Next Club Meeting:September 20, 2025,at the Fountaindale Public Library in Bolingbrook from 11:00 am - 5:00 pm
The Animatrix Network is an anime & manga fan club located in the Southwest suburbs of Chicago, Illinois. We usually meet on the third Saturday of each month (except when holidays or conventions coincide). The meetings are free and open to the public. Join us for a day filled with anime.
This site provides news, reviews, commentaries, and previews of the world of anime and everything it inspires, such as live-action films, comics, music, art, and other weird things to enjoy and contemplate.
Bong Joon Ho brings his singular mastery home to Korea in this pitch-black modern fairytale.
Meet the Park Family: the picture of aspirational wealth. And the Kim Family, rich in street smarts but not much else. Be it chance or fate, these two houses are brought together and the Kims sense a golden opportunity. Masterminded by college-aged Ki-woo, the Kim children expediently install themselves as tutor and art therapist, to the Parks. Soon, a symbiotic relationship forms between the two families. The Kims provide “indispensable” luxury services while the Parks obliviously bankroll their entire household. When a parasitic interloper threatens the Kims’ newfound comfort, a savage, underhanded battle for dominance breaks out, threatening to destroy the fragile ecosystem between the Kims and the Parks.
By turns darkly hilarious and heart-wrenching, PARASITE showcases a modern master at the top of his game.
Cambodia, April 1975. Chou is a young woman whose everyday world is suddenly upended by the arrival of the Khmer Rouge regime. During the chaos of the forced exile from their home, Chou and her husband are separated from their 4-year-old son, who has been sent to an unknown location. As she navigates her new reality, working in the fields day and night under the careful watch of soldiers, and surviving the small indignities and harrowing realities of the increasingly grim work camps, Chou remains steadfast in her determination to reunite her family – even if it means risking everything. Winner of the top prizes at the Annecy Animation Festival and the Animation is Film Festival, Funan is a searing and remarkable debut from filmmaker Denis Do, who uses his own family history as inspiration for a thrilling story of love, loss and enduring hope in the most trying of times. Featuring the voices of Bérénice Bejo (The Artist) and Louis Garrel (The Dreamers).
One of the biggest movies in the world right now has already surpassed half a billion dollars at the box office in China without even having completed its second week of release yet. That puts the movie, Wandering Earth, on par with some of the biggest big screen titles to emerge from the US in recent years, like Black Panther and Avengers: Infinity War.
The movie, a sci-fi epic that tells the story of people trying to save earth from being destroyed by the sun, is already the second-highest grossing film in China ever. Which should explain why Netflix just snatched it up, in a deal that will introduce the film to an even wider audience via the popular streaming giant.
The streamer didn’t share any other details about the arrangement, like how much it paid or when the film will start streaming. But it’s still a big announcement, for multiple reasons.
For one thing, this will help acclimate global audiences to Chinese-produced fare. It’s also a win-win for Netflix — which, while it doesn’t sell subscriptions inside China, is nevertheless making a push to appeal to global Chinese audiences. In addition to this film, Netflix is also developing its first Chinese-language original TV series.
As far as Wandering Earth goes, it’s definitely an understatement to say a ton of work went into this blockbuster. According to Netflix, the film was given a production scale rarely seen in Chinese films and included post-production and special effects work that took two years. That included more than 10,000 specifically-built props and the employment of some 2,000 special effects shots, in addition to a “substantial amount of computer graphics shots.”
“Audiences from over 190 countries will soon meet The Wandering Earth on Netflix,” the film’s director Frant Gwo said in a statement about the news, also raving about Netflix’s plan to translate it into 28 languages. “I am glad that our movie can reach to people from different parts of the world. This is a Chinese movie created for the world, and it has been positively received since its premiere. We are very excited about it.”
According to a plot summary from Netflix, the movie is set in the distant future and involves the sun expanding into a red giant that threatens to destroy earth. A team of heroes builds “ten thousand stellar engines” to propel earth out of the solar system in the hope of finding a new home in space, kick-starting a 2,500-year-long journey in which humanity fights for the survival of their “wandering earth.”
The Wandering Earth is a 2019 Chinese science fiction film directed by Frant Gwo. It is based on the novella of the same name by the Locus Award and Hugo Award-winning author Liu Cixin, and was released on February 5, 2019 (Chinese New Year's Day). 流 浪 地 球
In the near future, the Sun ages and is about to turn into a red giant, pushing the nations of the world to consolidate into the United Earth Government, a world government, and initiate a project to move Earth out of the Solar System to the Alpha Centauri system, in order to preserve human civilization. Huge thrusters running on fusion power are built across the planet to propel it. Human population is reduced severely due to catastrophic tides that occur after the planetary engines stop Earth's rotation, and later as the planet moves away from the Sun, much of the surface is frozen due to lowered temperatures, forcing humans to live in vast underground cities built adjacent to the engines.
At the beginning of the film, Liu Peiqiang (Wu Jing), a Chinese astronaut, promises to his son Liu Qi (Qu Chuxiao) of his eventual return before his mission to a space station that helps Earth navigate as it moves out of the Solar system, and hands guardianship of his son over to his father-in-law Han Zi'ang (Ng Man-tat).
Several years later, Liu Peiqiang's mission is about to end and he will soon return to Earth. To celebrate Chinese New Year, an adult Liu Qi brings adopted sister Han Duoduo (Zhao Jinmai) on a trip to the surface in a truck they steal using Han Zi'ang's clearance as a trucker. They are arrested, and meet Tim (Mike Sui) as well as Han Zi'ang who unsuccessfully tries to get them released.
As Earth passes by Jupiter, it is captured by Jupiter's gravity, causing devastating earthquakes that disable many thrusters across the globe. The four escape amidst the chaos and attempt to make their way out using the stolen truck, but the truck is requisitioned for a rescue mission by the military; they are to transport an engine component to the damaged thruster in Hangzhou, supervised by soldiers led by Wang Lei (Li Guangjie). In the remnants of Shanghai, they lose their vehicle, and while transporting the component up the ruins of a skyscraper Han Zi'ang is killed. With news that the Hangzhou thruster was fully compromised and the city was completely destroyed, the group temporarily despair. They however find a new vehicle where the on-board engineer, Li Yiyi (Zhang Yichi), convinces them to transport an engine component to repair a larger planetary engine in Sulawesi.
In space, Liu Peiqiang discovers that MOSS, the artificial intelligence commanding the space station, has directed it to escape rather than to assist the humans on Earth. He breaks out of forced hibernation and attempts to stop the spacecraft along with Russian cosmonaut Makarov, who is killed by the spacecraft's automated security measures. Liu Peiqiang arrives in the control room, but his clearances were revoked due to his undisciplinary acts and he can do little to override the escape process.
Liu Qi's group arrive at Sulawesi to find that the engine was already fully restored. Globally, most of the planetary thrusters have been repaired as well. However, Earth has moved past Jupiter's Roche limit and will be destroyed anyway, with the restored thrust unable to propel it away. The group despairs on learning this, but Liu Qi, inspired by recollection of his father's explanation of the thrusters' mechanics as a child, proposes to ignite Jupiter's hydrogen-abundant atmosphere to blow Earth away. Li Yiyi proposes to concentrate the Sulawesi engine's power to fire a beam high enough to ignite Jupiter. The group overcome various challenges, such as renewed aftershock tremors that injure several members, and are able to mostly reconfigure the engine to carry out the plan, however they are not able to push the firing pin of the engine to ignite it.
Liu Peiqiang, learning of this, is able to persuade the United Earth Goverment to use its communication channels to call assistance for the party at Sulawesi, even though MOSS reveals that the solution being attempted has no chance of success based on probability calculations. Other rescue and repair parties arrive and the engine is fired up, but it falls short of being able to ignite the hydrogen. Liu Peiqiang decides to use the space station's engine itself to ignite Jupiter's hydrogen; after disabling MOSS using a fire started with vodka that Makarov smuggled on-board, he pilots the spacecraft into the cloud between Jupiter and Earth, sacrificing himself as the ignition succeeds. Earth is saved from destruction, and continues to move towards the destination star system.
As the film ends, Liu Qi recounts and envisions the stages of Earth's migration, a process to take 2,500 years and still bound with uncertainty, in a hopeful tone.
This is the first episode of our animation series, was released in Jan 2015. We are a small team from China, there are two full-time and one part-time. We love animation, especially the American style. We hope that we can make some story fun, humorous and full of Chinese philosophy. We sincerely hope that you will like the animation and the adventure story of Lucky and Pie. We also hope that you will follow us although the update is very slowly. Hahahaha..
The Glassworker (شیشہ گر) is a film by Mano Animation Studios, directed by Usman Riaz. A coming-of-age story about two children from separate walks of life, set in the fictitious Waterfront Town. Vincent is an apprentice Glass Blower learning from his father in their Glass Shop. Alliz is a prodigious violinist striving to find her own unique voice on the instrument. The film will comment on the affects of war on children and follow both characters through their formative years as life gets more complicated and inhibits their friendship. Mano Animation Studios is Pakistan's first hand drawn animation studio. The team comprises of upcoming creatives from Pakistan and extends to Malaysia, Canada, South Africa, United States and the UK. Backed with $116,000 on Kickstarter, Mano Animation Studios has just released the first 10 minutes of their feature film. The short ‘Prelude’ is the opening of the full feature and is the first short hand-drawn animation to come from Pakistan. This includes a behind the scenes documentary following the making of the work.
Release Date: End 2020.
It’s Christmas! While preparing for Christmas Eve with family, Adrien is about to spend his first Christmas without his mother. Thinking that his father does not want to celebrate the holidays this year, the schoolboy, saddened, turns into Cat Noir and leaves the family home to sing his anger in snowy Paris.
Watch Miraculous "Pire Noël" Christmas Special FULL in HD with original French dub and English subtitles.
Train to Busan is a 2016 South Korean zombie apocalypse horror thriller film directed by Yeon Sang-ho and starring Gong Yoo, Jung Yu-mi and Ma Dong-seok. The film had its premiere in the Midnight Screenings section at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival on May 13, 2016. On August 7, the film set a record as the first Korean film of 2016 to break the audience record with over 10 million theatergoers. An American version of the movie is being planned.
Train to Busanis a harrowing zombie horror-thriller that follows a group of terrified passengers fighting their way through a countrywide viral outbreak while trapped on a suspicion-filled, blood-drenched bullet train ride to Busan, a southern resort city that has managed to hold off the zombie hordes... or so everyone hopes.
Animatrix Review: First you had Snakes on a Plane, now you have Zombies on a Train. This is, hands down, one of the best zombie movies ever made. There are moments of terror where you'll find yourself shouting out loud, "Oh sh*t, RUN!"This is definitely a must-see for all you running dead fans.
[Source: blastr] Matt Damon is taking his action star cred overseas for the Chinese production The Great Wall, and a lengthy new trailer shows off all kinds of new footage from the fantasy epic.
The movie looks to be one of the most ambitious efforts ever mounted for a Chinese film (it’s the biggest film ever shot completely in China), and follows a group of heroes who make a “stand for humanity” on the Great Wall. It stars Damon, Jing Tian, Pedro Pascal, Willem Dafoe and Andy Lau. It’s being directed by Zhang Yimou (Hero, House of Flying Daggers). The new trailer clocks in at nine minutes in length, and shows off more of the epic scope and period setting for the fantasy-action epic.
Looking beyond the film itself, The Great Wall will be an interesting case study for how well a Chinese-led film can do in the global market (and whether it’s worthwhile to produce a film of this scope for a Chinese audience, as opposed to an American one). The Chinese film market has quickly become one of the biggest outside of the U.S. (ever wonder why blockbusters like Iron Man 3 now make a point to set a bit of the action overseas?), and The Great Wall looks to test just how big it is with a legit Hollywood movie star.
The Great Wall is slated to open February 11, 2017.
[Source: blastr] While we wait for that rumored Imperator Furiosa (played by Charlize Theron) Mad Max: Fury Road movie prequel to hit the road (pun intended), we may have the next best thing — a Chinese movie that totally rips off George Miller’s Mad Max.
Titled Mad Shelia, the movie takes us to a post-apocalyptic dune-covered wasteland that looks an awful lot like the world of Max Rockatansky. Complete with the movie’s heroes being attacked by a convoy of armored vehicles, motorcycles and 4X4s, and villains plucked from Miller's world.
The trailer below plays a lot like the 2015 blockbuster movie that nabbed an Academy Award nomination for Best Motion Picture. Not sure Mad Shelia will get nominated for anything (well, perhaps for best cheesy movie that’s so cheesy it's good), but you never know! I mean, it looks like a lot of crazy low-budget fun. Anywhoooo. Check it out below, and be sure to take a look at the movie poster which also totally rips off the "What a Lovely Day" Fury Road poster.
Some are referring to this film as a CHINESE X-MEN movie. This is pure FANTASY about the overthrow of the last ruler of the Shang Dynasty. It involves spirits, demons and characters being brought to life with the guiding hand of RANDY COOK, who served as the ANIMATION ADVISOR and spent quite a long time in South Korea working on the film. The movie is also getting a John Debney score and stars Jet Li!
