REVIEW: ‘Another World’ Lures You In With Startling Ambition

There’s an immediate, rich texture to the evocative universe of Tommy Ng’s Another World (2026). Overridden by alien-like substances that spool from the foundations of the worlds the characters traverse, each plane is alive and clashing despite the initial idyllic introduction.

The story is much darker, deeper, and denser than one might initially suspect. As the film tries to condense the story of a single soul spanning millennia, it finds transcendent, stirring imagery, though it struggles to hold onto the plot before it runs away. 

Another World, based on the 2012 novel Thousand Year Ghost by Naka Saijō and adapted by Polly Yeung, begins in the afterlife, following a masked character named Gudo (Chung Suet Ying), a soulkeeper. Gudo’s job is to escort those who have passed to a waterfall, where they’ll let go of their past and their memories and reincarnate.

Another World is rich with lore.

As the humans transform, traveling to their new lives, they turn into ropes. Ropes with knots on them indicate a soul with lingering resentments or desires at the time of their passing. Too many of these form into a seed of evil that, if provoked, could turn the human into rage incarnate as a Wrath. 

It’s a lot of lore to dump on the viewer at the beginning of the film, and the story only becomes more tangled as it jumps between the present, past, and future of Gudo and then the young girl he meets in the afterlife, Yuri (Christy Choi Hiu Tung).

Yuri doesn’t realize at first that she’s died, believing she needs to find her younger brother, Kenji, who she thinks got lost in the woods. Gudo plays along with this belief for a while as the story jumps ahead to two other characters: the princess, Goran (Thaimay), and a desperate wheat farmer, Keung (Will Or). 

The heart of Another World lay in Gudo’s desire to protect Yuri’s soul. 

It’s through these stories’ intersections that Another World begins to come together. While there’s intrigue to the plotting at first as we try to figure out how the stories all link, it works best when it becomes more linear. And, instantly, more devastating. And it all links back to Yuri. Yuri, who, in recalling her own death and unlocking the terrible trauma that befell her brother (and, in turn, herself), causes her to transform, the seed of evil bursting, as she threatens to transform into a Wrath, harnessing enough power to corrupt the afterlife. 

Striking a bargain with the Goddess (Kay Tse) who oversees the afterlife, Gudo is tasked with watching over Yuri’s soul for a millennium to ensure she doesn’t transform into a Wrath. Only then will her soul be reborn without a seed already present. Suddenly, Goran’s story and Keung’s make more sense. Both are reincarnations, both tempted by the rage and violence surrounding them. Both are facing immense tragedy. Another World is ruthless in its depiction of careless human cruelty. 

By the time a head is lobbed off, there’s no denying the darkness that the film is ready to probe. And because of the tumultuous journey that Yuri’s soul, and, by extension, Gudo, is forced to undertake, there’s no shortage of desperate and violent imagery. Another World, despite its whimsical aesthetic and picture-book effect, is peppered with scenes of psychological horror, desolate sequences of pure apocalyptic despair, and shocking loss.

There’s profound suffering that acts as the overture of the story. 

Characters don’t simply die. They suffer. Be it from the sting of scalding machinery or in watching a band of people led to their deaths through trickery, or a father transformed into a monster who lays waste to his family, they’re meant to experience the full expanse of loss so we understand why those around them might be turned into something monstrous. 

And, frankly, it’s hard to see what befalls the characters in Another World and blame those transformations. What happens to Yuri and her brother is despicable, and her guilt is so palpable in the facial contortions captured by the animators.

Who wouldn’t be prone to transform into their worst self in the face of such tremendous loss and inhumane treatment? And perhaps that is the point of the story. Not so much to condemn those who transform but to, somehow, offer healing for them through Gudo’s guidance. Gudo, who, due to naivety, doesn’t fully understand the expanse of human emotion but knows that the force of fate is unstoppable. And sometimes, people die, and there’s no reason for it.

The painterly effect of the animation adds greater emotional weight.

Another World anchors itself in stunning animation and an eerie score. It ebbs and flows with the momentum of morality that dictates the narrative. Characters look for ways to either achieve better lives or understand how it could all have gone so wrong.

There’s such an abundance of beauty in the film, blending hand-painted watercolor effects with 3D techniques that create a sense of tactile fluidity. Aside from one clunky piece of action animation, the characters’ motion adds depth and gives the world an unsettling edge. 

The use of color creates haunting and discordant imagery. The reds, in particular, stand out, whether in moments of beauty, such as the tranquil afterlife, or in times of upheaval. We see it in those tangled ropes of souls that encroach on the afterlife, ensnaring the Goddess as if they had minds of their own. And, of course, in the bursts of blood that signify yet another profound sense of loss. 

Violent, but not entirely hopeless, Another World is a dense, ambitious look at healing and reincarnation.

By using these unusual, peculiar blends of color, settings, and tone, Another World achieves a singularity in its aesthetic. Few other films look like this, and few embark on a similar, grandiose story of souls. This is an enormous undertaking, and the film, to the best of its ability, builds on both the wonder of the setting and the heartache of the characters central to it. 

The main detraction is the initial, unusual pacing, which forgoes linear storytelling to first layer the world’s aesthetic and get to the heart of Gudo’s interest in humanity. Because this is a gorgeous, thoughtful film that doesn’t get lost in the over-splashes of violence, instead, it’s the hint of bloodshed, at times, such as the perspective from inside a monster’s mouth or the face of someone witnessing the horror rather than enduring it, that makes a more startling, visceral impact. This is not a happy movie. But it also isn’t entirely hopeless. 

Another World, with its striking imagery and meditative story, lures you in only to submerge you in the terrifying displays of humanity at its worst and most dire. Led by Gudo’s naive belief in being able to heal all souls of their resentments, guilt, and fury, the film embarks on a grueling, transcendent story about how long we work to resolve the tides of regret. Messy and, at times, implausibly ambitious, the animation stuns as the story tries to reckon with themes that are almost too large for a single movie to contain. 

Another World is playing in limited theaters now.