Year of the Fish Official Trailer

Lucky New Yorkers: they will be able to watch Year of the Fish, an upcoming movie written and directed by David Kaplan, in their local theaters. Unfortunately only a limited distribution has been decided so far, so if you are not from New York you will have to wait...

Year of the Fish is a very special movie. This rotoscoped / animated independent feature film is based on a ninth century Chinese variant of the fairy tale Cinderella, but set in a massage parlor in modern-day New York’s Chinatown!

The movie is starring actress Tsai Chin, Randall Duk Kim, Ken Leung, and introduces An Nguyen as Ye Xian. It is narrated by a magical carp.

Here below the official trailer of Year of the Fish:

Plot:
"An optimistic young girl travels alone to New York City where she hopes to earn money to send home to her ailing father. Expecting work in a beauty salon, the girl is instead delivered into the hands of her father’s distant cousin, an embittered woman who runs a seedy massage parlor. The girl surrenders her passport as collateral for her 'debt' and is informed of her duties. When she refuses to do the requisite sex work, the girl accepts her fate as the operation’s browbeaten servant, her only solace a magical goldfish given to her by a sidewalk fortuneteller." (Source: Coming Soon)

Year of the Fish was first shot in New York in Chinatown using live actors. Then using rotoscoping it was animated in animated in post-production.

Rotoscoping is the process of tracing over live-action footage to create an animation; in this case, a painterly, watercolor effect.

The result is an incredibly poetic movie: no wonder the movie has been acclaimed by critics.
:)