Another World (2025 film)

Another World
Theatrical release poster
Chinese: 世外
Directed by	Tommy Ng
Screenplay by	Polly Yeung
Based on	Thousand Year Ghost by Naka Saijō....[1][2]
Produced by	Polly Yeung Gin Kai Chan
Starring	Short film: Kay Tse Rosa Maria Velasco Film: Chung Suet Ying Christy Choi Hiu Tung Louis Cheung Kay Tse Will Or Goofy Yeung Nga Man
Music by	Adlian Chau CMgroovy Vicky Fung Wing Ki
Production companies	Point Five Productions SILVER MEDIA GROUP Film Development Council
Distributed by	Edko Films
Release dates	June 16, 2025 (2025-06-16) (Annecy) October 29, 2025 (2025-10-29) (Hong Kong)
Running time	111 minutes
Country	Hong Kong
Language	Cantonese
Budget	$30-50 million USD (~23.4-39 million HKD)[2]
Box office	HKD 15 million (as of Dec 26)[3]

Another World (Chinese: 世外) is a 2025 Hong Kong fantasy animated film, adapted from Naka Saijō's 2012 novel Thousand Year Ghost. The film is co-produced by Point Five Productions and SILVER MEDIA GROUP, directed by Tommy Ng, and written and produced by Polly Yeung, with Gin Kai Chan as co-producer. Initially released as a 14-minute short film in 2019 and winning multiple international awards, it was later remade into a full-length feature film released in 2025. This film marks Hong Kong's second full-length animation after My Life as McDull to be selected for the Annecy International Animation Film Festival, and the first Hong Kong animation to be featured in the festival's "Midnight Special" section^[4]. In 2025, the film won the Golden Horse Award for Best Animated Feature, with nominations for Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Original Score. As of December 25, 2025, the film had grossed over HK$15 million, making it the highest-grossing Hong Kong animated film, and also the second highest-grossing homemade movie of 2025 in Hong Kong^[3].

The movie begins in an afterlife called Another World, which is populated by a bunch of skull-adorned beings known as "spirit-walkers". In this afterlife, once people are willing to let their past life go, they are taken to a waterfall where they will leave their memories behind, and reincarnate. Once they do so, their soul will turn into a rope with knots on it. Each knot details an unresolved resentment in that soul's life. If one gains too many of these, they will gain a Seed inside of them called a Seed of Evil. If this seed sprouts, they will turn into a Wrath, a being of unimaginable power.

Gudo, a spirit-walker, longs to know why these unresolved resentments cause the creation of a Seed of Evil, but is snapped out of his thoughts by a girl named Yuri, who is looking for her brother Kenji. Gudo states that Yuri and Kenji could just stay separated, but under Yuri's insistence, the two go off to find Kenji.

Meanwhile, in a kingdom called Flower City, a princess named Goran is being plagued by her emerging Seed of Evil. As she arranges some flowers, she is alerted by the sound of a trumpet, which indicates the arrival of Flower City's King and his men, who have just come back from a battle. Unfortunately, Goran's uncle reveals to her that her father, the King, had died in battle. Later, at his funeral, Goran's Seed only sprouts more as she is secretly berated, which she overhears, and a defecting general from Nyer, the enemy kingdom, and trusted aide of her father, is arrested without an investigation, something Goran condemns. She later visits him in the dungeon, but lashes out in disbelief after she is told that the King committed suicide, calling the general a liar. She is also told that Nyer are advancing on their kingdom, but hesitates on what to do about it.

Back in Another World, Yuri and Gudo are continuing their search for Kenji, as Gudo laments that she is the first soul who, not only doesn't know that she's dead, but sees Another World as being fun. He notes that whenever she feels hungry, something that is technically impossible in Another World, she draws a loop on her stomach. After a while, the two form a friendship.

Goran awakes from dreaming about this, and demands her aides leave after they confirm that her father's death was not a dream as well. It is here that she is visited by Gudo, who asks for some food while drawing a loop on his stomach. Goran relents and gives him food, but demands he leaves when he is done. As a reward for giving him food, Gudo offers to take Goran to a place in history, on the condition that she can only observe it, not change it. Goran demands that Gudo take her to the moments before her father's death, and he agrees.

Once there, Goran's worst fears are seemingly realised. The moment shows the defected general leaving the King's tent, shouting something. Goran's Seed begins to spike as she demands Gudo to let her through so she can make the general pay for what he did. Gudo pleads with her to stop, but Goran falls unconscious. Dark Sky, Gudo's bodyguard and killer of Wraths the two encounter, suddenly appears and demands Gudo steps aside, so he can kill Goran before her Seed turns her into a Wrath. Gudo protests that since she doesn't have a Wrath's horns yet, she can still be saved from turning into one. Dark Sky doesn't listen, and goes to kill Goran anyway, ultimately decapitating her. However, this is proven to be a projection from Gudo, who quickly tries to lead the real Goran to safety. Dark Sky tries to stop him, but all three are summoned to Another World.

Back in the past, Gudo is taking Yuri to see the Goddess, the ruler of Another World. There, she explains to Yuri about the ropes, and how the Seeds of Evil can turn people into Wraths. Upon Yuri's demands that the Goddess helps her find Kenji, the Goddess gives Gudo the power to see into the past, but not change it.

In the present, Dark Sky tries to explain his actions to the Goddess, but is silenced. The Goddess reaffirms a pact that Gudo made, but tells him that to save Goran, he will have to witness what comes next. Goran, back in Flower City, is now seemingly more deranged, as she slices everything into shreds with her father's sword, including her robes.

The story then skips a few decades into the future, to a village called Wheat Village, which is revealed to have, at one point, been Flower City, which fell due to a Wrath known as the "Ghost Princess". Keung, a wheat farmer is considering a rebellion, by calling upon the power of the Ghost Princess' Wrath in order to stop Nyer's forces from stealing half of their harvest, and slaughtering anyone who objects, despite the oncoming winter.

Later that night, Keung decides to visit the nearby Requiem Temple on the nearby mountain, as that is where the supposed hand of a Wrath, nicknamed the "Ghost Hand", lies. His daughter tries to stop him, as well as Keung's fellow farmers, but at the behest of his wife and senior farmer Duan, Keung is allowed to go.

Meanwhile, Gudo and Dark Sky are awaiting Keung's arrival. Keung, upon meeting Gudo, demands to be made a Wrath just like the Ghost Princess. Gudo reveals that the Ghost Princess was simply Goran, and that she herself was never a Wrath, and instead was just a desperate girl seeking revenge on those who wronged her. We then rewind back to Goran's time as we see her slaughter all of Flower City's prisoners, including the defected general, as well as all of her beraters. Desperate, Goran begs Gudo to take her back to the moment of her father's death, Gudo relents, but agrees.

The defected general is proven right, as Goran watches her father commit suicide with the general's dagger. The general tries to plead with him for Goran's sake, but is told to take Goran far away from Flower City. It is also revealed that Goran's mother died in childbirth, and that the King had often blamed Flower City for being cursed, and that neither of her parents deaths were her fault. Having been given closure, Goran's Seed of Evil is plucked and destroyed. However, Flower City has already fallen, and despite her attempts to find her Uncle, who is already dead, to save the City, she succumbs to a fatal amount of wasp stings and dies in the forest.

Seeing that Keung is still not convinced that becoming a Wrath is not a good idea, Gudo turns his attention to the nearby "Ghost Hand", and explains that, 300 years ago, the "Ghost Hand" was a Wrath, who, just like Keung, wanted to save his people. Instead, he ended up slaughtering them all. Keung initially sees this as justified revenge, until the Wrath eats the daughter the person was trying to protect in the first place. This nearly causes Keung to falter long enough for Gudo to pluck his Seed of Evil, but as Keung tells himself that he'll recognise his daughter, the Seed closes again, much to Gudo's worry.

Eventually, Dark Sky jumps in to seemingly kill Keung, as his Seed similarly begins to spike. However, it is revealed that he was actually aiming at the Wrath behind the duo instead, which bears the face of Duan, much to Keung's horror. Duan attacks the trio, injuring Gudo. The stress of the incident nearly causes Keung's Seed to turn him into a Wrath as well.

As Dark Sky fights Duan, he demands Gudo leave Keung alone and come help him, otherwise both the human realm and Another World are done for. Gudo relents, but agrees, using his history-seeing powers on Duan, with a little help from Dark Sky. It is revealed that Duan became a Wrath because, while chasing after Keung, and escaping some wild wolves, he got his daughter, as well as both Keung's daughter and wife, killed on a collapsing bridge. His Seed considers this the wolves' fault as he immediately turns into a Wrath that resembles a praying mantis, and brutally savages the nearby wolf pack. As Duan snaps out of Gudo's powers, Dark Sky takes the opening to chop off Duan's horns, which is the only way a Wrath can be killed. Seeing his friend's corpse, and feeling despair over his dead wife and daughter, Keung renounces his Wrath idea, and Gudo plucks his seed before collapsing. The other farmers eventually find Keung, and install him as the leader of a revolution against Nyer and its Leader.

Keung starts the revolution by leading all of the farmers to the village's barn, and demands, with a guard taken as a hostage, that the Leader opens the barn to let the farmers have the grain they rightfully harvested. The Leader initially orders for his men to fire their bows at will, but Keung suddenly cuts his arm off and leverages that every farmer will do the same, thus leaving them unable to farm at all, unless the barn is opened, which would effectively doom all of Wheat Village to die of starvation. Seemingly faced with no other option, the Leader tells his men to open the barn. This, unfortunately, turns out to be a trap, as the shelves above the grain are lined with more soldiers. Every farmer in Wheat Village is then immediately and mercilessly slaughtered. As Keung dies, he sees that one of his fellow farmers has turned into a Wrath, and has begun to kill the Leader's guards.

As Gudo heals in Another World, Dark Sky realises that all of the people from Keung's failed rebellion have made so many ropes from their reincarnations, that it has now bound the Goddess to the bottom of the realm. As Dark Sky tries to sever the ropes to no avail, the Goddess relents that the ropes can only be undone once Gudo's knot is undone. Dark Sky takes to mean that Gudo, despite not being human, has an unresolved resentment, or knot, of his own. Gudo decides to tell Dark Sky about his pact.

Back in the past, after Yuri sees her corpse, Gudo laments to her that she has been dead the whole time, and is awaiting reincarnation. Saddened, but resolved, Yuri allows Gudo to take her back to the past so she can find out what happened to Kenji. It is revealed that, after a landslide ravaged their village, the town had fallen into an immense famine due to the ruined crops, and the fact that the land was now unsuitable to grow anything in. Kenji succumbs to the famine in his mother's arms, much to her dismay. Kenji's grandparents then suggest the idea of cooking him into a stew so that they don't suffer the same fate. Yuri's mother reluctantly agrees. As Kenji corpse is cooking, past-Yuri returns home and is fed the stew that the present-Yuri, who is watching the events, realises with abject horror that not only had she committed cannibalism, but she had also unknowingly eaten her own brother. Yuri then snaps out of the memory, as she pukes blood from the revelation, before immediately beginning to turn into a Wrath just from the knowledge of her actions alone. Gudo is able to stop the process after one horn has sprouted, after pleading with Yuri to snap out of it. However, the Goddess appears and demands that Yuri be turned into dust so that her Wrath form cannot harm Another World. Desperate to save Yuri from becoming a Wrath, Gudo betrays the Goddess, and runs away with Yuri deep into the forest.

After a while, they come across a bush, which they decide to hide in. Once the coast is clear, Yuri breaks down about her actions, as Gudo tries to comfort her. Once Yuri calms down, the world outside the bush has turned into a vast lake covered by the leaves of the bush, much to Yuri's amazement. Gudo uses the lake to summon Mother Nature, and ask her about the creation of the Seeds of Evil. Mother Nature reveals that the Seeds were made by humanity deciding what actions were considered good, and which were considered evil. She also tells Gudo that Yuri will have to reincarnate for a millennia before she can reincarnate into a form that doesn't have a Seed from birth. The Goddess, supporting Mother Nature's words, suddenly appears and asks Gudo if he thinks he can watch over Yuri's reincarnations for a thousand years. Witnessing Gudo's determination, Yuri also renounces her Seed of Evil, and demands to be allowed to reincarnate. This allows for Yuri's Seed to be plucked, something the Goddess claims is the first of many. As she does so, Yuri's horn disappears. The Goddess tells Yuri that the only way to save Kenji is to forget him. Yuri immediately panics, but is told by Gudo that to reincarnate, she has to leave all of her memories in Another World. Saddened, but determined, Yuri relents, and the two head to the waterfall so Yuri can pass under it. Before she does so, she demands Gudo give her a way to remember him by for the next thousand years. Gudo decides to draw a loop on his stomach, just like Yuri did. Yuri finally allows herself to reincarnate, as Gudo witnesses a bunch of Yuri's reincarnations, including Goran and Keung, all centralizing on one little girl, before he is whisked out of the waterfall.

It is revealed that Yuri's last reincarnation, Ying, is a little orphaned girl, who is a child labourer in the industrial revolution. Ying has an older sister named Nana, who often sticks up for her, and the younger orphans, including Hardly, a little boy who Ying feels a strange connection to. Gudo and Dark Sky arrive in a nearby factory to observe Ying, but Gudo starts to grow weak from his constant ventures into the human realm. After Gudo smells a Wrath, the two go to investigate, realising the smell is coming from Ying's factory, which confuses Dark Sky, as no Wrath appears to be in sight.

In the factory, another orphan named Mark begins to bully Ying over her cards not meeting the standard and breaking the factory's looms, which has been leading to their meal tickets being cut. Nana tries to stand up for Ying, but Mark is having none of it, and blames Nana too, as he begins to beat her up. Hardly stands up for the both of them, and gets beaten up as well. This causes Ying's Seed to begin to sprout. The barrier near them ends up snapping from the impact as Nana is thrown against it, leaving her to hang on for dear life. Hardly tries to save her, followed by Ying, but she falls onto a flywheel. Despite the workers, and Ying's, best efforts, Nana falls into the flywheel's gears, and is torn to shreds. The brutal death of her sister, and feeling at fault for it happening, causes Ying to turn into a Wrath on the spot.

Gudo and Dark Sky arrive just after this. Gudo, seeing that Ying is aiming for Hardly, attempts to stand in her way, and use his history-seeing power to show Ying her past incarnations, including calling her Yuri, and reminding her about Kenji, which appears to break her out of it for a few seconds before the Wrath takes back over, and Gudo is effortlessly thrown aside by a tentacle, while another one breaks one of Dark Sky's katanas. Dark Sky relents that, while he knows Gudo wants to save Yuri through Ying, that the Wrath in front of them is neither, and has to die. Gudo rejects the idea and decides to try and catch up with Yuri, to make her remember and to pluck her final Seed.

After a fierce battle in the sky, Dark Sky is effortlessly defeated by Yuri's Wrath, and is almost killed, but not before he deals enough damage to allow Gudo to try and get through to Yuri. Her Wrath's bones begin to close in just as Gudo reaches for her, leading them to stab through him, causing immense pain. Despite this, and the wounds growing fatally larger, Gudo continues to reach for her, eventually doing so, allowing him to enter Yuri's soul.

In it, Yuri takes the form of Ying, and laments to Gudo that she is not worth the thousand year's sacrifice that Gudo had made, especially as she remembers eating Kenji, and subsequentially causing numbers of people to die because of her in her future incarnations, including Kenji, Goran's parents, the whole of Flower City, and all of Keung's fellow farmers, Keung's family and finally, Nana. Gudo is able to finally get through to Yuri by proving that, through Ying, she managed to stop Hardly from falling onto the flywheel with Nana. Yuri realises with shock that Hardly is the reincarnation of Kenji. Filled with sorrow and relief for finally not only being able to see her brother again, but also saving him, Yuri finally allows her final Seed to be plucked, finishing their pact. As Yuri tiredly tells Hardly that she's happy she saw Kenji after a thousand years, she dies as Gudo begins to succumb to his wounds.

As she appears in Another World, Dark Sky chases up to her, and whisks her away to the Goddess, where she and a dying Gudo await. Gudo laments that he cannot return to the human realm, nor can he stay in Another World, due to his injuries. He begins to allow himself to collapse into dust, despite Yuri's worries, before the Goddess reveals that he could also reincarnate himself now that his resentment has been resolved. Gudo elects to do so, and Yuri looks over him as he becomes a baby in Ying's city.

Inspired by US psychiatrist Brian Weiss's book Many Lives, Many Masters: The True Story of a Prominent Psychiatrist, His Young Patient, and the Past-Life Therapy That Changed Both Their Lives, Screenwriter Polly Yeung started to explore themes of reincarnation and letting go of obsessions, which is prominent in the film^[5]. Director Tommy Kai Chung Ng drew inspiration from Tibetan "Skull Dance" rituals for the ghost character design, blending Buddhist "impermanence" philosophy to create an East Asian-influenced fantastical world^[6]. The film is inspired by Japanese author Naka Saijō's novel Thousand Year Ghost, which involves the main protagonist collecting "demon buds" and explores themes of purity, obsession, and sin. The concept revolves around spirits entering the "Beyond" after death, where they must relinquish worldly attachments to pass through a waterfall and reincarnate, or else risk transforming into monsters made from hatred^[7] In a 2026 interview, Yeung mentioned that she decided to work with Ng after watching his 2017 project Zombieology: Enjoy Yourself Tonight, during her search for an animator suitable for the project^[8].

The 14-minute short film, completed in 2019, received the Hong Kong ifva Animation Award. The film employed a "digital picture book" style (hand-drawn watercolor backgrounds scanned, then animated with a 3D skeletal system), laying the visual foundation for the feature^[6]. Funded through the "Animation Support Scheme" under "Create Hong Kong," it won awards in 14 countries and regions, including the 21st Japan TBS Digicon6 ASIA Hong Kong Award, the Asia Grand Prize, Best Animation Short at the New York Horizons program, the Special Jury Award at the 8th China Independent Animation Film Forum, and the Montreal Animaze Festival Grand Prize^[9]. The short focuses on the protagonists' first encounter and farewell, setting the stage for the full-length story^[10]. In addition to voice work by Kay Tse and Rosa Maria Velasco, the ending theme song "Thinking" was performed by Linda Chau.

The full-length version received HKD 5.6 million in funding from the Film Development Fund's "Film Production Financing Scheme" in 2020^[11], while receiving international co-production funding from the Philippine Film Commission in 2022^[10]. During production, the producers actively reached out and secured support from investors in Saudi Arabia, marking the first animation project investment by Middle Eastern company Animekey, which believed the story about Eastern reincarnation would be popular in the Middle East^[12]. The film also received funding support from Hong Kong's Full Colour Limited, China's TMZ Media, and Japan's Digital Hollywood University^[13]. The production team took seven years to complete the film. Director Tommy Kai Chung Ng stated that the full film was a "rebuilding" process, expanding the story while maintaining the core ideas of Thousand Year Ghost and incorporating Hong Kong perspectives^[14]. During a Varsity interview, Yeung pointed out that the process of advancing from a short film into a large-scale project, led the team to create work of high quality while working under tight schedules and high pressure, due to their lack of experience, while comparing their stumbling naivete to the fully matured Japanese animation industry^[8].

The film was showcased as a "Work-in-progress" at Annecy 2024, revealing unreleased content and the seven-year production journey, gaining international recognition^[10]. Visually, the film maintains the "digital picture book" aesthetic of the short, combining hand-painted watercolor with 3D techniques to present a unique East Asian style^[9]. Furthermore, in 2025, the Hong Kong Digital Entertainment Association established a "Hong Kong Pavilion" at Annecy to promote Hong Kong animation works like Another World and help expand their international market^[15]

The film premiered globally on June 11–13, in the "Midnight Special" section of 2025's Annecy..^[4][18]. Distribution rights are held by Edko Films in Hong Kong and Acau, while the North American rights are acquired by GKIDS. The film's international premiere was at 2025's Annecy, with subsequent release in Hong Kong and Macau on October 29, 2025^[7]. It was selected as the opening film of the 22nd Hong Kong Asian Film Festival, before premiering in Hong Kong on October 22, 2025. Originally scheduled for November 1, 2025, it was moved forward to October 29 due to popular demand, with special preview screenings available on October 25 and 26^[19]. Besides Hong Kong and North America, plans for releases are included in Japan, Taiwan, France, Middle East, while negotiations are ongoing for mainland China^[12]

Another World has surged past $1.8 million (HKD$14 million) at the local box office after six weeks on release since its opening on October 29^[20]. As of December 26 2025, it had grossed $15 million in HKD^[3].

The film received positive reactions from critics. Cath Clarke of The Guardian awarded the film three point five stars out of four, calling the film as "the wonder of Studio Ghibli meets the gruesomeness of Game of Thrones and the dark fury of a Greek tragedy", while calling the animation "striking and deeply strange"^[21]. Ashlyn Chak of South China Morning Post called the film as "not a family-friendly viewing experience", instead as "the type of animated film that showcases the ugly side of humanity with gore and psychological horror"^[22]. Another South China Morning Post columnist, Edmund Lee, awarded the film four stars out of five and claimed the animation as "a morally complex film that repeatedly challenges its characters with circumstances of extreme evil" at its heart^[23]. He subsequently listed the film as the second-best Hong Kong film released in 2025^[24].

It was listed as one of the best movies to watch in 2025 Hong Kong Asian Film Festival by South China Morning Post^[25]

• Short film (2019)
  • 21st Japan TBS Digicon6 ASIA Hong Kong Award & Asia Grand Prize^[9]
  • Best Animation Short, Horizons NYC^[9]
  • Gold Award, 25th IFVA Animation Category^[6]
  • Special Jury Prize, 8th China Independent Animation Film Forum^[9]
  • Grand Prize, Montreal Animaze Festival^[9]
• Feature film (2025)
  • Selected for 2024 Annecy International Animation Film Festival "Work-in-progress"^[10]
  • In the "Midnight Special" section at Annecy 2025^[4]

• Another World Short Film at Douban (in Chinese)
• Another World Full-Length at Douban (in Chinese)
• Another World at IMDb