May 13th, 2021 
W.R. Miller 
Those bad bad humans. Chopping down forests. How dare they displace Hei from his home! Hei, a magical spirit in the form of a wide-eyed cat, finds himself transported to the Big City. There, he’s attacked by a trio of human thugs, but rescued by a fellow shape-changer named Stormend. Hei joins Stormend’s unnamed faction of spirit creatures, who have a desire to strike back at the human world. Then, they are attacked by an immensely powerful being, Infinity, who kidnaps Hei and takes him on a journey to join his faction, The Guild, who prefer a peaceful co-existence with mankind. Stormend and his followers attempt to retrieve Hei in an explosive climax. Why do both sides want the little cat spirit? Because Hei—as he eventually learns—happens to possess formidable kinetic powers.
The scenario of The Legend of Hei is like that of the X-Men: a young mutant with a special power has to choose between joining Xavier’s School for the Gifted or the Brotherhood (of Evil Mutants). Like Harry Potter’s Wizarding World, a civilization of supernatural beings co-exists with humanity, but they live under their own rules and at times, their own spiritual planes. Like Hayao Miyazaki’s films, there’s an ecological statement embedded in the story.
The conflict involves several battles, some of which rival—and even surpass—the intensity of Dragon Ball Super. Sometimes, though, the action becomes too frenzied, as when the camera moves around the combatants so much, and the visuals become a dizzy blur. Thankfully, these frenzied shots are a minor distraction.
Overall, the animation is remarkably fluid, the backgrounds lush and detailed, the music evocative, camera angles dynamically staged, and the actors impeccably blending performance with their characters’ lip flaps.
English vocal credit goes to Emi Lo (Bofuri, Valentine) as Hei, Aleks Le (Funan, Ne Zha) as Infinity, Howard Wang (Dragon Ball Z, Marvel Avengers Academy) as Stormend, Kaiji Tang (Justice League, Grantz-O) as Mr. Turtledove, Caleb Yen (Black Clover, Scott & Crowley) as Bamboo, and Suzie Yeung (Kemono Friends) as Flow—an entirely Asian-American cast.
The Legend of Hei serves as a prequel to the Flash-animated web series, The Legend of Luo Xiaohei (罗小黑战记), created by Chinese artist Zhang Ping (aka MTJJ). The web series began March 2011, reaching 28 episodes (plus three specials) as of August 28, 2019. The feature film, which entailed five years of production, was released in China and Japan in September 2019. It won Grand Prize for an animated feature at the 2021 New York International Children’s Film Festival and the 2021 Youth Jury Award, Best Films4Families Feature at the Seattle International Film Festival.
Shout! Factory has acquired the rights for North American distribution, releasing The Legend of Hei on digital on April 20 and Blu-ray and DVD on May 11, 2021.
Special thanks to Tom Chen, Vice President, Publicity, Shout! Studios.
He has just completed Batman: The Animated Interviews, a five-volume work featuring the executives, producers, directors, writers, actors, designers, storyboard artists and composers involved with the making of Batman: The Animated Series and its spinoffs. BearManor Media is the publisher.
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