S'porean animated film about girl protecting a granny is a quintessential story of our lives

'Baozha' is all of us as grandkids with a guilty but still loving obligation to our elders.

Guan Zhen Tan | August 01, 2017, 03:40 PM

If your grandparents are still alive, or if you grew up helping to look after your grandparents, a new made-in-Singapore animated film is likely to speak to your personal experience.

"Baozha" is a film by Jasper Liu, Jolene Cheng and Bryan Goo, three students from Nanyang Technological University's school of Art, Design and Media.

Inspired by Chinese mythology like "Journey to the West" and "Nezha", it chronicles the journey of a young guardian angel who aspires to become a hero, just like the Monkey King in a handheld game she's obsessed with.

However, bored of taking care of a blissfully unaware granny, Baozha gets distracted with her game, which leads to consequences that unfold within the narrative of the film.

The animation contains many familiar facets of Chinese life and even features a very Singaporean food item, but let's not go too much into detail, lest we give away the plot.

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The animated short also won Best Animated Film at the National Youth Film Awards 2017, a well-deserved accolade given the quality of its animation style, which is very much on par with international works.

Check out the film here:

Can't get enough of the animation? The creators have even put up a concept art book for free based on the process of animating Baozha, and a behind-the-scenes video too.

We wonder if this might have potential to become a full-fledged series — with more than 7,000 shares on Facebook, it's pretty certain they'd have plenty of fans who'd support them.

Here are more quality animated shorts from NTU students:

MRT animation shows what happens to commuters in S’pore on daily basis

This Singaporean animated film is made for the born-in-the-1980s folks

 

Top image via Baozha's Facebook post