It’s time for Ringing Bell, a film that wasn’t really on my radar so that always makes for an interesting watch. The story itself is very direct and the cast is small but at the end of the day it’s all about how you use them. Will the characters take the film to new heights or will they be average at best? Well in this film I can say that the characters are reasonable but the movie does make a few mistakes that keeps it from going further.

First up we have Chirin as a little lamb being watched over by his mother and the rest of the flock. Chirin isn’t very strong or fast but makes up for this with pure optimism. He is always believing in a better tomorrow and doesn’t back down. Well, one day his mother is murdered by a wolf and he laments how unfair life is. He decides to follow the wolf and learn how to become one. Then once he is strong enough, Chirin will destroy the Wolf. Will things really go to plan though?

I have a hard time with this plot in general because deciding to follow the one who murdered your mother is just a bit crazy. Sure this is a plot that has happened with other characters as well but it has to be handled super delicately in order to work out. I didn’t think this one was convincing enough. Chirin’s mother was destroyed so suddenly and without mercy that I wouldn’t imagine any mercy. Additionally, she had always been kind to him so this was a really good relationship that was taken away. Chirin should instead be feeling endless anger and craving for revenge the whole time. That would make a lot more sense.

Now I can acknowledge that this might be the quickest way to attaining strength so Chirin deciding to use the Wolf could work slightly under that mindset. It should still be ultra reluctant though and so in the end when Chirin actually seemed torn on this, it doesn’t work. No matter what time they spent together later on, the Wolf should be his ultimate antagonist. There should be no true bond here. If the film was going to go down this route, they should have made Chirin’s mother meaner so that would explain why he was a bit more mixed. Like on one hand she is still his mother and on the other hand he could have been getting bullied so part of him would appreciate the wolf. Would still have to be handled carefully of course but it could work.

Instead Chirin really started to become like the Wolf which was a shame. I did enjoy the fact that he got more confident and had a really good character design though. The film just needed to focus on his not losing his humanity, or lambity as it were. The final scene where the other lambs are afraid of him made for a pretty solid ending though. It made sense even if it does fall into the slightly annoying trope of the characters being saved but somehow not knowing how to distinguish the good guy from the villain.

As for the Wolf, no complaints here. He made for a really good villain. The guy was a strong fighter and while he couldn’t bring himself to destroy a cub, he was merciless in taking down his prey. As a wolf that’s just what he does, it’s the circle of life and all. So I bear no grudges with that guy and he lasted pretty long into the film. You could even make the case that he could have won in the climax but held back a bit which would make sense.

So we’ve got a solid story here but of course there is a decent amount of animal violence like with Chirin’s mom and the bear that gets taken down. It doesn’t help that the animation is really quite solid and has aged very well. The colors are very dramatic and you feel the intensity in all of the actions. The animation is really quite impressive and makes up for the soundtrack being more on the generic side. It may not have worked well due to the main characters being animals but otherwise any action film would be glad to have this level of animation. It really supports the fights quite well.

The opening half also takes a big longer than you would have expected in a pacing sense. The mom doesn’t get bumped off for quite a while even though you know that is the main purpose of the title. It’s a key point of the plot so in that sense the film would have been better off to have shortened that portion of the film to extend the time with the wolf. Perhaps if we saw less of Chirin’s bond with his mother then the film would have flowed a bit better or at least made it less difficult to believe.

If the film had all been like the first half and it was just a very wholesome kind of movie then I think that actually could have worked out better as well. It’s not like we have a whole lot of films about lambs in general and Chirin learning about the cruel outside world while still being protected could have been really good. At the very least I would have had no problems with that, it would have certainly avoided the animal violence parts.

Overall, Ringing Bell would have done well to replace the characters with robots. At the end of the day there was just too much damage here and it ends up suffering the same fate that most animal films do. You just can’t have as great a time as possible when the characters are all animals and you don’t want to see them get hurt. It puts you in a rough spot as the viewer and so I wouldn’t be able to recommend this film. You’re better off watching something a little more wholesome like Air Bud.

Overall 4/10