Yobi, the Five Tailed Fox

Yobi, the Five Tailed Fox

Theatrical poster
Hangul 천년여우 여우비
Hanja 千年여우 여우비
Revised Romanization Cheonnyeon-yeowoo Yeowoobi
McCune–Reischauer Ch‘ŏnnyŏnyŏu Yŏubi
Directed by Lee Sung-gang
Produced by Kang Han-young
Oh Min-ho
Written by Lee Chang-dong
Starring Son Ye-jin
Gong Hyung-jin
Ryu Deok-hwan
Music by Yang Bang-ean
Production
company
Distributed by CJ Entertainment
Release dates
  • January 25, 2007 (2007-01-25)
Running time
 85 minutes
Country South Korea
Language Korean

Yobi, the Five Tailed Fox (Korean: 천년여우 여우비) is a 2007 animated Korean film by Lee Sung-gang, the director of My Beautiful Girl, Mari. The film loosely draws upon the Korean folk tales of the kumiho.

Plot

One hundred years ago, aliens landed on a mountain near where a small, white five tailed fox lived. After being stranded on Earth for one hundred years, they are ready for a test flight to see if they can return home. The test fails as one of the aliens makes a mistake, and the other aliens tell him to leave.

The runaway alien finds itself taken in by a class of students at the foot of the mountain. There, a teacher named Kang trains students who do not fit in at a regular school. In order to save the alien, the five tailed fox takes on the form of a human girl, and joins the school under the name of Yobi.

Staying at the school, Yobi becomes friends with one of the students, a boy named Geum-ee. She grows more and more attached to humans and enjoys her time with them, until a fox hunter appears, as well as a shadow who gives Yobi a device which will allow her to become human by taking the soul from a human.

Yobi becomes exposed to the hunter, which makes her leave. With the fox hunter set upon hunting her down, Geum-ee tries to save her, but falls down in a lake which makes Geum-ee's soul trapped in a cage as a bird. Yobi tries to save him, but the shadow takes Geum-ee's soul. He states that his soul was taken from him long ago and that he needs one to become solid. Yobi defeats the shadow, only to be told by the soul lake's gatekeepers that the number of souls in the lake must remain the same and a soul can never go out unless another soul replaces it. Yobi then allows for Geum-ee's departure back to the human world by placing her own soul in the bird cage. Once he comes back to consciousness, Geum-ee tries to call for Yobi, but to no avail. He is last seen leaving with the teacher and the other students.

Some time later, Yobi's soul is released. Yobi becomes human and is most likely reincarnated to become human not too long after her soul had been exchanged. It is not known if Yobi and Geum-ee see each other or not, though many fans have their hopes.

Voice Cast

Characters

Yobi

Yobi's original form is a white fox with five tails and reddish pink eyes. She, however, has shape shifting abilities. She can transform into many animals, even humans, and understands animal speech. Yobi's human form is a skinny girl with dark brown hair tied into two tails resembling a fox's ears, she has big dark blue eyes and wears a loose red athletic shirt and blue shorts. She lives in the wood with her alien friends. Yobi is very naive and innocent. She lacks experience and knowledge about human behavior and their emotions, initially thinking them as silly creatures. As she spends time with them, Yobi starts to enjoy her experience as a human and secretly desires to become one. She forms a strong friendship with the boy Geum-ee. She gets angry at him when he brings people to her house even though he was forced to. Later when Geum-ee falls into the lake where souls in form of birds go, Yobi goes to great lengths to save him, even at the cost of her soul. Yobi's soul is blue, indicating that she loves Geum-ee.

Hwang Geum-ee

Geum-ee is a student and Yobi's friend. He has dark hair and eyes and is considered handsome. Geum-ee doesn't enjoy bullying other people and study. He thinks there are other things to do other than study and dreams to become a comedian. He is a caring person and a "fighter" and has a sense of justice.He is shown to have a soft spot towards children, when spotting Yobi, disguised as Jong-ee, sneaking out of the sleeping room, she assumes she is looking for her bear and retrieves it for her. Geum-ee's mother died when he was young and he had always been alone ever since. He considers Yobi the only friend he ever had and protects her when she was being hunted. While trying to run he falls off a cliff and into the mysterious lake that only appears when the light of the full moon shines on it. His soul is saved by Yobi and he wakes up in his world, calling for Yobi. He then returns and quietly leaves the next day along with the teacher Kang and others. His real name means a boy born in a golden autumn field, indicating how his parents met.It is shown that Geum-ee's soul is blue, meaning that he loves Yobi.

Joo-Hee

Joo-hee is a 13-year-old girl who is very proud of her looks and harbors a crush on Geum-ee. She is also the bunk-mate of Yobi, whom she despises due to her own insecurities and often belittles and teases. She has slapped her on one occasion, telling her not to flirt with Geum-ee, however, as Yobi was taught by the Aliens that a slap is a way of saying 'I love you' she assumed Joo-Hee is in love with her and apologizes for not realizing it, causing Joo-Hee to go into a tantrum as she violently denies it. She proves to be an adversary to Yobi in more ways than one, noticing Yobi's tails and even seeing her transform into a fox, but no one believes her due to Yobi hiding her tails or transforming back into her human form, causing Joo-Hee to doubt herself.

Jung Jong-ee

Jong-ee is an autistic little girl who does not speak. She usually holds onto a large stuffed teddy-bear, which she carries around constantly, but after it is taken away by Kang in order to toughen her up, She begins clinging to Naughty when he comes into the school. She has Several small adventures with him while procuring nails for him to eat, one of which almost ends in her getting attacked by dogs, thinking she was a fox due to clinging to Naughty, who carries Yobi's scent from being around her so long. Yobi however ends up rescuing her, letting her in on the secret of being a fox, under the condition she not tell anyone. Later, after Naughty runs away she gets lost in the woods trying to find him, but is rescued by a bear, who brings her back to the others. It was then that Jong-ee finally speaks, excited to see her parents.

Ju Hye-Seung

Hye-Seung is a tom-boyish girl who dresses in boys clothes and is noted for her signature hat, which hides her very pretty face, especially her eyes. she is known for being a tough girl who teases others but occasionally shows concern, particularly Jong-ee. She is shown to snore and be a restless sleeper, tossing and turning throughout the night.

Kang

Kang is the teacher of the summer school, wanting to help the children with their problems making school difficult for them. Most of his approach to this is organizing many physical outside activities to keep them busy, exercising and active. While a bit strict, he is good-hearted, but is shown to have a weakness for pretty women. This is shown when meeting Yobi's Mother (actually Yobi in disguise) he seems to be instantly attracted to her and makes up excuses just to have her revisit the school.

The fox hunter

The fox hunter is a human man who carries on the family tradition of hunting foxes capable of taking human form in revenge for his ancestor, whose soul was stolen by a fox who wanted to become human. He travel with his dogs, hunting foxes. He seems to have some spiritual powers, placing sacred sutra's around to force Yobi into her true form and out of hiding, as they have a negative effect on her health and control of her powers. He is regarded by most of the characters to be crazy, as they see his stories of foxes to be ridiculous.

Shadow Man

A mysterious and strange figure, Shadow man often appears in Yobi's time of need, saving her life or otherwise assisting her on several occasions. Claiming to be curious about Nine tailed Foxes, the race of which Yobi is apart, he claims himself to be a detective and expresses his desire to help her obtain a human soul so she can become human, handing her a device which will harvest the soul by using the spell Roono-mi amas bin. Later, he meets her in the spirit world to rescue Geum-ee's soul. Only to reveal his true agenda. The Device he gave her was actually his heart. He intended to steal the soul all along so he could get a new body, after being cursed to be a living shadow. He succeeds, But Yobi manages to reclaim Geum-ee's soul, his new body falls apart, and he is dragged away by the wind spirits, most likely to be killed.

Yoyo Aliens

The Yoyo aliens are a collection of several metal-diaper wearing creatures from an unknown planet where everything is alive, including the ground, which sometimes sings. They vaguely resemble capibaras as teacher Kang points out when one is discovered stealing nails from their school as a snack. This makes him odd as their regular diet seems to consist of beans, nuts, and berries. Their goal is to return to their home planet, but this fails when the Nail eating alien, nicknamed Naughty by the others, accidentally causes the ship to crash during the test flight. The others scold him meanly for this, causing him to run away. He is later reclaimed by the aliens after running away from Jong-ee, subsequently leading her to get lost looking for him, and be rescued by the bear, which inspires her to speak again upon being reunited with her parents. The aliens seem to be Yobi's primary caregivers and tend to behave as though she is their daughter, while also regarding her as a leader, accompanying her and aiding her when needed.

See also

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