Movie Thoughts: Leafie: A Hen Into the Wild (2011)

• Released: July 28 2011
• Directed by: Seong-yun Oh
• Running time: 1 h 33 min
• Rating 4/5

Synopsis

A hen named Daisy ends up adopting a little duckling, but taking care of someone so different proves more difficult than she initially thought.

My Thoughts

Whoop, two Movie Thoughts in on two days in a row. I’m spoiling you guys. I remember doing a review of this one back in my 2014 reviewing days. Needless to say, that review sucked because I could barely even comprehend the English language and grammar. Also, I was one of those needlessly spiteful “critics” who thought being cynical and hateful about everything was a good way to review things. Even though I gave this movie a positive review back in the day, it was just crap.

So now that I’m deciding to revisit this beautiful South Korean animated movie, I can give my thoughts on it. I previously watched the English dub back in 2014, and now decided to go with a subtitled version of the original, which honestly was much better (safe for some spelling errors in the subs). Let’s have a look at Leafie: A Hen into the Wild (also called Daisy: A Hen into the Wild at times).

I just love this movie. It’s absolutely beautiful, in so many ways. It reminded me of Wolf Children: Ame and Yuki in lots of ways, and that’s a big positive. Both stories focus on a mother struggling to raise her child(ren) that is not entirely like herself. Both are animated beautifully. Both are amazing. Okay, let’s just start.

First of all, the story. It’s a very sad and more mature story, with quite a bit of death involved. It’s also heartwarming at times, but also heartbreaking. It is a beautiful take the story of a mother raising a child and struggling but ultimately succeeding to provide for them.

The characters are pretty good, too. Okay, not the greatest, but they’re still really good. Leafie is without any doubt the best character of this movie. She starts out really wide-eyed and sometimes afraid, but she slowly learns to stand up for herself and her son, especially the latter. She’s eventually even willing to face the weasel just to defend her son. Greenie is pretty good, too. My main criticism for him is that there isn’t a whole lot to him. He’s just a bit of your generic child character. I always felt that Yuki and Ame had more of a personality in Wolf Children, for comparison. I’m going to stop comparing these two movies now, just something I thought of. There’s other characters, but the main story really is centered around Leafie and Greenie, and watching them grow into who they eventually become. 

Other characters include the Mayor, who is an attempt at a cocky but with a heart of gold character, but he’s just a bit too full of himself and annoying if you ask me. Wanderer (Wilson), Greenie’s father, was promising, but he really got killed off before we got a whole lot of his personality. The rooster for whatever reason gets quite a bit of screen time and even a tiny subplot, which I really don’t get because he really has no impact on the story after sending away Leafie at the start. His whole arc of losing his leadership position and leaving the farm to live in the wild could’ve been cut, and nothing would’ve changed. 

Our villain is One Eye, a female weasel that at one point got her eye scratched out by Wanderer. At first I didn’t care much for this villain other than the fact that she has a really badass design and presence, but later scenes in the movie and the uncensored ending reveal that she really isn’t a villain at all: she’s simply an antagonist. She gets “humanized” (or weasel-ized, I suppose) when we’re shown that she’s only hunting to stay alive and provide for her kits, not out of any grudge or other motivation. I just think she’s a really cool character. So, yeah, the cast of characters varies in how good they are, but at least we have a very strong lead and main antagonist.

The animation is nothing short of breathtaking. It is wonderfully smooth and has a really soothing art-style overall. I love the round shapes they used. The animation is mostly 2D, with only some very tiny amounts of CGI, and it blends pretty well! Better than a later film by this director, A Dog's Courage/Underdog. The colors are also very nice to look at and the backgrounds are amazing. Honestly, I feel like you could watch some of the scenes of the wilderness in this and just enjoy them on their own, they’re that good.

The soundtrack was also neat, complimenting each scene perfectly.

The voice acting was (from what I could tell; I don’t speak Korean) good, too!

One thing I did complain about in my Movie Thoughts of Underdog, though, is the gross out joke. Well, it’s…kinda worse here. In Underdog there was at least one I remember, where a dog ate shit. Over here, we have even more gross out. I don’t want to get into it because it makes me really uncomfortable, but it’s really what’s holding me back from loving this movie even more. We came here to see a beautiful and tragic story about mother and son, not ducks swimming in their own excrement or something disgusting like that.

I will also bring up the uncensored ending: It’s better than the uncut one. Spoilers for the uncut ending here: Leafie sees Greenie fly off as guard duck of all the flocks for the migration and is approached by One Eye, who has at this point have been revealed to simply be a mother looking after her kits. Leafie closes her eyes and embraces the fact that she’ll die anyways because of her sickness, and therefore approves of One Eye to kill her. One Eye attacks Leafie while tearfully understanding her choice and we cut to Greenie flying at the head of the flock again, passing by some of the side characters one last time. 

 

In the cut version, we simply see Leafie wave goodbye to her son before we fade to black and get the same shot where we see Greenie passing by their friends. I honestly think the uncut version is better. Not to show to young kids, obviously, as it is much darker and far more depressing, but it still makes for a more complete story rather than a fade to black that’s kind of jarring and out of nowhere. It is somewhat implied that Leafie already won’t make it in that cut, seeing how she’s been getting sicker and worse for a long time, but then it just cuts away when we see her the last time. Not the best goodbye you could give to your main character. Maybe they could’ve animated an alternate (and thus happier) ending for the cut version, since now we just get a kind of out-of-nowhere fade.

Also, keep in mind that this is a more mature movie with quite a bit of death involved. There’s also some blood (though minor). So yeah, animal death warning and stuff.

Leafie: A Hen into the Wild is, in one word, beautiful. A heartwarming story, some good and even amazing characters, gorgeous visuals, breathtaking animation, it has it all. My one main gripe is still the gross out humor, which is what really holds this movie back. As for the ending… I’d love to hear your thoughts. What do you think would’ve worked better? Keeping the cut ending or an alternative? Either way…

Just do yourself a favor and watch this one if you like wonderful stories about mother and son. It has a few cringe-worthy moments, but it’s worth sitting through for this amazing movie. And, if you’re interested, you can watch the uncensored ending somewhere I’m sure. If you want something similar in tone and visuals (though with more CGI) by the same director, I recommend you check out A Dog's Courage/Underdog. See ya!