A Classic Adventure Tale: Sinbad: The Flying Princess and the Secret Island

Synopsis

The story begins with a young man named Sinbad who dreams of becoming a sailor and voyaging across an unknown world. One day after failing to join a crew, he encounters a young princess and her flying horse being chased by a group of men on a flying partner lead by a man on an iron horse. Making the decision to help the princess escape, his scuffle catches the attention of the captain of a sailor crew, specifically, the crew he had wanted to join and finds himself recruited. Thus begins the start of his adventure.

The Good

As someone who appreciates the use of 2D animation style, to see the film make use of it is a fun piece of visual work. Its simplicity and use of background tones also makes for a good presentation for the film. Aside from the little to no longer used animation work, the way that the film was able to pack in so much within itself and certain scenes. One of this writer’s personal favourite scenes was when Sinbad had to say goodbye to his mother.

There wasn’t much dialogue given, but the way that the music was used and how the viewer sees the mother reminisce on Sinbad’s childhood when looking at certain areas said so much. And the way that the fog and blue skies reflect the mood of the scene really sets it off. In terms of inbetween scenes and character building, the film holds a genuine strenght in it.

The Bad

It is pretty clear from the way that the film ran that it is acting as a beginning chapter and thus would not hold as much action as expected. On the note of the action, with the way that the animation is, it is much easier to see most of the motions yes, but for the most part, since there isn’t much action other than in two parts of the film, there are only those two to judge. For the first part is worked well enough but with the second part, it seemed a little anticlimactic in the end and didn’t seem to have a proper central focus.

Other than the action work, the overall plot for the film may seem a little slow paced given that it is the first part of a film series. What’s more the simplicity of the plot also gives little for the build-up in excitement. And being a more classic tale, things like the obvious villain and romantic build-up between Sinbad and the princess is to be expected.

Conclusion

For all intents and purposes, the film would be considered as a classic work given its plot and art. It may be slow-paced in plot but the build-up for scenes and characters within the film work highly well. As an introductory work for a film series, it works rather well; however, there are also some predictable notes to predict with the film given its classic tale of a story. As a whole film, there isn’t much to it but as a part of a film work, it does highly work in building itself up between scenes and as an introductory note.

Rating: 7/10