Ub Iwerks's Flip the Frog series of cartoons was short lived, only lasting from 1930 to 1933. On the most part the Flip the Frog cartoons are not great or cartoon/animated masterpieces and it is sort of understandable as to why Flip didn't make it bigger. However they are far from terrible ones either and do hold some interest, enough of them even being good.
Despite not being historically significant like 'Fiddlesticks', which other than that was actually to me a lesser Flip the Frog cartoon, was, 'Chinaman's Chance' is still pretty good. Not one of the best of the series, but far from one of the worst. It is not perfect but there are things here that improve quite a bit and done much better than many other Flip the Frog cartoons.
A lot of good things in 'Chinaman's Chance'. The animation is very good, with beautifully detailed backgrounds, nice shading and characters that aren't drawn too crudely. There is some nice character animation here. The music makes even more of an impact, it is lushly and cleverly orchestrated, full of lively energy and not only adds brilliantly to the action it enhances it. Definitely the best thing about 'Chinaman's Chance'.
There are plentiful sight gags although the cartoon isn't necessarily gag-rich, and they are mostly beautifully timed, though there are a few sloppy ones, and very amusing, even when unoriginal. Maybe not always hilarious but they hardly fall flat. There is a nice natural charm and a good deal of zest.
Characters are lively and there is a lot of mischievous fun. The pacing is generally secure and the exotic setting helps hugely and used to full advantage.
There are a fair share of inventive and fun moments centred around the effects of opium (fairly daring for back then), like with the snake and alligator, the visuals of the wobbling scenery and Flip skipping through clouds of smoke (namely the visuals).
Flip however is still quite bland, although there were laudable attempts of making him interesting his personality generally wasn't compelling enough. Even more so is his love interest, an archetypes seen many times before.
'Chinaman's Chance' is a fairly unoriginal cartoon too and outside of the aforementioned scenes the rest of the cartoon isn't quite as good.
On the whole, definitely worth a look and somewhere in the middle ranking it with the rest of the series. 7/10 Bethany Cox
Despite not being historically significant like 'Fiddlesticks', which other than that was actually to me a lesser Flip the Frog cartoon, was, 'Chinaman's Chance' is still pretty good. Not one of the best of the series, but far from one of the worst. It is not perfect but there are things here that improve quite a bit and done much better than many other Flip the Frog cartoons.
A lot of good things in 'Chinaman's Chance'. The animation is very good, with beautifully detailed backgrounds, nice shading and characters that aren't drawn too crudely. There is some nice character animation here. The music makes even more of an impact, it is lushly and cleverly orchestrated, full of lively energy and not only adds brilliantly to the action it enhances it. Definitely the best thing about 'Chinaman's Chance'.
There are plentiful sight gags although the cartoon isn't necessarily gag-rich, and they are mostly beautifully timed, though there are a few sloppy ones, and very amusing, even when unoriginal. Maybe not always hilarious but they hardly fall flat. There is a nice natural charm and a good deal of zest.
Characters are lively and there is a lot of mischievous fun. The pacing is generally secure and the exotic setting helps hugely and used to full advantage.
There are a fair share of inventive and fun moments centred around the effects of opium (fairly daring for back then), like with the snake and alligator, the visuals of the wobbling scenery and Flip skipping through clouds of smoke (namely the visuals).
Flip however is still quite bland, although there were laudable attempts of making him interesting his personality generally wasn't compelling enough. Even more so is his love interest, an archetypes seen many times before.
'Chinaman's Chance' is a fairly unoriginal cartoon too and outside of the aforementioned scenes the rest of the cartoon isn't quite as good.
On the whole, definitely worth a look and somewhere in the middle ranking it with the rest of the series. 7/10 Bethany Cox
