Hi everyone!

Has anyone else noticed that a large percentage of Netflix Originals the past two weeks have something to do with hunting? Episode #!88 (“The Legacy of a Whitetail Deer Hunter”), Episode #189 (“Calibre”), tomorrow’s movie, Episode #192 (“The Skin of the Wolf”), and today’s movie. Insert the conspiracy theorist chalkboard meme here. Got any favorite hunting movies? Let us know at onemoviepunch.com or reach out to us on social media.

And now...

Today’s movie is “White Fang” (2018), the animated feature directed by Alexandre Espigares, and written for the screen by Serge Frydman, Philippe Lioret, and Dominique Monfery. The film follows the life of White Fang, part-wolf and part-dog, from his early days surviving with his mother in the woods through multiple adventures in the Yukon Territory during the Gold Rush. The film is somewhat based on the original classic novel by Jack London, and features the voices of Nick Offerman, Rashida Jones, Paul Giamatti, Flula Borg, Stephen Kramer Glickman, and many others.

Spoilers ahead.

White Fang has been adapted multiple times to the screen, sometimes very loosely based on the novel. Disney’s 1991 live-action version starring Ethan Hawke almost takes none of the original novel, and spawned a direct-to-video sequel. The 1973 Italian version has White Fang taking down a crime lord. And the original 1925 silent version and 1936 sound version picks up only when humans enter the story. There have also been multiple animated versions, each taking certain parts over others. So, imagine my surprise when I saw yet another animated adaptation.

It’s weird to critique an animated film with an animal protagonist, especially one that experiences so much over the course of the film and within a variety of human populations. In live-action films with animal protagonists, the supporting human cast is crucial to moving the story or at least providing a backdrop for it, helping to overcome the limitations of animal training. But with an animated feature, you can make the protagonist, in this case White Fang, do whatever you need to do, and the film does it well. The animation style is actually akin to some open-world video games, demonstrating the ever-blurring line between video animation and video-game rendering.

I always loved the novel because we get to see the Yukon from the perspective of White Fang, both the beautiful and the vicious. I actually wanted to play this movie like a video game after a while, thinking running as White Fang would actually be the ultimate experience for London’s work. The frontier feel really comes through, the edge between the steady colonization of Europeans and the receding lands of the indigenous. You also get a sense of the different relationships between man and dog, some loving, some decidedly not. White Fang learns to survive in the wild, and learns to be a sled dog, then a dog fighter, until finally learning to be part of a family. And in a departure from the novel, at the end, we get to see White Fang return to the wild instead of retiring in California.

“White Fang” (2018) is a beautifully rendered, mostly loyal adaptation of Jack London’s classic novel. This multi-studio collaboration captures the harsh frontier world from White Fang’s perspective, with great pacing and voice work, giving new audiences a fresh look at the source material. Fans of the classic novel, or films about the frontier during the Gold Rush, should definitely check out this film, and with its TV-PG rating, it can be fun for the whole family.

Rotten Tomatoes: 83%

Metacritic: NR

One Movie Punch: 7.6/10

Podcast: onemoviepunch.libsyn.com/episode-191-white-fang-2018

“White Fang” (2018) is rated TV-PG and is currently streaming on Netflix.

Episode 191 - White Fang (2018)

Episode 196 - The Insult (2017)

Episode 195 - How It Ends (2018)

Episode 194 - The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension (1984)

Episode 193 - Won't You Be My Neighbor? (2018)

Episode 192 - The Skin of the Wolf (2017)

Episode 190 - Ant-Man and the Wasp (2018)

Episode 189 - Calibre (2018)

Episode 188 - The Legacy of a Whitetail Deer Hunter (2018)

Episode 187 - Saturday Night Fever (1977)

Episode 186 - Recovery Boys (2018)

Episode 185 - BPM (2017)

Episode 184 - Nocturama (2016)

Episode 183 - Hereditary (2018)

Episode 182 - The Ornithologist (2016)

Episode 181 - Tau (2018)

Episode 180 - Rain Man (1988)

Episode 179 - Stop Making Sense (1984)

Episode 178 - Us and Them (2018)

Episode 177 - I Kill Giants (2017)

Episode 176 - Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (2018)

Joseph Dobzynski, Jr.

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