Other Media Review

Movie Review: Kubo and the Two Strings

Kubo and the Two Strings is, hands down, the most visually stunning animated movie I have ever seen. I love many kinds of animation and it’s foolish to try to compare them, but this movie made me gasp out loud repeatedly. The animation is unusual, detailed, gorgeous, and dreamlike, and the imagery is simply amazing. It’s also a lovely movie in terms of character, action, and emotion – but wow, is it ever dark.

Kubo starts off with a brilliant opening sequence that shows us two things:

  1. This movie is visually stunning in an unusual way (it uses primarily stop motion animation to achieve it’s look, unlike the smoother, more polished, but somewhat generic look of Disney and Pixar computer animation).
  1. This movie is not fucking around. Within the first few seconds, a woman hits her head on a rock hard enough to produce a cloud of blood, and a baby is shown with a bloody bandage covering its eye – obviously a recent, and painful, and messy injury. There’s no gore, just a small amount of blood in this opening sequence. But the very small amount of blood we see is used so effectively that it’s shocking.

The woman is Kubo’s mother, and the baby is, of course, Kubo. She raises him on an island and tells him that he must never go out at night, or her sisters and grandfather will find him and take his other eye. They want to strip him of his humanity so that he can live with them in the sky.

Kubo's mom being a badass
Do. Not. Piss. Off. Mothers.

Kubo supports himself and his mother by performing storytelling shows in the village, with the help of his magical ability to make amazing origami creations. One night, he accidentally stays out too late, because he was trying to partake in a festival in which villagers honor the dead (Kubo’s father died saving Kubo and his mother when Kubo was a baby). Kubo’s evil Aunties come after him and Kubo is on the run, with no one but a talking monkey, an origami samurai, and a giant talking beetle to help him find his father’s lost armor so that he can defeat his aunties and his grandfather, Moon King.

Plot-wise, this is a Quest story. The Hero has to Grow Up and Find the Things that will help him Meet His Goal. Where the movie finds its depth is in the themes of storytelling as a form of both creating identity and as a form of power. The other theme involves dealing with death and loss. When the story begins, Kubo has already lost his father and he fears losing his mother. In many ways, this story is about the importance of having a safety net – the villagers, who are absent for most of the movie, turn out to be crucial in helping Kubo protect himself against Moon King (and their resolution involves storytelling in a way that is incredibly sweet). But it’s also about surviving losing everything, and how our memories can let us feel close to the people we have lost. This is a heartwarming story, but not a very cheerful one.

Major Spoiler for Big Hero 6 and Kubo:

Click for spoilers!
Both movies deal very effectively with the theme of grief. However, remember how, near the end of Big Hero 6, we though that Baymax was dead, but then Hiro uploaded a back up disk and brought him back? Thematically speaking, Kubo is the movie that would have happened if there was no back up disk, but Hiro was still comforted by the lessons Baymax had taught him and his group of friends. There are no “saves” in Kubo but there’s also no cynicism or despair.

Is there romance? Well, yes, but in a sideways kind of a way. Kubo’s mother tells Kubo about how she and her father met, and even though he is gone, it’s clear that she still loves Kubo’s father deeply. And Monkey and Beetle have a classic parenting fight that cracked my tween daughter up. They have the kind of bickering that could inevitably lead to romance. But any romance is kept in the background – the biggest love story involves love between parents and children, especially mothers and children.

One criticism I have of the movie involves a behind the scenes issue. All of the lead characters are voiced by Caucasian actors. They are amazing, and of course it’s animated, so all the characters are depicted as Japanese, and all of the human characters (mostly characters in Kubo’s village) are voiced by people of Japanese descent. But I wanted more involvement from Japanese actors in main roles from not only a social justice and industry perspective (in that I want more actors of color to get work and exposure) but from a purely selfish one. I would love the movie Lilo and Stitch even if I didn’t know that the characters of Nani and David are voiced by Hawaiian actors, but having Hawaiian actors in those pivotal roles gave the movie a feeling of authenticity and deep love for the subject material. I felt the same way about the primarily African American voice cast of The Princess and the Frog. I missed that feeling of love and personal passion and cultural authenticity in Kubo, which is otherwise a layered representation (onscreen as opposed to behind the scenes) of Japanese characters in Feudal Japan.

On the whole, this movie does a great job including characters with disabilities – in fact, almost every main character has at least one. Kubo has one eye. His mother experiences periods of catatonia and memory loss. Beetle can’t remember any of his past, and Monkey spends much of the movie with an injury. These issues have serious impacts on the characters, and they have to use ingenuity, tenacity, and teamwork to function effectively.

However, there is an implication that the reason Kubo’s Grandfather wants Kubo’s other eye is that without eyes, Kubo won’t be able to see goodness in people. To which I say, “Ahem?”

Now, the climatic stuff between Kubo and the Grandfather is incredibly intense and fast-paced and I think I missed some of the nuances. But I think “No, I can totally detect the goodness in people without eyes, DUH” should be more than a nuance.

I’m interested in what other people who saw the movie thought about this. Did I miss something? Or is this an incredibly ableist message right at the end of a very non-ableist movie?

Kubo faces down a giant undersea eyeball.
What is it with this movie and eyeballs?

Overall, I adored this movie, but I was completely unprepared for how uncompromising it is. Dead characters stay dead. Bad things happen. It’s a very loving and affirming message about the power of family, community, and memory. But there’s no magical last save that makes everything perfectly happy – instead, Kubo has to learn to cope with grief by seeking comfort in his memories and in his community. At the very end, he asks for his story to have a happy ending. Is it happy? Well, sort of. But in a much more adult way than I expected.

I saw this movie with my tween daughter. She’s a pretty hardened soul, whereas I’m the kind of softie who cries at trailers, but even she thought the movie was much sadder and spookier than she had expected it to be. She thought it should have been rated PG-13, not PG. Of course, for the very youngest kids in the theater, most of the really spooky and upsetting stuff probably went right over their heads. A very small boy sitting by me proudly and firmly informed his mom, “I LOVED it and I will NOT have nightmares!” Speak for yourself, little buddy.

Kubo's aunt turning around, horrifyingly
NOPE. NOPE. NOPE. WILL HAVE NIGHTMARES.

I certainly recommend this movie for adults – it’s incredible and original and inventive and emotional. As for kids, it falls in the “know your kid” category. The creep factor when the sisters first appear, gliding through the air with masks on their faces, crooning, “We’re your faaaammmiiillllyyy” is pretty freaking intense. It’s not so much that the movie has things like jump scares as that the imagery and sound, and in some cases the absence of sound, is incredibly spooky.

Also you should be prepared to talk to your kids about loss after the movie, since so much of the theme is about the dead living on in our memories. If that’s not a topic you want to deal with, don’t go, because it’s central to the film. But it can also be a really good way to talk about death and loss – who do you miss? What do you remember about them? When do you feel closest to this person?

I wish I could grade this movie again after a rewatch – there’s just so much to unpack. Because of the casting issues and my concerns about the whole eyeball obsession that Moon King has, I’m giving this a A-. Frankly, this involved a lot (A LOT) of waffling on my part. On one hand, I’d love to give it an A+ for it’s strong emotional story, brave plot choices, and incredibly imagery. On the other hand, the casting is problematic, and the message about blindness is also problematic unless I missed something (my daughter thought she heard a line to the effect of “even if I lost both eyes I’d still be able to tell that people are good” but I missed it).

Ultimately, I’m basing my review on the actual finished product and not any behind the scenes issues, even though I feel very strongly about those issues. I’m going with an A- for the emotional impact, in addition to the following. Although the casting is messed up, it is thrilling to see an animated movie made with an onsite cultural consultant which features all Japanese characters in a positive way. No white people show up and start saving the day – everyone is Japanese. There are strong and complex male and female characters from different social classes. There’s a good mix of humor, action, mythos, and pathos. Other than the eyeball thing, disabilities are handled realistically and positively. The soundtrack is stunning. And as I’ve mentioned a thousand times, THOSE VISUALS. Anyone will love this who isn’t afraid of a tough emotional story and who wants to see something heartfelt, exciting, spooky, and unusual.

I’m issuing this grade with a “know yourself and your kid, take tissues, and schedule ice cream eating post viewing” warning. This is an intense movie and it’s like nothing I have ever seen before.

I can’t wait to see it again – with tissues this time.

Kubo and the Two Strings is in theaters now and you can find tickets (US) at Fandango and Moviefone.

Add Your Comment →

  1. Hazel says:

    Thank you, Carrie. Terrific review. I’m not crazy about animation, but you make me want to see this. 🙂

    (Pity about the casting, but it’s what we’ve come to expect from the industry.)

  2. Hopefulpuffin says:

    I am so excited see this this weekend with my son. Laika’s animation is like nothing else out there and I like it even more than Aardman and, ahem, Pixar.

  3. Anony Miss says:

    While My Guitar Gently Weeps as the theme song there tells me this ain’t Disney!

  4. hng23 says:

    I just checked the cast list over at IMdB & there are several Japanese actors voicing characters: George Takei, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa & Minae Noji, to name just three. Maybe you didn’t stay to watch the credits.

  5. CarrieS says:

    From the review: “all of the human characters (mostly characters in Kubo’s village) are voiced by people of Japanese descent”

    The main characters (Kubo, his mother, Beetle, Monkey, The Sisters, and Moon King) are voiced by Caucasian actors but most supporting roles (villagers) are voiced by Japanese actors.

  6. hng23 says:

    @CarrieS: Oops, sorry, obviously I didn’t read carefully enough.

  7. Fi says:

    I get how the eye thing might come off as ableist, but it didn’t really bother me in context since it was a metaphor and symbolic representation of being human versus magical rather than about literal sight or literal blindness. (His grandfather seems to have vision–he’s fully able to navigate without assistance or a guidance device–but can’t “see.”) The movie is full of magical effects that alter perception and memory. Losing his eyes wouldn’t make him physically blind like a person but rather have the magical effect of changing who he was.

  8. Jennifer says:

    My 9 y.o. daughter and I LOVED it. What was simultaneously hilarious and really striking was talking about it after: my daughter kept referring to Kubo as “she.” I didn’t “call” her on it until I was certain she really was doing it, and when I laughingly pointed it out to her, she was like, oh! Yeah, I guess. And then we talked about that Kubo’s gender *didn’t matter one tiny bit* to the storyline, and that there were other kick-ass female characters. So that was fun. 🙂 I guess she identified pretty strongly with Kubo!

  9. EC Spurlock says:

    Went to see this last night with my two college-age sons as we are all animation fans. It turned out to be very cathartic for us, as we had just passed the one-year anniversary of my husband’s death, and dealing as it does with life, death, family, what your memories make you, and what other people’s memories make you. (Or, as Hamilton says, who lives, who dies, who tells your story.) If his grandfather had removed his other eye, all Kubo would have had were memories. Would he retain only the memories of the terrible things that were done to him? Or would he remember love and happiness? Which memories would he use to define himself? Which memories would he use to define what he expected of life?

    I can see why people compare it to Miyazaki; not so much the animation (although that is gorgeous) but in the story it tells and the way it tells it, it’s a very Japanese sensibility. I can also see why I have heard of small children having to be removed, screaming and crying. It’s very dark, very scary, and the ending is not particularly a happy one. I wouldn’t even call it bittersweet.

    I do have to say it’s one of the prettiest movies Laika has made. The backgrounds especially are beautiful and painterly, and the animation is so smooth it looks more like 3D rendering than actual stop-motion (Although in a neat twist, there’s an after-credits (during-credits?) scene where they show the animators designing, building and animating one of the characters.)

    All in all very much worth seeing but, as CarrieS says, know your kid, and be prepared for some very dark and tragic twists during the movie, and follow-up conversations afterward.

  10. Mary Franc says:

    Loved this movie. Be sure to stay for the credits. I did feel a bit down at the end, but I think it is because I am not knowledgeable about the Japanese culture. Kids in my screening didn’t seem to get the movie, but the adults enjoyed it.

  11. Tam says:

    The ableist message at the end really was disturbing. I thought, geez, I’m glad I didn’t take a blind kid to this movie.

  12. AngryBlackbird says:

    The biggest issue with this movie is the lack of diversity. Where are the black characters? Where are the Indian characters?

    And don’t give me that “there are no black or Indian people in Japan” excuse, this is set in FANTASY Japan. We’re supposed to believe that fantasy Japan has talking beetles and dragons and moon monsters, but no black or Indian people?

  13. The biggest issue with this movie is the lack of diversity. Where are the white characters? Where are the caucasian characters?

    And don’t give me that “there are no white or caucasian people in Japan” excuse, this is set in FANTASY Japan. We’re supposed to believe that fantasy Japan has talking beetles and dragons and moon monsters, but no white or caucasian people?

  14. Rattatatosk says:

    I don’t think the bit at the end was ableist. The moon king is physically blind but because he is a god it doesn’t matter; he perceives the world through magic. He wants to take away Kubo’s sight so that Kubo will also be more focused on the cold, distant, magical world of the gods and not the material human world. It’s not a value judgement on blindness. Kubo tells him his connection to the human world would still remain even without sight, and basically proves that connection is more powerful even than magic with his final attack at the end.

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