User reviews

I remember watching this film various times when I was aged around four years old. The film impressed me very much, so much that I can still remember some parts of the film at this age, even though I haven't seen it for at least fourteen years. The film is mostly sad (though it has a happy ending), and looking back on it, I think it's not all that suitable for four or five years old, because the theme that is death occurs a couple of times in the film, and that may be scary at times. I vividly remember the death of Samson's mother and the few corpses of whales that he encountered after the oil disaster (which he prodded to see if they were still alive). I think that says enough about the impact that the film would have on four to five year olds. But for the rest it's an enjoyable and good film, quite intelligent as well (from what I can remember), but I wouldn't show it to children under the age of seven or eight.

This animated movie is one of the best ones I've seen. Forget Disney movies - although the animation may not match that of Disney cartoons, this one has much more to offer otherwise: messages of love and unity, of loneliness and contentedness and much more. It also points to man's folly of whale hunting and thus it somewhat resembles Melville's Moby Dick. I recommend this to anyone and everyone.

This animation based on the book, The Song of the Whale, is probably the greatest animation ever created. Samson is a young whale with a serious personality disorder who, through his lack of friends (besides an annoying sea gull), becomes obsessed with the stories of Moby Dick told by his mother. Basically the plot line is Samson searching for Moby Dick to help save the whales from the iron beasts (whalers). It's a great story and takes us deep into the depths of the ocean where we learn about the fun and danger of being a whale. From playing dead, to pestering polar bears, to oil spills, to a crazy walrus duo messed up on toxic waste doing a dance number and singing in gibberish. This movie definitely gets an excellent review from me, and trust me it's not just a kids movie. I first saw it at the age of 22 and I've loved it every since. I recommend watching it with a good friend with a pure heart and a little green.

Looking back on my favorite movies from my childhood--this, The Brave Little Toaster, Little Nemo--I loved them all so much yet I found them all extremely disturbing. As many other people have implied, this movie is a bit scary, and deals with some pretty heavy themes. But you know what? That's why it's a good movie. That's why, seeing it many years later, it isn't just some crappy kid's movie--this movie and the others I have mentioned have stuck with me my whole life. The fact that they are a bit disturbing is no reason to say that kid's shouldn't see them. Because you know what? I wouldn't be the person that I am if I hadn't seen movies like this as a kid. Movies like this challenge the kid in ways that things like the Care Bears never will, and in the long run, I think that is a good thing.

That aside though, I really believe that this is a great, beautiful movie. You can tell that the people who made it really wanted to make it--it wasn't just another movie in a long line of movies they were under contract to make, like Disney is today. Even in Disney's glory day's none of their stories were original, and this story is extremely original. I credit the makers of this movie much more than the makers of The Lion King. The animation is quite good and has a very unique look to it, the story is very interesting and has more than one layer at work, the music is beautiful--the tone of the guitar in this movie's soundtrack has stuck with me all these years. The weakest link, probably, is the voice acting, which is by no means BAD. But this movie was in fact translated into English from Danish, so replacement voice crew often loses something.

All in all, I think this is a wonderful movie. This is the kind of movie I would want to show my kids, because even if its a little traumatizing, well, so is life. To give your kids only some idealized world through harmless movies with little conflict is much more dangerous, in my opinion.

I remember seeing this movie on TV when I was about 6-7 years old and how It moved me back then. The love story is so cute! The movie's similar to Watership Down in it's seriousness and environmentalist message....feels like they don't make movies like this anymore. An intelligent movie. However, there is just a little bit of humor too,albeit ironic and dark. The walrus song in the middle is absolutely hilarious! The animation may not be on par with Disney, sure, but hey, it's from Scandinavia. Some parts containing music and performing crabs in the water felt similar to "under the sea" from The Little Mermaid(and this was before that movie).

Parents, don't underestimate a kids intelligence. I strongly recommend this movie.

I feel truly blessed to be in possession of an uncut copy of this film in English (UK distribution with parkfield publishing). This seems to be a rare thing to still exist, which is a shame.

I found it among other tapes in my roof space and today watched for the time in maybe 20 years. It did NOT disappoint.

This film makes you smile, it make you laugh, it makes you cry, it makes you shout "no" at the screen. It is an emotional story with plenty of humour between. True, compared to modern children's films, it is a bit dark and between whalers, oil slicks, radioactive waste,an underwater war arms dump and the fact that New York is now under water... it comes with LOTS of hard hitting environmental commentary. But back then, a lot of kids films had dark and scary parts, think Watership Down, The Black Cauldron etc, even in the Lion King it gets dark at times. It makes you feel empathy and compassion in a way that happy clappy films just don't.

I highly recommend you to let your children watch this if you ar every lucky enough to get your hands on it.