As it is, “Big Fish & Begonia” throws open the door to a parallel dimension loosely based on Daoist proverbs and descriptions found in China’s ancient “Classic of Mountains and Seas.” Early on, an elderly narrator attempts to explain a history of the world in which the souls of human beings are embodied as “great fish” … except when the humans misbehave and are somehow transformed into underworld rats. Life is relatively peaceful for the Others, who look forward to the day they are allowed to venture over into the human world, although they’re strictly advised not to interact with the humans — which is exactly what Chun does, of course, approaching a fishing boat in her new form, as a brilliant red dolphin.
Feeling some sort of connection with (or perhaps just a curiosity toward) this stranger, Chun follows him to shore, swimming in for a closer look. In doing so, she gets caught in a net, and the young fisherman must swim out to rescue her. The courageous human dies in the process, but his gesture inspires Chun to seek out various supernatural entities with whom she can bargain for his life. Weirdly, in the human world, Chun takes fish form, whereas in her native domain, she appears as a girl, while the dead man is reborn as a white fish with a single horn in the center of his forehead (technically, she’s a dolphin, while he’s a whale of some sort, but why quibble when it’s all make-believe anyway?).
One of the things that differentiates the story of "Big Fish & Begonia" from those counted in the United States and Japan is the lack of an openly evil villain. Here, natural - or supernatural, circumstances such as snakes on the heads and giant winds that extend to the sky - represent the greatest threat, but instead of thinking about danger, "Big Fish & Begonia" celebrates the instinct of the response characters in a selfless way Chun, Kun and Qiu are constantly offering their own lives in exchange for the others, and in doing so, they defy the notion of mortality. Theirs is an incredibly affirmative journey, which unfolds like a waking dream on the way to a state of transcendental happiness. It could almost be the myth of the creation of a religion lost a long time ago, which is appropriate, considering how the belief in potential was previously not tapped into Chinese animation.
This marvelous and mind-blowing animated feature surpasses anything cartoon China has produced before in terms of sheer beauty, even as it defies interpretation.
Perhaps such a film is best experienced in a state of delirious semi-consciousness, in which its mind-bending imagery is free to wash over the imagination in strange and surreal ways.
My personal score is 100, for the beautiful animation, the landscapes that are shown and the moral that leaves.
