Y Mabinogi (2003) User Reviews

Beautiful and mysterious

[Charlf00 · 22 July 2004]

This films mixture of exceptional art and animation, mixed with live action scenes and fantastic Welsh actors makes for really entertaining viewing.

The story is about Llue's 18th birthday, and him and his friend Rhiannon and brother Dan going on a boat ride out along the coast of Wales,and discovering the portal to The Otherworld..where they become characters in the legendary Welsh folk story Mabinogi (Mabinogi is tales of heroism,magic and Romance)The story starts with live action, and turns to animations, with splices of live action,beautiful watercoloured backgrounds and live action backgrounds. The story is quite violent,and has some sexual scenes and nudity, but shouldn't prove too much of a problem for mature children (teens)

I remember really enjoying this film,which unfortunately wasn't brought out to enough cinemas, and is quite hard to find.If you do spot it,I highly recommend it.

A Welsh Miyazaki!

[jonnyjonnerson · 10/10 · 29 December 2005]

Smashing animation as well as solid live action performances. The storyline(if you can keep up) is interestingly constructed and mixing live action and animation works surprisingly well. Editing is effective and direction imaginative.

The film is an often shocking alternative to Miyazaki's big animation imports that have wormed their way into the mass market. Unfortunately a large portion of the population will be put off by some of the things portrayed in the welsh fantasy, but this should not stop any story loving individual who enjoys unusual circumstances in which to base a fascinating tale.

Here's to hearing more welsh folk tales!

Great piece of Welsh animation

[Totally_Busted_Chick · 10/10 · 15 January 2005]

Summary: Told in the Welsh language. On Lleu's 18th birthday he, Dan and Rhiannon take a boat trip to the lake where it is said that at a certain time you can go underwater and find yourself in the world of the Mabinogion.

The point is that the three friends lead similar (as similar as they can be in real matters) lives to the characters in the Mabinogi and we find this out in the small back story before they board the boat.

The 4 branches of the Mabinogi used in this are Pwyll, Branwen, Manawydan and Math.

Rhiannon dives in and takes up the character Rhiannon from Pwyll

Dan dives in and takes up the character of Manawydan from Branwen and Manawydan

and Lleu takes up the character of Lleu Llaw Gyffes in Math.

Highly recommended, and very well done. Great performance, from both the actors shown, and the voices for the animated characters.

It is quite hard to get hold of. So far I haven't been able to find any kind of DVD or VHS but it was shown on S4C not too long ago and may be repeated some time.

Welsh Anime

[mattandruby · 8/10 · 29 December 2005]

A handful of 'oral tradition' stories have been woven together with a contemporary twist, presented in a stylish manner to make a very watchable film.

Sure, the plot-line vaults over some huge chasms (plot holes don't seem to convey the right sense of scale) and a US audience may find some of the characters' situations unworthy of a satisfying empathy, but if the writers had softened it further it would have dissolved.

The 'Welsh Anime' tag is as close as I can get to summing the film up. It's a quiet epic, touching the rather more brutal side of human nature, whilst retaining the sort of magic that makes animation work so well. The bookends of 'Real Life' add a great deal, and will open up the film to a wider audience.

On the other hand, I can hear someone in California describing it as "Asterix meets Lord of the Rings to create Excalibur Variations".

cracking version of the mabinogion, although bran is not blue

[marcgreenman · 9/10 · 31 July 2020]

I thought that this film was really nice, a satisfying drama in the style of something like the owl service, elidor or children of the stones, at least within the opening scenes. this sets things up quite nicely for the transition into the next world, which all feels very magical and very believable. the characters are related to certain heros and heroines from the welsh mythology, when they move to the next world they retain those characteristics and must work through their problems. i would not say that this film is soft, some of the violence and incidents are extremely shocking for a family drama and indeed would be hard to explain to younger viewers; i would have rated this film at least 15 for frequent violence, it almost gets like game of thrones from time to time. the animation style is not bad, kind of painterly and sometimes cgi is used in certain scenes or parts of scenes, which was slightly jarring but effective. i was quite shocked when llew turned into an eagle and still think this moment is absolutely amazing.