The Little Panda
of Chapultepec
(aka EL PEQUEFIO PANDA DE CHAPULTEPEC,
original production:
Spanish-language version:
With: Yuri; and as the children: Ulises Aguirre Jr., J. Luis Perez, Israel Ramirez, Liz Mata, Iran Perez, Teresa Mata, Arcelia Ramirez
Voices: Silvia ?Gancel, Diana Santos, Maria Prado, Patricia Acevedo, Ana Morales, Alfonso Obregon, Guillermo Alvarez Bianchi, Alfredo Lara, Luis Puente
***
Story: Tohui is a little panda whose mother is killed by hunters in their native China (in a Bambi-like sequence, his mother is shot and the viewer can see blood seeping from under her body). He grows up and falls in love with a girl panda, but the hunters return and Tohui helps his sweetheart escape from their dogs, only to be trapped himself.
He is shipped overseas to a zoo (presumably in London). His keeper is the kindly Maria, who is in love with veterinarian Jorge. Tohui is sad and lonely, although he is beloved by the zoo visitors. In an amusing twist, panda Rosita is brought in from another zoo to mate with Tohui, but Rosita turns out to be another male panda! The humans don't know this, and are perplexed when the pandas refuse to mate!
Eventually Rosita is sent away. Jorge, humiliated by the head of the zoo for this "failure," resigns. He eventually joins the army and is later killed during the war. [This is another hint that the zoo is in London, since the city comes under bomber attack in wartime.] Tohui makes an escape attempt, but when he reaches the waterfront, realizes the ocean that separates him from his home is too wide to cross.
After the war, Tohui grows sad, fearing he will never go home again. Maria says she will give him his "freedom" as a Christmas present. The final sequence is rather ambiguous--the door to his cage opens and Tohui goes out into the snowy yard, "free at last!" The setting changes to Tohui's home in China, with various "psychedelic" effects as Tohui "goes home" and sees his animal friends, his mother, his panda girlfriend, etc.
(Presumably this means he died?!) Yet the final bit of animation shows Tohui and the girl panda "kissing", and the narration says "from this tender love was born the little panda..." Huh?
***
For the most part this is not a Mexican movie, since the majority of the running time consists of an animated feature made elsewhere, but the film was dubbed into Spanish in Mexico and released with minimal new live-action footage to capitalize on the fame of Tohui, a real-life giant panda born in 1981.
The animation which makes up the bulk of this film is from SHUNMAO (XIONGMAO) MONOGATARI TAOTAO (TAOTAO THE PANDA or PANDA STORY TAO TAO), a 1981 Japanese-Chinese co-production directed by Tatsuo Shimamura.
This feature was followed by a TV series that apparently aired around the world (although not in the USA?). The TV show told tales of Taotao as a young panda in China, where he lived with his animal friends.
The new footage has popular Mexican singer Yuri* performing the theme song in Chapultepec Park, then confronting a group of seemingly-disinterested children and saying, "Do you like pandas? I'll tell you a story about one." Midway through the animated feature, footage of Yuri singing "Mi timidez" is superimposed over the animation. At the end of the movie the theme song is heard once more, but Yuri does not appear -- instead, footage of the real-life Tohui and her mother is shown.
The animation and design are excellent, realistic yet stylized without being "cartoony". There are some concessions to convention, cute animals like a monkey friend of the young Tohui, and a family of mice who visit Tohui in the zoo (in a rather affecting bit of drama, the father mouse comes to say goodbye to Tohui during the war, indicating his whole family was wiped out in a air raid).
The humans are a mixture of realistic -- Maria and Jorge -- and caricatures (the zoo director). One interesting effect, repeated numerous times, is the use of live-action water footage with animation art overlaid; during Tohui's aborted escape, solarized and distorted live-action, subjective-camera footage is utilized.
The animated feature has little or nothing to do with the "real" Tohui, but it is a very effective story that doesn't pander get it?) to a juvenile audience.
The "happy ending" is sort of weird, but prior to that the movie is a rather uncompromising drama that doesn't sugar-coat Tohui's lonely life in the zoo, his constant desire to return home, and so forth. Maria is a sympathetic character and so is Jorge, yet the movie depicts their separation and her anguish at the news of his death; similarly, the greed and ambition of the zoo director are shown in a very adult manner, although the director himself is rather comically drawn. The dubbing and voices are expertly done, to give credit to the Mexican contribution to this effort.
***
*Yuri was a nymphet pop singer of the 1980's who made a few movie appearances. In the '90s she became a born-again Christian and rejected her previous sinful life, even making a direct-to-video movie about it, and she only sang religious music. In more recent years she apparently still is somewhat religious but in order to make a living she has returned to pop singing, without the sexy attitude of before. Her real name is Yuri Canseco Valenzuela.
- David Wilt (reprinted from MEXICAN FILM BULLETIN)
copyright © 2004 David Wilt, all rights reserved
Video/DVD availability: VHS (oop)
Links of related interest:
TOHUI, ELPEQUEHOPANDA DE CHAPULTEPEC,
SHUNMAO (XIONGMAO) MONOGATARI TAOTAO,
TAOTAO THE PANDA, PANDA STORY TAO TAO)
(1982, Mexico/Japan/China) animated with live-action sequences
Directed by Tatsuo Shimamura
Produced by Ulfses P. Aguirre
Live-Action Director: Fernando Duran
Dubbing Director: Carlos Petrel
Film Editor: Max Sanchez
Re-recording: Ricardo Saldivar
a short bio of YURI!
Yuri Today!
