Another World (2025 film)

Another World (Chinese: 世外) is a 2025 Hong Kong fantasy animated film, adapted from Naka Saijō's 2012 novel Thousand Year Ghost. The film is co-produced by Point Five Productions and SILVER MEDIA GROUP, directed by Tommy Ng, and written and produced by Polly Yeung, with Gin Kai Chan as co-producer. Initially released as a 14-minute short film in 2019 and winning multiple international awards, it was later remade into a full-length feature film released in 2025. This film marks Hong Kong's second full-length animation after My Life as McDull to be selected for the Annecy International Animation Film Festival, and the first Hong Kong animation to be featured in the festival's "Midnight Special" section^[4]. In 2025, the film won the Golden Horse Award for Best Animated Feature, with nominations for Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Original Score. As of December 25, 2025, the film had grossed over HK$15 million, making it the highest-grossing Hong Kong animated film, and also the second highest-grossing homemade movie of 2025 in Hong Kong^[3].

The movie set in an afterlife called Another World, populated by a bunch of mask-adorned beings known as "soulkeepers". In this afterlife, once people are willing to let their past life go, they are taken to a waterfall where they will leave their memories behind, and reincarnate, with their souls turning into ropes. If the ropes have knots on them, they signify unresolved resentments. If one gains too many resentment, they will gain a Seed inside of them called a Seed of Evil. If this seed sprouts, they will turn into a Wrath, a being of unimaginable power. Gudo, a soulkeeper, longs to know why these unresolved resentments create the Seeds. While pondering, he meets Yuri, who is looking for her brother Kenji. Under her insistence, the two go off to find him. After a while, the two form a friendship. Gudo takes Yuri to see the Goddess, the ruler of Another World. There, she explains to Yuri about their world. Upon Yuri's demands that the Goddess helps her find Kenji, the Goddess gives Gudo the power to observe the past.

Meanwhile, in a kingdom called Flower City, a princess named Goran is being plagued by her emerging Seed of Evil. Goran's uncle reveals to her that her father, the King, had died in battle. Her Seed only sprouts more as she is secretly berated. At the King's funeral, a defecting general from Nyer, the enemy kingdom, and trusted aide of her father, is arrested. She later visits him in the dungeon, but lashes out in disbelief after she is told that the King committed suicide, while Nyer are advancing on their kingdom.

Goran is visited by Gudo, who asks for some food while drawing a loop on his stomach. Goran reluctantly gives him food. As a reward, Gudo uses his power to take her to the moments before her father's death under her demand. Once there, Goran saw the defected general leaving the King's tent, which she believes confirms the man's guilt, before her seed begins to spike and she falls unconscious. Dark Sky, Gudo's bodyguard, demands Gudo steps aside, so he can kill Goran before her Seed turns her into a Wrath. Gudo protests that since she doesn't have a Wrath's horns yet, she can still be saved from turning into one. After Gudo tricks him into thinking he decapitates her, the three are summoned to Another World. Goran, back in Flower City, becomes more deranged.

A few decades into the future, Flower City, which fell due to a Wrath known as the "Ghost Princess", becomes a village called Wheat Village. Keung, a wheat farmer is considering a rebellion, by calling upon the power of the Ghost Princess' Wrath in order to stop Nyer's forces from stealing half of their harvest, and slaughtering anyone who objects, despite the oncoming winter.

Later that night, Keung decides to visit the Requiem Temple, where the supposed hand of the Wrath "Ghost Hand" lies, despite protests of his family and fellow farmers. Upon meeting Gudo, Keung demands to be made a Wrath just like the Ghost Princess. Gudo reveals that the Ghost Princess was simply Goran: After slaughtering all of Flower City's prisoners and the people who belittled her, she realises the weight of her actions and begs Gudo to see her father one last time, realizing the general was telling the truth. Having been given closure, Goran's Seed of Evil is plucked and destroyed. However, Flower City has already fallen, and despite her attempts to find her Uncle and save the City, she succumbs to a fatal amount of wasp stings and dies in the forest. Gudo tries to intervene, but is stopped by Dark Sky.

Seeing that Keung is still not convinced that becoming a Wrath is not a good idea, Gudo turns his attention to the nearby "Ghost Hand", and explains that the "Ghost Hand" was once a mean wanting to save his people, but ended up slaughtering them all when becoming a Wrath, including his own daughter. This nearly causes Keung to falter long enough for Gudo to pluck his Seed of Evil, but it closes again when Keung tells himself that he'll recognise his daughter. Eventually, Dark Sky jumps in to kill the Wrath behind the duo instead, which reveals to be his senior Duan who has lost his family. The stress of the incident nearly causes Keung's Seed to turn him into a Wrath as well. Dark Sky chops off Duan's horns, which is the only way a Wrath can be killed. Seeing his friend's corpse, and feeling despair over his death, Keung renounces his pledge to become a Wrath, and Gudo plucks his seed before collapsing. The other farmers eventually find Keung, and they start a revolution against Nyer and its Leader, but are killed upon falling into a trap. As Keung dies, he sees that one of his fellow farmers has turned into a Wrath.

As Gudo heals from his injuries from the fight, Dark Sky realises that Keung's failed rebellion have made so many ropes of resentments from their reincarnations, that they have incapacitated the Goddess in the form of ropes. She reveals that it can only be undone once Gudo's resentment is undone. Gudo decides to tell Dark Sky about his pact.

Back in the past, after lamenting to Yuri that she had been dead the whole time, Gudo takes her back to the past so she can find out what happened to Kenji: After an landslide ravaged their village, the town had fallen into an immense famine. Kenji succumbs to the famine and his family reluctantly cook him into a stew so that they don't suffer the same fate.

Upon realizing she inadvertently ate her brother, she begins to turning into a Wrath on the spot after a mental breakdown, but Gudo is able to stop the process after one only horn sprouts. However, the Goddess appears and demands that Yuri be turned into dust so that her Wrath form cannot harm Another World. Gudo runs away with Yuri into the forest and uses the lake to summon Mother Earth, asking her about the creation of the Seeds of Evil. Mother Earth reveals Yuri will have to reincarnate for a millennia before she can reincarnate into a form that doesn't have a Seed from birth. Gudo then accepts the Goddess' offer to watch over Yuri's reincarnations for a thousand years, on the condition that, should he fail, he dies too. The two head to the waterfall and Yuri allows herself to reincarnate, with Goran and Keung being Yuri's future reincarnations.

Yuri's last reincarnation, Ying, is a little orphaned girl and a child labourer in the industrial revolution. Gudo and Dark Sky arrive in a nearby factory to observe Ying, but Gudo starts to grow weak from his constant ventures into the human realm. Ying's Seed to begin to sprout upon seeing Hardy and her sister Nana protecting her from the attack of her bullies, causing Nana to fall off from the barriers. Despite the workers and Ying's best efforts, Nana falls to death into the flywheel's gears. This causes Ying to turn into a Wrath on the spot. After a fierce battle, Dark Sky manages to ground Ying, and Gudo takes the opportunity to use his power on her, at the cost of fatally wounding himself.

Yuri, in form of Ying, laments to Gudo that she is not worth the thousand year's sacrifice that Gudo had made, especially after eating Kenji and killing many people in her future incarnations. Gudo manages to comfort Yuri by proving she has saved Hardy, the reincarnation of Kenji. Filled with sorrow and relief, Yuri allows her final Seed to be plucked, finishing their pact. As Yuri happily looks at Hardy one last time before her death, Gudo begins to succumb to his wounds.

As she appears in Another World, Dark Sky whisks her away to the Goddess, where she and a dying Gudo await. Gudo laments that he cannot return to the human realm, nor can he stay in Another World, due to his injuries. The Goddess reveals that he could also reincarnate himself now that his resentment has been resolved. Gudo elects to do so, despite losing his memories of Another World, as Yuri and Dark Sky look over him as he becomes a baby in Ying's city.

Inspired by US psychiatrist Brian Weiss's book Many Lives, Many Masters: The True Story of a Prominent Psychiatrist, His Young Patient, and the Past-Life Therapy That Changed Both Their Lives, Screenwriter Polly Yeung started to explore themes of reincarnation and letting go of obsessions, which is prominent in the film^[5]. Director Tommy Kai Chung Ng drew inspiration from Tibetan "Skull Dance" rituals for the ghost character design, blending Buddhist "impermanence" philosophy to create an East Asian-influenced fantastical world^[6]. The film is inspired by Japanese author Naka Saijō's novel Thousand Year Ghost, which involves the main protagonist collecting "demon buds" and explores themes of purity, obsession, and sin. The concept revolves around spirits entering the "Beyond" after death, where they must relinquish worldly attachments to pass through a waterfall and reincarnate, or else risk transforming into monsters made from hatred^[7] In a 2026 interview, Yeung mentioned that she decided to work with Ng after watching his 2017 project Zombieology: Enjoy Yourself Tonight, during her search for an animator suitable for the project^[8].

The 14-minute short film, completed in 2019, received the Hong Kong ifva Animation Award. The film employed a "digital picture book" style (hand-drawn watercolor backgrounds scanned, then animated with a 3D skeletal system), laying the visual foundation for the feature^[6]. Funded through the "Animation Support Scheme" under "Create Hong Kong," it won awards in 14 countries and regions, including the 21st Japan TBS Digicon6 ASIA Hong Kong Award, the Asia Grand Prize, Best Animation Short at the New York Horizons program, the Special Jury Award at the 8th China Independent Animation Film Forum, and the Montreal Animaze Festival Grand Prize^[9]. The short focuses on the protagonists' first encounter and farewell, setting the stage for the full-length story^[10]. In addition to voice work by Kay Tse and Rosa Maria Velasco, the ending theme song "Thinking" was performed by Linda Chau.

The full-length version received HKD 5.6 million in funding from the Film Development Fund's "Film Production Financing Scheme" in 2020^[11], while receiving international co-production funding from the Philippine Film Commission in 2022^[10]. During production, the producers actively reached out and secured support from investors in Saudi Arabia, marking the first animation project investment by Middle Eastern company Animekey, which believed the story about Eastern reincarnation would be popular in the Middle East^[12]. The film also received funding support from Hong Kong's Full Colour Limited, China's TMZ Media, and Japan's Digital Hollywood University^[13]. The production team took seven years to complete the film. Director Tommy Kai Chung Ng stated that the full film was a "rebuilding" process, expanding the story while maintaining the core ideas of Thousand Year Ghost and incorporating Hong Kong perspectives^[14]. During a Varsity interview, Yeung pointed out that the process of advancing from a short film into a large-scale project, led the team to create work of high quality while working under tight schedules and high pressure, due to their lack of experience, while comparing their stumbling naivete to the fully matured Japanese animation industry^[8].

The film was showcased as a "Work-in-progress" at Annecy 2024, revealing unreleased content and the seven-year production journey, gaining international recognition^[10]. Visually, the film maintains the "digital picture book" aesthetic of the short, combining hand-painted watercolor with 3D techniques to present a unique East Asian style^[9]. Furthermore, in 2025, the Hong Kong Digital Entertainment Association established a "Hong Kong Pavilion" at Annecy to promote Hong Kong animation works like Another World and help expand their international market^[15]

The film premiered globally on June 11–13, in the "Midnight Special" section of 2025's Annecy..^[4][18]. Distribution rights are held by Edko Films in Hong Kong and Acau, while the North American rights are acquired by GKIDS. The film's international premiere was at 2025's Annecy, with subsequent release in Hong Kong and Macau on October 29, 2025^[7]. It was selected as the opening film of the 22nd Hong Kong Asian Film Festival, before premiering in Hong Kong on October 22, 2025. Originally scheduled for November 1, 2025, it was moved forward to October 29 due to popular demand, with special preview screenings available on October 25 and 26^[19]. Besides Hong Kong and North America, plans for releases are included in Japan, Taiwan, France, Middle East, while negotiations are ongoing for mainland China^[12]

Another World has surged past $1.8 million (HKD$14 million) at the local box office after six weeks on release since its opening on October 29^[20]. As of December 26 2025, it had grossed $15 million in HKD^[3].

The film received positive reactions from critics. Cath Clarke of The Guardian awarded the film three point five stars out of four, calling the film as "the wonder of Studio Ghibli meets the gruesomeness of Game of Thrones and the dark fury of a Greek tragedy", while calling the animation "striking and deeply strange"^[21]. Ashlyn Chak of South China Morning Post called the film as "not a family-friendly viewing experience", instead as "the type of animated film that showcases the ugly side of humanity with gore and psychological horror"^[22]. Another South China Morning Post columnist, Edmund Lee, awarded the film four stars out of five and claimed the animation as "a morally complex film that repeatedly challenges its characters with circumstances of extreme evil" at its heart^[23]. He subsequently listed the film as the second-best Hong Kong film released in 2025^[24].

It was listed as one of the best movies to watch in 2025 Hong Kong Asian Film Festival by South China Morning Post^[25]

• Short film (2019)
  • 21st Japan TBS Digicon6 ASIA Hong Kong Award & Asia Grand Prize^[9]
  • Best Animation Short, Horizons NYC^[9]
  • Gold Award, 25th IFVA Animation Category^[6]
  • Special Jury Prize, 8th China Independent Animation Film Forum^[9]
  • Grand Prize, Montreal Animaze Festival^[9]
• Feature film (2025)
  • Selected for 2024 Annecy International Animation Film Festival "Work-in-progress"^[10]
  • In the "Midnight Special" section at Annecy 2025^[4]

• Another World Short Film at Douban (in Chinese)
• Another World Full-Length at Douban (in Chinese)
• Another World at IMDb