[Our thanks to Andrew David Long for the following review.]

I've fallen in love with an animated pig.  It is a chaste and simple love.  It is also a long distance romance, because Hong Kong's favourite piece of animated pork now has a few features under his belt, none of which have been released on screens in North America.
 
McDull is a piggy who tries really hard in school and strives to be respectful and kind to everyone.  Unfortunately, he's not very bright and he has an unfortunate tendency to soil his... well, actually he's not wearing pants.  He is something of a disappointment to his single mother - who is also trying very hard to find some success in her life.  As the 18th generation descendant of an inventor, McFat, who never quite got anything right (he invented the first and only telephone, but there was no-one to call; he invented the electric rice cooker, but forgot to invent electricity) McDull is a true product of his ancestry.  His mother naturally wants the best for her child, but even her efforts have gone awry from the very beginning (involved in a study of the benefits of pre-natal exposure to Mozart, McDull was unfortunately part of the control group.)  When she goes to the mainland to learn about business, she checks McDull into a kindergarten that specializes in Wudang training so that he can be like Chow Yun Fat, and put the hurt on anyone who disparages the food in the chain of Chicken On Fire restaurants that she dreams of opening.  Under the tutelage of Master - a former opponent of Pruce Lee (yes, Pruce) - our intrepid pig is as slow as ever, and presents new challenges for a thousand-year-old martial arts school that has never before encountered a student who has neither a waist nor a neck (the scene in which Master reveals his new method for teaching Tai Chi is particularly hilarious for anyone who has ever studied a Chinese martial art.)  Now, if you have a film about a martial arts school, you pretty much have to have a tournament, and of course McDull ends up in the thick of it.  Care to guess how he fares?
 
While McDull is a pop-culture icon in Hong Kong, McDull Wudang's appeal is not reliant on any prior knowledge or exposure to the character, and though popular with children, it isn't even targeted at kids, featuring as it does: a musical number about menopause; a dark and funny song about failed parenting; references to the archaeological implications of the Three Gorges Dam; and a wealth of riffing on kung fu movies.  The script is intelligently crafted and full of wit (it's much, much smarter than its star), but McDull Wudang is really about the virtues of determination and kindness in the face of life's hardships.   There is hardly a character of any note in the film who does not face failure, broken dreams, or a loss of direction in life.  How much existential angst makes for a fun film about dim-witted pig?  Lots. This is one of the funniest films to grace the screen at VIFF this year, and it's playing to packed houses.  The animation is mainly comprised of 2D characters on inked backgrounds, but also uses some marvelous 3D environments, and seamlessly incorporates shots and perspectives based on documentary, drama, and action forms.  Director Brian Tse (who also co-wrote the script with Alice Mak) has an impeccable sense of comedic timing, and while working in a number of entertaining digressions, he keeps the story moving briskly over its bumpy path, ultimately creating a delicate balance of heartbreak and optimism.  I can't imagine why McDull isn't getting his due in the west; failure has never been so fun.

Review by Andrew David Long