Flavors of Youth is a 2018 Chinese/Japanese romantic animation film about three different stories of youth set in different cities of China.
It’s not a stretch to say that animation from Japanese studios like Ghibli and CoMix Wave Films have long be some of the most stirring ever produced, for decades establishing a certain style and expectation. No matter the stories, which themselves are often a bit magical – if not fantastical – it’s the visual journeys of these movies that have the most impact. The recent Your Name earned a lot of praise for such and the producers return again with an anthology film, partnering with the Chinese Haoliners Animation League to bring us another beautifully-realized collection of three stories of youth and love exclusively for Netflix.
It opens with “The Rice Noodles,” from director Xiaoxing Yi, about a young boy who reflects on his mornings growing up in China eating homemade San Xian noodles, and then again in middle school at the local shop, these meals gaining significance as he grows. The boy greatly appreciates the flavor and aroma, the importance of the best ingredients and quality, noting, as time goes by, the difference between these foods and those mass-produced in other restaurants. Of course, there is deeper meaning to all this, and becomes emotional as he grows to adulthood.
Next is Yoshitaka Takeuch‘s “A Little Fashion Show,” where things get darker, centered on a young woman who is renowned for her beauty, a model who is struggling with obsolescence as she ages into her late twenties and younger, more attractive girls begin to take her place. She has a little sister who doesn’t have the same looks but is nonetheless inspired by the industry, the two connecting as time and needs change them both.
Last is Haoling Li‘s “Love in Shanghai,” the story of a hard-working corporate man who looks back to his youth and the girl he loved, trying to follow her to university. Of course, things didn’t always go as planned and now, many years later, tries to make right the things he did wrong. It’s a deeply emotional and heartbreaking tale that make it the most haunting of the set, even if it plays with a few conventions of the genre.
Flavors of Youth goes for easy pickings, all three stories not really digging for anything all too deep, sticking to rather traditional takes on love and loss. At 75-minutes, it’s a brief encounter but at least it’s a wonder to look at it, each story obsessed with the details of the worlds they live in, a signature of the animation style. Filling a bowl with rice noodles never looked so good. This is the real draw in movies like this, the attention to the most smallest of things making these stories truly a more visual experience than a narrative one.
The stories are only very loosely connected, nor do they need to be, the shorts a small compilation of quality animation that fans will surely lap up, even if they are not quite as significant as their full-length brethren. The film is offered in English dubbing, which is handled surprisingly well in all three stories, though I highly-recommend you switch it back to the native Chinese or Japanese and read the subtitles. Either way, Flavors of Youth is a well-made effort that may not be the best Netflix has on slate, but if you have even the slightest interest in the art style, is well worth exploring.