How Another World, a dark Hong Kong animated feature film, turned grief into glory
Loosely based on a Japanese story, Hong Kong animation Another World explores reincarnation and humanity, says writer-producer Polly Yeung
In a world where hatred and despair take precedence, how do we make sense of it all?
This was the question that weighed on Polly Yeung Po-man’s mind when she wrote and produced Another World, a Hong Kong animated fantasy drama film loosely based on Japanese author Naka Saijo’s Sennenki: Thousand-Year Journey of an Oni, also known as Millennium Ghost.
It was the sudden death of a close family friend about a decade ago that inspired Yeung to start the project. The incident shook her to her core and led her to wonder where the soul goes when the body expires.
“I wanted to use the concept of reincarnation in a way that transcends reality to explore the themes of self-forgiveness, letting go of resentment and releasing emotional baggage,” she tells the Post.
“It’s a story about how we may get better at letting go if our souls were eternal and experienced different lessons in each lifetime.”
The writer-producer observes that “more and more people in this world are full of anger and resentment”, a “heartbreaking” phenomenon that she attributes to “feelings of dissatisfaction about the world’s injustices” and a general lack of meaning in life.