Samurai Frog Golf

A tough frog battles a group of evil crows in order to save some baby turtles.

 

This animated short film is a beautiful and mesmerising journey, filled with fantastic colours, extraordinary characters and action.

 

In this story the characters are animals and they are anthropomorphic. The tale begins with a large frog playing a golf session in the countryside, accompanied by his little fluffy friend. After going into the woods to retrieve a golf ball, he encounters a some sinister-looking crows who have captured a turtle. He decides not to interfere and returns to his game. However, he discovers that the ball he recovered is actually a turtle egg and after it hatches and reveals a cute baby, the frog has a change of heart and goes back to rescue the rest of the turtles.

 

This rather enjoyable short carries quite a lot in its duration of approximately three-and-a-half minutes. From start to finish it is a pleasure viewing this animated story and the reasons for that are many.

 

First of all, the narrative is very appealing and has drama and fight scenes. It evolves around the idea of a hard as nails hero battling bad guys and saving the day and the action scenes are quite fun to watch, with the frog utilising a golf club as a weapon in order to beat the crows.

 

The animation is wonderful and bears similarities to Japanese watercolour and wood carving art of the Ukiyo-e style. Every single shot is like a painting in motion and the colours are very rich, with terrific lighting effects.

 

All the characters look great. The frog is the main character and he is basically a frog that appears to be the size of a grown human, wears clothing and a hat, has a wooden leg and is a tough guy with a heart of gold. The crows are pretty much presented as pure evil, carrying bladed weapons and eating turtle eggs. There are no spoken words, which suits things well, as the plot is easy to follow.

 

The visuals are accompanied by an amazing score that is sometimes sentimental and sometimes dynamic, which goes very well with the action scenes. The effective sound effects are another great plus.

 

It would be hard to point out any flaws here. This is a memorable and admirable achievement that had a great deal of work and creativity put into it and deserves recognition and commendations. Unfortunately, it actually does have one flaw: it ends and so does this review.