At The Movies
Chinese animation Nobody is visually rich and funny, Keeper is a half-baked tale of witchcraft
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The Chinese animated comedy Nobody features a traditional watercolour painting style in its landscapes.
PHOTO: ENCORE FILMS
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Nobody (PG13)
118 minutes, opens on Nov 27
★★★★☆
The story: In a China plagued by lawlessness, supernatural creatures known as yaoguai create mischief across the land. The hapless humans are elated to hear rumours of a monk travelling West in search of Buddhist scriptures, aided by powerful companions that include the Monkey King, a gifted slayer of monsters and demons. Four nameless yaoguai losers – a toad, pig, weasel and ape, the nobodies of the title – pose as the famous pilgrims so they can become somebodies.
Two animated comedies featuring animals are being released at the same time.
Zootopia 2 comes from the juggernaut Disney and Nobody from the Shanghai Animation Film Studio. Only one will make viewers feel blessed that they caught it on the big screen.
The landscapes and buildings in Nobody are stunning. Some are so beautiful, it becomes a chore to tear one’s eyes away to read the subtitles. Mountains, forests and temples are depicted in a translucent brush style that expresses their mystery and ancient age, perfectly suited to a tale about humans mingling with talking animals.
In the Chinese animated comedy Nobody, four misfits pose as holy pilgrims.
PHOTO: ENCORE FILMS
The first act moves a little slowly, but once the world-building is established, it is easy to see why this movie has set the record for the highest-grossing 2D animated film in China. In US dollar terms, it earned close to a quarter of a billion dollars there.
The story of four ne’er-do-wells, armed with dreams but not much smarts, operates on several comedic levels.
Seeing the legend of the Journey To The West from the point of view of four buffoons provides gags about the way myths are created.
There is the delicious irony of four yaoguai biting their tongues at hearing anti-yaoguai hate from the humans they are trying to con into giving food and shelter. The impostors quibble over what it takes to pass for human, and their conclusions are touchingly bittersweet.
The jokes are rapid-fire and dialogue-based, but the elegant and compact English subtitles make reading easy.
Hot take: After the critical and commercial success of Ne Zha 2 (2025), China follows up with another animated delight – a visually rich, funny and surprisingly poignant fairy tale about animals with big dreams.
Keeper (NC16)
99 minutes, opens on Nov 27
★★☆☆☆
Tatiana Maslany (left) and Rossif Sutherland in Keeper.
PHOTO: SHAW ORGANISATION
The story: On their anniversary, artist Liz (Tatiana Maslany) and her doctor boyfriend Malcolm (Rossif Sutherland) head to upstate Canada for a weekend at his family’s woodlands cabin, where, in the Hollywood splatter tradition of The Evil Dead (1981) and Cabin Fever (2002), things do not end well.
American director Osgood Perkins, with three features in the past 16 months, has built up an indie brand of dread-dripped horror as quickly as he is devaluing it.
Longlegs (2024) was his breakout, a genuine chiller. Next came the fatuous black comedy The Monkey (2025), which at least had copious kills, unlike the 99 minutes of waiting around for something to happen that make up Keeper.
Starring in this single-location two-hander are Emmy winner Maslany (Orphan Black, 2013 to 2017), who is also the executive producer, and Sutherland.
The couple’s cosy dinner is interrupted by the arrival of Malcolm’s obnoxious cousin (Birkett Turton) and his Eastern European escort (Eden Weiss), although the only incident to speak of all evening is Malcolm forcing a sinister chocolate cake on Liz.
The gateau contains actual ladyfingers and soon has Liz hallucinating murdered women.
It is a fitting metaphor for what turns out to be a half-baked tale of witchcraft.
The script fumbles along, disguising its vagueness as part of the pervading unease. Perkins can still create creepy vibes, however lacking the movie.
There are strange noises, subliminal imagery and odd angles of the house, which is filmed tight, trapping Liz with a palpable voyeuristic presence.
Monstrous entities will rise from the netherworld to claim her, and the disturbing creature designs are beyond any nightmare.
Hot take: This modern folklore is a lot of eeriness in search of a story. – Whang Yee Ling
