Film Name: 我是狼之火龙山大冒险 / I Am a Wolf
I gave this film, hailed by many netizens as a masterpiece of Chinese animation, a 6.5 out of 10. Five and a half points of that score are solely for the passionate dialogue during the final five-minute climax. The remaining point is an encouragement for director Shengjun, who bravely attempted a 2D style amidst a market dominated by 3D animation—and actually pulled it off quite well. Beyond that, there’s little else to commend.
Because this is a work with deeply confused values. Not only is it nowhere near deserving of deification, but it also fails to achieve the director’s stated goal of creating wholesome, green animation. Whether a work is wholesome isn’t measured by whether it tackles positive themes, but by whether it contains unsafe elements. While “I Am a Wolf” does celebrate cross-species brotherhood and trust, it’s laced with numerous subtle, dark undertones. Crucially, the film neither addresses nor condemns these shadows.
Bribes and Checkpoints
The film follows a road movie structure, where protagonists encounter and overcome various obstacles during their journey. In reality, each checkpoint has a gatekeeper demanding “favors”—carrots—from the two protagonists. Had they not lost all their carrots at the first checkpoint, they could have navigated their way through by bribing their way past.
In typical checkpoint-clearing films, protagonists prepare beforehand, but their preparations involve tools and abilities to defeat enemies. Yet in this unconventional adventure, the protagonists prepare gifts for the gatekeepers instead. Though these gifts prove useless in later stages, the audience doesn’t feel their own strength has finally met the challenge, nor that their friendship overcame the gatekeepers’ indifference. Instead, they can’t help but dwell on the thought: If only they’d kept those carrots, wouldn’t everything have been so much simpler?
From the moment they set out, when the villagers gave them carrots and warned them not to lose a single one, this story carried a particularly stark theme—parents preparing bribes for teachers, and having their children deliver them personally. This motive is exceptionally poor, brutally transparent, and sends profoundly negative psychological signals to the children. In truth, even if the villagers had given them combat gear to aid their journey, the effect would have been far more positive.
Could it be that the director and screenwriter, having witnessed such “carrot” exchanges for personal gain far too often in real life, have grown desensitized? Might they have mistakenly—or perhaps without careful consideration—deemed this plot element entirely wholesome and safe for inclusion?
Underhanded Scheming
The film is rife with whispered conversations behind closed doors. Certainly, there are the words Goldfish whispered to Little White, which later proved to be merely a hint to help him pass the level—though illogically creating an emotional rift between the two protagonists. More significantly, however, the Village Chief and Blue Rabbit Shorttail (a strategist akin to a military advisor by the Chief’s side) were plotting to send the two protagonists on a perilous journey to drive Little White away—or even kill him.
The Village Chief’s use of the Life Fruit—obtained at the cost of a life—as a chess piece reveals his politician’s nature, treating lives as disposable. Shorttail, meanwhile, displays the true colors of a schemer: saying one thing while plotting another. While ostensibly sending the pair to retrieve the Life Fruit, he secretly aims to ambush Little White.
Most crucially, these schemers remain untouched by punishment at the film’s conclusion, continuing to wield power in the village with unblemished facades. The film offers no commentary on their treachery. Does this imply the director and screenwriter endorse their actions as wholesome and healthy—that the Village Chief and Blue Rabbit should deceive children and eliminate rivals as they do?
Friendship and Self-Torture
Finally, let’s revisit the film’s celebrated themes—friendship and trust. While many works depict friendship (where rifts form but ultimately heal), “I Am a Wolf” left me feeling stifled. The protagonist “Ears” seems to harbor a self-torturing tendency, compelled to push Xiao Bai toward the worst possible interpretations. He relentlessly traps himself within this imaginary adversary’s logic, even though Xiao Bai has done nothing wrong. True friendship and trust shouldn’t involve first creating an imaginary enemy, then enduring a self-inflicted ordeal of loss before learning to cherish what was lost.
Take “Frozen” as an example. It also tells the story of sisters who go from sharing everything to growing apart, only to reconcile in the end. The older sister also plays a role similar to Erduo’s as an alienator. Yet her reason for avoiding her sister was to protect her. The younger sister didn’t understand her actions, but she always longed to regain the sister who could confide in her and share unconditional love. This dynamic makes the sisters feel particularly warm and comforting to watch. Even when rifts exist, they stem from necessity and duress, not self-inflicted suffering like Xiaobai and Erduo’s situation.
Was this treatment perhaps because the director is a sentimentalist? Suspicion of neighbors stealing axes—blind mistrust—may hold logical ground (the film does plant clues for Ear to seize upon), but it remains emotionally unsettling. As a proverb or fable, “suspecting neighbors of stealing axes” serves to illustrate a moral. Yet portraying suspicion and the rift it causes with such exaggerated gravity creates a jarring dissonance. True friendship requires mutual, enduring trust to be moving, yet this film seems to have lost that very foundation—relying entirely on a heavy-handed, last-minute confession to turn the tide.
The film’s use of a book to introduce the story is quite clever. When we learn the torn page was precisely the one where Xiaobai sacrificed himself, we might even applaud this setup. Yet the director then casually has Erduo—who now understands everything and had already caught that page—let it drift away in the wind. What exactly is this meant to convey? A gesture of “waving goodbye without taking a single cloud”? I believe Erduo should have pressed that page to his chest, perhaps even treasured it. Discarding it again conveys to the audience that he truly wishes to forget the incident. The film contains numerous similar plot holes, which I won’t elaborate on further.
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