Writer: Peter Chai

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Watch this if you liked: “Finding Nemo”

Do you still remember the first time you watched "Toy Story" way back in 1995? Do you remember how exciting it was to watch the first Pixar movie shot entirely with CGI technology? For the past decade, we were able to enjoy more than one foreign 3D animation each year and the trend of shooting animated feature films has gone viral around the world these days. Many filmmakers around the globe are making their moves to bring animation to another level in their local movie scenes. Today, the Malaysian movie industry is doing the same thing with "Seefood".

As Malaysia's first 3D animated movie in English, "Seefood" is a beautiful piece of the collaboration between local animation studio Silver Ant Sdn.Bhd and Al-Jazeera Children's Channel. The movie tells the story of Pup, a little bamboo shark who embarks on an ambitious yet dangerous mission to save its own kind and its best friend, Julius, the constantly hungry shark, from cruel human beings.

Watching every decision the little shark makes and every single word it says, you will realize that Pup is a character that was created to inspire us to be brave enough to think big in life and take action to make good things happen without worrying too much about our own abilities. In other words, the scriptwriter wants to send a message to the audience by reminding us that every individual should never underestimate themselves and if you do not try, you will never get to see the positive things that could possibly happen in your life.

Most of us who have watched the movie would praise its entertaining plot and its educational value on raising the awareness on sea pollution and illegal animal killing in the real world. However, apart from those aspects, one of the biggest attractions of the movie is the enormous effort given by the animators when it comes to modeling each of the characters' figures and movement digitally together with CGI effects that stimulate your visual senses along the story. You may be surprised that the development of animation in Malaysia has reached such a high level.

Overall, "Seefood" is a well-made 3D film soulfully presented in the underwater fantasia and on the beautiful land of Eastern Peninsular Malaysia, and it is worth to buy a ticket or two to see how far Malaysian animators have gone through this wonderful movie.

Cinema Online, 05 March 2012