![]() The director needed to find other ways to engage the audience, and he did not succeed. Anybody who knows anything about the Chinese Zodiac (as most of the audience presumably does) will know the exact order that the twelve animals finish. Another problem is that the outcome is never in doubt. All the animals have at least one or two scenes, but most don't have much more than that. Instead, the mildly annoying Rat and the hard-working Ox are the main characters and the other ten animals are relegated to the background. Obviously, this is a children's movie, but it would have been much more interesting to see an exciting race between the animals. My main problem was character development. Some of the animals have to confront a villain described as The Evil Tree Spirit (?!) who's not very scary or relevant. Why not The Cat? (she was too lazy and foolishly trusted the Rat to sign her up) After a truly horrible musical number (which is admittedly kind of catchy) the twelve chosen animals begin a race to the Jade Emperor's Heavenly Palace. Why were these twelve animals chosen? Why not The Elephant? (he was too big and dangerous). "Zodiac: The Race Begins" fills in some of the holes from the old fable. The story of how the Chinese Zodiac was created has always been one of my favorites, so I decided to check out Singapore's animated version of the story, even though I fully realized that I'm about 15 to 20 years older than the movie's target audience.
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