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The chances of anyone outside Korea having heard of the 2012 animated film Speckles the Tarbosaurus (which was later renamed Dino King for Western audiences) is slim unless you are, or know a child, who’s completely obsessed with dinosaurs. As much as I apologize, you’re not alone here. While the initial release didn’t went down a storm, the first installment did manage to maintain enough popularity to produce a sequel. Oman, who has been directing films for dinosaurs enthusiasts for the past 30 years, is now slowly rolling out the sequel to the first movie, Dino King: Journey to Fire Mountain, after presenting it in international film festivals during the summer. While the film hasn’t caught large audiences yet, it has certainly sparked the imagination of dinosaur lovers around the globe. This growing interest is precisely what has earned it its cult status. Is it possible there’s a spectacular surprise waiting to be discovered in that movie that we just haven’t noticed yet?
While the first part of Dino King was a pseudo-documentary complete with Sage narration, Journey to Fire Mountain has wandered right into the Land Before Time territory, where dinosaurs speak and a misfit group of lost baby dinosaurs must band together to overcome challenges in order to find their families.
While the Dino King series and their rudimentary cinematography have crude representations of known stories, it is still far better than its predecessor. It’s almost as if they improved and incorporated some creativity into their designs, but are still relying on known cinematic archetypes. The younger dinosaurs and their raptor type foes have cartoonish designs, which when compared to the earlier movies, is not that bad at all! At least they decided to go in one direction instead of trying to please everyone, which is something the 2012 Dino King docu-drama left behind in its mess of a plot.
Journey to Fire Mountain manages to combine the elements of an adventure and a fantasy with a plot that is remarkably strange. The story starts with Junior, Speckles the Tarbosaurus and his son, being taken away by a group of raptors and put into an odd dinosaur prison where countless other small creatures are held captive. His mother worries about him and tries to save him but his situation becomes worse. Rampaging raptors keep hostages not to devour them or to sell them to highly concerned dinosaur parents for ransom. Instead, the terrible creatures sacrifice them to a giant Kaiju that resides in a volcano. It is implied, but not suggested outright, that this beast came crashing to earth after a meteor hit it. All of it has this Jurassic Park vibe, like something out of the Land Before Time that was scrapped because it was too out there. With all sorts of interesting dinosaurs roaming the earth, there is no reason for alien creatures like monstrous scorpions or massive volcano monsters to exist.
As Douglas Adams once put it: “Is it not enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to put fairies at the bottom of it too?” The presence of aliens or their absence is of no concern to Speckles, who has to go get his son, while Junior makes new friends and works on being more courageous – the typical children’s movie shenanigans.
Even if Journey to Fire Mountain made more sense, it still remains a tough slog to get through. Most of the voice acting is performed with such faint effort, especially from the supporting cast. It’s as though, aside from the five main characters who all appear quite distinct, the rest of the characters had their voice acting done by a few amateur actors in a single afternoon. Supporting characters can either have a snooty cackling, or a apathetic voice that neither gives any emotion or feeling – both of which do not make for enjoyable listening. I have to give some slack to the voice actors since they did not have the best script to work with. The blend of dreadful writing and dialogue results in a unsatisfying product, and the order of events being backwards – aka the animation happening before writing – followed by violently stuffing it into a box. The animation isn’t all that remarkable any way you turn it. It’s acceptable in static images, but the characters are often moving in a robotic-like manner and many of the actions don’t match up, particularly when a dinosaur needs to glide in or out of water (which for some strange reason happens a lot).
Journey to Fire Mountain manages to combine the elements of an adventure and a fantasy with a plot that is remarkably strange. The story starts with Junior, Speckles the Tarbosaurus and his son, being taken away by a group of raptors and put into an odd dinosaur prison where countless other small creatures are held captive. His mother worries about him and tries to save him but his situation becomes worse. Rampaging raptors keep hostages not to devour them or to sell them to highly concerned dinosaur parents for ransom. Instead, the terrible creatures sacrifice them to a giant Kaiju that resides in a volcano. It is implied, but not suggested outright, that this beast came crashing to earth after a meteor hit it. All of it has this Jurassic Park vibe, like something out of the Land Before Time that was scrapped because it was too out there. With all sorts of interesting dinosaurs roaming the earth, there is no reason for alien creatures like monstrous scorpions or massive volcano monsters to exist.
As Douglas Adams once put it: “Is it not enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to put fairies at the bottom of it too?” The presence of aliens or their absence is of no concern to Speckles, who has to go get his son, while Junior makes new friends and works on being more courageous – the typical children’s movie shenanigans.
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