It drowns you in color for ninety minutes and then makes you realize the color was the problem. Tian Xiaopeng's particle ink-wash animation is the reason this exists: pigment that swirls like actual water, a Deep Sea Restaurant boat crawling with hallucinatory sea creatures, imagery no other studio is even attempting in 3D. But it's Shenxiu that gets you, the girl in the red jacket nobody on that cruise ship bothers to look at, and Nanhe, the loud, greedy, clownish cook who won't stop pestering her. First watch it plays linear, almost simple, a kid tumbling through a spectacle. Then the ending recontextualizes every joke, every chase from the sea ghost, every second of that dazzle, and you go back and find the grief hiding under the glitter. Reviewers cite Spirited Away for a reason, but the ache here is sharper and much more specific. Watch it twice. The first time you're just looking at it.

A girl sets out on an unusual journey through a strange world beneath the waves, searching for something in its depths. The underwater realm is newly imagined for the film, which tells a fantasy story in a modern setting through a distinctly Eastern visual sensibility. Directed by Tian Xiaopeng, who previously made Monkey King: Hero Is Back, this 3D animated feature from October Media is an adventure fantasy built around exploration beneath the sea.