Misfit Division 1, ready for prattle!
Battle. Battle. Dammit!
Yamasong: March of the Hollows (2017) is a visual treat for those who are fans of puppet movies. A fusion of CGI with those puppets, this is the story of a Creator who made a mistake, gifting one of his most powerful creations, Yari, with the over-confidence to believe she knows what is best for her world.
And then making her into a Hollow – or what I might call a cyborg, a mix of biological and robot. And near-invincible.
Naturally, not all biologicals want to become Hollows, and the Creator’s assistant, a Hollow itself, is still around to help in the resistance. But can it and the local analogue to a Balrog be enough to stop Yari, along with the usual raft of misfit heroes?
Yari in her High School senior picture. She’s crabby because no one took her to prom.
Featuring creatures from the size of minuscule fairies to flying whales and the aforementioned Balrog, it’s still the struggle between dominance and freedom, the exotic and the familiar, the family and ambition, which drives this story. It’s unexpected, has attention to detail, and if I’m not entirely happy with some of the puppeteering, maybe I’m just overly critical.
Perhaps the biggest lack, though, is a failure to really convey the emotional attachments and relationships. Attempts are made, it is true; this is no artificially transactional culture. But they just don’t quite ring true.
But that didn’t stop us from watching a fairly compelling story. Now if they could have just done away with that annoying introductory narrative …
