), whom Lu realizes is a long lost friend from the temple they grew up in. The two make a bargain with each to break into the Gods of Fortune’s vault: with Lu getting the lantern back and Zhongli getting ALL the other riches in there.
My eyes almost popped out of my head when I saw the runtime of All Wishes Come True!: almost 2 and a half hours! But when your story is about 8 “immortals” AND their godly adversaries AND a world most people don’t know AND you’ve got to razzle dazzle the audience, only for 10 and under will that be a struggle. Mu Zhengyang is more than just a Disney and Chinese history student: he’s a film buff too. He injects multiple known, beloved storytelling tropes into his film, but grounds those tropes in his own specific tale. The entrance to Penglai will remind older kids when they watched Zootopia for the first time. The building the immortals Ocean’s 11 sequences are great: Zhengyang gives unique intros to each new member, sometimes through dazzling action setpieces, sometimes through very humorous property disputes. Honestly! As is the explanation of how to enter the vault, very silly but makes clear how hard this will be as a heist. Hell he even watched the Now You See Me Movies, as literal magicians learn how to pull of a figurative magician’s sleight of hand for their hustles. As well as a big end act sequence that you’ll recognize immediately but I won’t spoil here. And backing it all up is beautiful epic CGI, making the story feel as grand as Mu wants it to be.
Even for the uninitiated like me. I was impressed at how well Mu Zhengyang wrangles All Wishes Come True! together. He builds it from the ground up, crafting a great tale first. The base tale is your basic hero’s journey: all the 8 immortals are bascially con artists, despised by society, looking for their version of happiness, mostly around trying to get rich or through vengeance. Instead, like all heroes what they really seek is something less worldly: an absolution through selfless acts and hard work. That realization for our eight is gradual and unexpected, but it’s always hovering right below the surface of the current predicament in the tale, the north star arc Zhengyang takes the characters on as his tale reaches its conclusion. With that solid foundation, he then throws in the fun style stuff I hinted at in the paragraph above. The story pivots pretty effortlessly from genre to genre, tone to tone, as it goes along because it’s clear in its storytelling. That nimble crafting keeps you on the edge of your seat, excited where the next scene is going to take you knowing you’re in the hands of someone with assured hands at the helm.
I’m loving China’s additions to world cinema of the modern day. On one hand you get great animated fair like All Wishes Come True!, mega 4 quadrant hits that are bound to entertain anyone and everyone. And on the other side is the established but forever cool Hong Kong industry, blowing kids’ minds with their martial arts mastery. The best part is we’re still scratching the surface of what might be even better stuff on the horizon. I for one, can’t wait!