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THE VIOLINIST MOVIE REVIEW
The only greater thing then creating music, is creating it with a dear friend… and then World War II shows up to ruin everything. Set in 1930s Singapore, The Violinist follows Fei and Kai, two childhood friends who share a love for music and dream of becoming world-class violinists. But when war reaches Singapore and the Japanese occupation begins, their lives are torn apart. Kai joins the Resistance and eventually disappears after being captured, leaving Fei to spend decades searching for the friend she lost. Spanning roughly 80 years, the story moves between the past and the present as an aging Fei is forced to confront the memories, regrets, and music that have followed her throughout her life. Co-directed by Singaporean filmmaker Ervin Han and Spanish animator Raúl García over nearly a decade of development, The Violinist combines hand-drawn 2D animation and CG. It’s also a major milestone for Singaporean animation as not only it’s the first Singapore-produced animated feature selected for Annecy’s main competition but it also won at the fest the Best Feature award (Annecy’s top prize) as well as the award for Best Original Soundtrack.
Maciej dives into this two-hour animated tear-jerker, which despite not being set in Poland, felt oddly close to home…
DIRECTED BY: Ervin Han and Raúl García
YOUR REVIEWERS
Maciej Kur (Infestation)
Maciej Kur is a Polish comic and film script writer, director and reviewer, and decidedly the biggest fan and most loyal supporter of Oneofus.net. A graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw with a master’s degree and the Academy of Film and Television. Co-creator of the comic book series Dollicious and Emilka Sza (with Magdalena Kania ) and Lil i Put, (with Piotr Bednarczyk ) and many others. Awarded in 2014 for a comic book in the spirit of Janusz Christa and awarded for “Złoty Puchar” in 2023. He wrote scripts for new comic books in the Polish cult series “Kayko and Kokosh”, as well as episodes of an animated series based on it (available on Netflix). He wrote for many other shows including “Kicia Kocia” (Kitty Kotty), “Pompik the Bison”, “Pucio”, “Hip-Hip and Hurra” and the upcoming animated movies “The Shrew of Destiny” and “Tytus, Romek and A’tomek”. He also directed a documentary about Polish animation legend “Witold Giersz”. Big lover of the art of animation and comic books.
Michael Riojas (Screener Squad, Highly Suspect Reviews)
The man with the ever-changing nicknames. Born in Austin, Riojas was rocketed to Del Rio, Texas, a literal Smallville. In his youth, he was bitten by a radioactive… okay, look. Mike is not very good at this whole “talking about himself” thing. But he has been so obsessed with comics, video games, and anime since childhood- that if one has to choose between listening to Joe Quesada or Mike over any obscure Spider-Man trivia, they go to him (or, at least Martin Thomas once said so). He is also a big fan of “Ghostbusters” (he even owns his own jumpsuit and two, that’s right, TWO proton packs!), collects toys and video games, and will defend “Superman IV: The Quest for Peace” if provoked. He lives in Austin with his beloved Dachshund-Maltese and trusted sidekick, Dean. He can also be heard on RageSelect. He can be found on Twitter and Instagram.
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