Analysis of Xiao Xiao 3 (Stick Figure) [IDD 301]

I'm sure some of you might remember this animation. It is called Xiao Xiao No. 3. The story line in this is plain and simple and setup in an old video game type of way. Our hero (the black stick figure) is in a building trying to fight his way through all the hooligans to get to the final boss. He goes through the three levels in the building defeating them using various weapons that the boss' hitmen drop. Then when he finally makes it to the boss he fights him and wins.

The scenery in this is plain and simple with very little detail and just black lines. A 'stick' background shall we say. The characters, however, have nice fluid movements to them which draws our attention in. Not to mention the plethora of ninja-like moves that this stick figure accurately demonstrates. When our hero uses weapons they all leave a slight motion trail adding to the effect and drawing our attention to them.

There are a couple of shots where the characters also leave motion trails in a slow-motion type of effect. With the camera zoomed in on these characters we feel a sense that in this 2D world they are having 3D movements.

Finally, in the very last scene it uses the famous Matrix style slow motion camera rotation while our hero is up in the air for his final kick. This is where we get a true sense of this three-dimensional world in this easily 2D one.