Another World

ANOTHER WORLD 🌋  世外 (2026)

The highest-grossing animated film in the history of Hong Kong cinema is making its way to North America this June.

Based on Naka Saijō’s 2012 novel Thousand Year Ghost (Sennenki), ANOTHER WORLD is a dark fairytale that spans a thousand years across Earth and the afterlife.

It follows Gudo, a Soul Keeper who guides human spirits into their next life. When he encounters a young girl named Yuri, he discovers her untimely death has left her consumed by unresolved rage and grief. As Yuri’s soul teeters on the edge of annihilation, Gudo is forced into a perilous journey to prevent her from unleashing destruction across both the human world and the spirit realm.

There are plenty of films that tread similar ground, from Pixar’s Coco (2017) to Mamoru Hosoda’s Scarlet (2026), each capturing fragments of the afterlife and the weight of what comes after death. But neither hit me in the existential feels, quite like this. Because beneath its fantastical premise, there’s an unexpected emotional gravity here about memory, connection, and the fragile hope that being remembered is a kind of survival.

At face value it could pass for a children’s film, but it’s far darker than it lets on, unflinching in how it explores the ache of letting the people you love down. You can also feel echoes of Grave of the Fireflies (1988), and the reincarnating, time-spanning sorrow of the anime To Your Eternity (2016), the kind of storytelling that will quietly wreck the right audience.

Add in an ethereal, meditative score and wondrous animation, and you’ve got a serious contender for animated film of the year.

It isn’t flawless. The villain designs feel strangely uninspired against such a rich world, and while the film aims for emotional catharsis, the ending is a touch too clean—softening what could’ve been a devastating, (and undeniably memorable) final blow.

Animated films often chase closure, but here, a sharper sacrifice might’ve carried more emotional weight and lingered longer.

Still, what ANOTHER WORLD does remarkably well is hold faith in humanity against everything that should destroy it, and somehow make you believe in it anyway.

That belief is carried through Gudo, a spirit without human emotion in the traditional sense, who slowly learns that souls aren’t just passing through cycles of reincarnation—they’ve lived, lost, and suffered in ways he can only begin to comprehend. And it’s his inability to fully feel, paired with his willingness to try, that gives the film its soul.

ANOTHER WORLD is a wickedly imagined vision of the afterlife, anchored by Gudo and Yuri, a duo whose evolving bond becomes one you’ll root endlessly for—and it’s what makes the film a memorable, heartfelt, guided experience.

Enjoy!

7.6/10 🍿 🎥

Runtime: 1hr51mins

Where:  Now Playing In Select Theatres

The Richmond Reviewer Another World Review - June 8th 2026.

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