International Premiere | In Competition
Taiwan, Malaysia, Hong Kong, 2026, 77’
Directed by: Toe Yuen
Screenplay: Toe Yuen
Cinematography (color): Lin Chih-peng
Editing: Nose Chan
Production Design: Felix Ip
Music: Wong Kin-wai, Wu Pei-lin
Producers: Chen Yi-ching, Wee Meng Hee
Cast: Gei Fan (father), Erica Wu (mother), Hung Chun-hao (son), Natalie Lee (little girl)
Date of First Release in Territory: TBA
The smallest things make a big difference in
A Mighty Adventure, the long-awaited new film by Toe Yuen, the director who took Hong Kong animation to new heights with 2001’s
My Life as McDull. Yuen’s first feature film since his underrated 2019 co-directorial effort
The Great Detective Sherlock Holmes –
The Greatest Jail-Breaker brings together his live-action directorial experience of recent years with his animation expertise, seamlessly blending live-action elements and computer animation to create a thrilling adventure that would be barely noticeable to the naked eye if it happened in real life.
The film begins in the forest, where we meet a little grasshopper, its tiny new spider friend, and a butterfly that the grasshopper immediately becomes enamoured with. When the grasshopper and the butterfly are unceremoniously caught in a net by a human being and taken to the big city, the brave little spider follows along to bring them home.
From the story, one might expect
A Mighty Adventure to be a Pixar-esque animated comedy with insects that speak in clever one-liners and show human expressions. Instead, Yuen takes his inspiration from the silent film era, purely relying on action to move the narrative along (the few lines of indistinct human dialogue are unsubtitled). Instead of trying to force human qualities onto the insects, Yuen turns their physical abilities into tools that help them get home, even though the character designs do make them more expressive than the average insect.
Despite running only 77 minutes,
A Mighty Adventure packs more breathtaking and exhilarating moments than most two-hour Hollywood films. True to its title, our micro-heroes face a harrowing journey to survive the big city. Yuen turns unassuming everyday objects such as an overflowing pot, a robotic vacuum cleaner and a row of small birds into daunting obstacles that put the heroes in credible peril.
A Mighty Adventure is suitable for family audiences, but Yuen’s film is so genuinely exciting that audiences of any age will be enthralled. If nothing else, it will at least make us rethink the consequences of how we deal with tiny objects in real life.
A Mighty Adventure also signals a new era of pan-Asian cooperation for Hong Kong filmmakers. At a time when Hong Kong filmmakers are having trouble finding funding at home, Yuen spent years pulling together Taiwanese and Malaysian resources to finally finish a film that he calls his “resurrection after the nail entered the coffin.” Truly driven by passion and artistic tenacity, the making of
A Mighty Adventure sounds like an adventure unto itself.
Toe Yuen
While working in a firm that creates special effects for films and computer animation, Toe Yuen made animated short films and won the top animation award twice at Hong Kong’s Independent Film and Video Awards. In 2001, he directed My Life as McDull, winner of the Grand Prix at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival. After directing CJ7: The Cartoon for producer Stephen Chow in 2010, Yuen directed live-action narrative for television and co-directed the animated film The Great Detective Sherlock Holmes – The Greatest Jail-Breaker (2019).
FILMOGRAPHY
2001 – My Life as McDull
2004 – McDull, Prince de la Bun
2010 – CJ7: The Cartoon
2019 – The Great Detective Sherlock Holmes – The Greatest Jail-Breaker
2026 – A Mighty Adventure