A Fox Tale (6:53)
IMDb; shortfil.ms; Vimeo; YouTube
Creators' sites: Chao ma; Julien Legay; Thomas Bozovic

In July of 2017, I did a "list challenge" called Movies With Computer Animated Characters, Creatures, Animals, Robots,... and the image that appears when sharing the list on facebook (or other social media sites) is something I didn't recognize. It's certainly not on the list challenge itself. But then in December, I happened to be browsing a list of short films on The CG Bros website, when I came across that same image. So I finally learned what it was from: it's this short film, which was made in 2011.

The film has no dialogue, but it's obviously set in China in the distant past. Two men (who I learned from various websites above are brothers) are hunting fox. They've set a trap with an apple as bait, and the fox looks it over, but ends up leaving it alone. The brothers start chasing the fox, but before they catch up to it, we see something they don't. The fox goes for a swim, and emerges from the water as a beautiful woman. When the brothers show up, the woman (whom they don't realize is really the fox) appears to show an interest in each of them. Soon after that, the two brothers begin an epic battle against each other, apparently fighting over the woman, who I guess just goes off and waits for them to finish their battle, or whatever. Anyway, one of the brothers is much bigger and stronger than the other. But the little one is much more agile, and seems to be highly skilled in kung fu. (The younger one does have some actual skill, not just brute force, but he's not nearly as fast as his brother. Though at one point I will say it seemed to me almost like the big guy started earthbending... But later still, the smaller brother starts sort of lightning-bending, or whatever.) So... I don't really want to say anything more about the plot. But it's great animation and an awesome fight. And the fox (or huli jing, or whatever it was) is pretty great.