A little over two years ago, I visited
my brother in China for his wedding.
Over the course of about three weeks, I got to see a lot of the
surrounding area and take a lot of pictures.
Imagine my surprise when I recognized one of the buildings in an animated
Netflix movie. I had a little trouble
finding the photo, as I thought I had a better picture of it, but I’m pretty
sure the building in the middle is featured in the last segment of Flavors of
Youth.
That being said, Flavors of Youth is
divided into three segments, with people recalling some memory of their
respective childhoods. It might be
common or insignificant to most, but the narrators recall some time when they
were happy.
In The Rice Noodles, Xiao Ming recalls
living with his grandmother. They had a
place not too far from a noodle place that served his favorite San Xian noodles. People came from all over to eat there. Other places throughout his life served a
similar dish, but no place was as good as the original.
With A Little Fashion Show, Yi Lin is a
fashion model. She recalls taking care
of her younger sister, Lulu. A series of
events leads Yi Lin to take a break from modeling. During this time she comes to realize what’s
important.
The final segment is called Love in Shanghai. It’s told from the perspective of Li Mo,
about him and his friend, Xiao Yu. They
have a bit of a romantic interest in each other. They record messages for each other on a
tape, which they pass back and forth at school.
Her parents want her to attend a good university, which she applies
for. He works hard and applies, too,
hoping to be with her. She fails the
test, hoping to stay with Li Mo. He gets
in and moves away. After failing the
test, Xiao Yu and her family move away.
Each story is about thirty minutes in
length. Although the animation is the
same, the story tends to vary in quality.
I felt that A Little Fashion Show was the weakest. It seemed to be the most generic of the three
segments. The other two seemed to have
better detail. The Rice Noodles had a
nice progression, showing the main character’s development and his various
reasons for going to the different noodle places. Love in Shanghai had an ironic twist that was
relatable, even if you’ve never been in that situation.
On Netflix, it’s called Flavors of
Youth: International Version. I’m not
sure what that means. Neither IMDb nor
Wikipedia mentions what is international about it, other than it’s shown
outside of China and Japan. I was able
to watch it in Japanese with English subtitles.
So far as I know, there’s no additional footage, nor was anything
removed. The only difference might be an
English dub.
It’s worth noting that there’s a
post-credits scene with all of the main characters, implying that it’s all in
the same universe. This would seem to be
the closest that the various characters get to interacting with each
other. I would say that the movie is
worth watching if you have Netflix. It
would appear to be hand drawn, but there are a few scenes that seem more like
CGI. None of the stories are overly
involved or complex, making for three simple, easy-to-follow narratives. It’s a great thing to watch if you’re looking
for something different while isolated in your house.
