Tchou-tchou

This is a really clever stop-motion animation. The story is about two siblings who find themselves pursued by a menacing dragon, but the whole thing uses wooden cubes to tell the tale, and each one is hand drawn to fit in with the one adjacent. The kids are made up of three blocks that swivel about to given them quite a degree of mobility as they climb and slide up and down the set, also made the same way. The menacing dragon, when it arrives, depends a lot on the audio to create the peril, but that works really quite well as the kids hide amongst a cityscape that’s constantly chopping and changing. It’s all good fun as they peek from their hiding places, then come up with a plan to keep their not very bright nemesis busy. It’s also quite an enjoyable reminder of just how simple toys were and how our imagination could make so much from the rudimentary without needing batteries and flashing lights to play.