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Year of the Fish
Metascore
53 out of 100

Mixed or average reviews - based on 13 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 6 out of 13
  2. Mixed: 6 out of 13
  3. Negative: 1 out of 13
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  1. New York Post
    Reviewed by: V.A. Musetto
    75
    The film's unusual look lends a magical feeling.
  2. Film Threat
    Reviewed by: Pete Vonder Haar
    70
    A sweetly engaging effort that manages a fair amount of charm and innocence in spite of the rather seedy surroundings.
  3. The New York Times
    Reviewed by: Jeannette Catsoulis
    70
    Packs more sadness than the familiar fairy tale but offers its own fantastical delights. Ye Xian's party dress, made of teardrops, suits her -- and her story -- perfectly.
  4. Seattle Post-Intelligencer
    Reviewed by: Bill White
    67
    An eye-opener for those unfamiliar with the tribulations many immigrants endure on their road to American citizenship. And yes, it is also a fairy tale, but not all fairy tales are for children.
  5. The A.V. Club
    Reviewed by: Tasha Robinson
    67
    To some degree, it's trying to find the magic in the everyday, but the attempts to ground it are cringe-inducing and problematic.
  6. Boston Globe
    Reviewed by: Ty Burr
    63
    At its best, Year of the Fish makes a virtue of naivete - its heroine's, its director's, and the fragile fairy-tale belief that everyone deserves a happy ending.
  7. NPR
    Reviewed by: Bob Mondello
    60
    Kaplan keeps the story breezy and brisk, and provides his down-to-earthily modern fairy tale with an appropriately other-worldly visual style.
  8. New York Daily News
    Reviewed by: Elizabeth Weitzman
    60
    David Kaplan's sweet, if superficial, fairy tale won't change the world, but it makes nice use of its setting (Chinatown) and visual style (rotoscope animation).
  9. San Francisco Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Walter Addiego
    50
    Too raw for kids and too simplistic for adults.
  10. TV Guide
    Reviewed by: Maitland McDonagh
    50
    Has a certain weird charm, but it's too seamy for children and too simplistic played for adults.
  11. Austin Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Marjorie Baumgarten
    40
    Lovely to look at, Year of the Fish is an animated feature that pops off the screen like a goldfish leaping free of its bowl.
  12. Variety
    Reviewed by: John Anderson
    40
    That the film is animated gives it an appropriately magical feel, but it can't save the story from being drowned in devices and stereotype.
  13. Village Voice
    Reviewed by: Vadim Rizov
    20
    Year of the Fish is the kind of really bad movie it takes a lot of misplaced conviction to make.
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User Reviews

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User Score
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No user score yet- Awaiting 1 more rating

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 1 out of 2
  2. Mixed: 0 out of 2
  3. Negative: 1 out of 2
  1. JerryM
    10
    Awesome. Made me cry.
  2. magnesium
    2
    Uggh. While it's nice to have an Asian-centric film in American cinema, this film is so chock-full of stereotypes that it was almost too difficult to finish watching. As a Chinese-American myself, I had the feeling that the movie was made by those who did not make an effort to really get into the emotional underbelly of the immigrant experience. Also, why choose a sex parlor as a backdrop? I'm sorry if I'm unduly offended, but exactly how many Chinese immigrants these days actually do go into the sex trade? Does this play into the some sort of Western fantasy of Asian female eroticism? This movie would have been more effective if the director chose a wittier, lighter, and less heavy-handed approach. I'm sorry, but not all movies about Asian females have to rehash the same (evil) mother - repressed daughter emotional pathos of The Joy Luck Club (which incidentally made for a terrible one-dimensional movie). Although conceptually interesting , the execution was overly superficial and simplistic.… Full Review »
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