Chinese Feature 'The Legend Of Hei' Coming Spring 2021 From Shout Factory
Over the past couple of years, China's animation industry has been emerging as one of the fastest growing in the world. Just this week Netflix threw their weight behind it by picking up the international rights to New Gods: Nezha Reborn. Now another recent Chinese hit has been confirmed for US release.
Shout! Factory have announced that they will release Chinese 2D
animated feature The Legend Of Hei on digital, Blu-Ray and DVD this spring. The film was five years in the making and is directed by Ping Zhang aka MTJJ based on his own popular flash animated series from 2011. It has already had
successful theatrical runs in China and Japan and screened at
Annecy International Animation Festival and
Japan Media Arts Festival.
Shout! Factory describes the film:
Cat spirit Luo-Xiao Hei’s goes on a journey of self-discovery after his home gets deforested by humans. On his search for a new home, he runs into a group of other spirit creatures who take him under their wing with dreams of reconquering the land they say is rightfully theirs. However, the group runs into a human known as Wuxian, who separates Hei from the other spirits. The two go on a journey that teaches Hei to control his abilities as well as forming his own thoughts on whether or not he should ally with the spirits or humans.
The US release will include a new English version featuring top Chinese-American talent including Emi Lo (Bofuri, Valentine), Aleks Le (Funan, Ne Zha), Howard Wang (Dragon Ball Z, Marvel Avengers Academy), Kaiji Tang (Justice League, Grantz-O), Caleb Yen (Black Clover, Scott & Crowley), and Suzie Yeung (Kemono Friends).
The Legend Of Hei will be available digitally on April 20 with a
Blu-Ray/ DVD combo and standalone DVD release to follow on
May 11. The Blu-Ray and DVD editions are available to preorder now.
