Animaze - Montreal International Animation Film Festival

China's has a monster animation HIT on its hands. A box office breakthrough called this too cute moniker Baby Radish Monster. How sweet it is...

Set in an ancient world where humans and monsters coexist, Monster Hunt follows the life of a hapless young man named Tianying, who is accidentally impregnated with the heir of the monster kingdom. After giving birth to Huba, the baby radish monster, he is propelled into an epic adventure as he tries to protect his son against monsters and monster hunters.

Directed by Raman Hui, best known for animating and co-directing the Shrek series, Monster Hunt features both CGI monsters and live action from some of China's most popular actors. One of them is Yao Chen, who shared a photo of Huba with her 78 million followers on Weibo, China's popular Twitter-like site.  

We can't escape the ever growing tsunami like grip animation and VFX hold, often the best sellers of the summer

where seats are filled with children and adults alike happily captivated.

The movie is a hige success in China mixing many genres popular to Chinese audiences like Hong Kong mo lei tau films similar to slapstick, while the extravagant sets and fight sequences resemble wuxia films featuring martial arts. A little bit of CGI vegetable monster baby with 1.3 billion Chinese eyballs (x2)

Huba’s thriving also because he’s up against scant box office competition. The release date for Monster Hunt turned out to be great timing, owing in part to China’s blackout restrictions on releasing only 34 foreign films a year. The only other movie released the week of Monster Hunt was the Aardman Animations film Shaun the Sheep, which we guess didn’t carry the same mutant-baby-radish-with-a-heart-of-gold appeal that Monster Hunt did.

No other Hollywood releases scheduled in China until the end of July, leaving Huba some space until Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation, Minions, and Inside Out launch.

reported by Laurie Gordon