Leafie, A Hen Into the Wild

Leafie, A Hen into the Wild (Korean: 마당을 나온 암탉) is a 2011 South Korean animated drama film directed by Oh Sung-yoon and based on the novel The Hen Who Dreamed She Could Fly by Hwang Sun-mi. The story depicts the freedom, will and instinctive motherly love of a hen as she raises an adopted duckling. The film made box office history by drawing over 2.2 million viewers, the largest audience for a home-grown animated film in South Korea, which was furthered when the film was released in English speaking territories. It also received widespread critical acclaim upon release.

An English-language version of the film was released on September 7, 2012, releasing to 1,053 theatres across the U.S., the widest opening for a South Korean animated film across the U.S. It was produced by LIVE Entertainment and The Kennedy/Marshall Company and released by Warner Bros. Pictures.

Plot
Leafie lives on a chicken farm with many other egg-laying hens that are in battery cages. She dreams of being a mother, however she can't incubate her own eggs. Dreaming of having her own young, she devises an escape plan; she faints, causing the farmer to think her dead and to take her from the cage to dump with other dead hens. After the farmer leaves, Leafie slowly wakes up, but then she hears someone warning her to wake up and she finds herself confronted and threatened by a one-eyed weasel known as One-Eye. Her life is saved through the intervention of Wanderer who saves her by trapping the weasel in the farmer's wheelbarrow but then leaves without a word, not even giving Leafie his name when she asks.

Leafie returns to the Farm to join the group of farm animals who reside outside the egg farm in the yard, but the animals there aren't fond of her and she gets into an argument with the barnyard rooster who refuses to allow her into his flock, insisting that her place is to simply spend her life laying eggs.

With nowhere else to go, Leafie leaves the Farm and arrives in the wild, where she meets Mr. Otter, who has heard about Leafie and helps her find a place to live on Wanderer's behalf. The now wild hen meets Wanderer again, and discovers he has a mate. However, that very night, One-Eye attacks and Wanderer's mate tragically dies.

After hearing the commotion, Leafie enters the nest and finds a single egg. Wanderer decides to let Leafie look after the egg for a few days, meaning to exact revenge on One-Eye and ensure their protection. Wanderer instructs Leafie to take his unborn child to the everglades, telling her she will understand why in time before he leaves her to find the weasel. That night One-Eye returns, and Wanderer engages her in a fight to the death. Leafie witnesses the battle and Wanderer is killed by One-Eye, leaving Leafie completely heartbroken.

After Wanderer's death, the egg hatches into a duckling that imprints on Leafie, thinking that the hen is his mother. Leafie tearfully accepts him as her son and names him Greenie, and together they head to the glade where Wanderer asked.

Leafie raises Greenie and watches him grow up. Mr. Otter teaches Greenie to swim, and later enlists the help from a local bat and an owl to help a then-teenaged Greenie learn how to fly. One day, however, Greenie tries befriending some mandarin ducks who he meets, but they make fun of Leafie, who they think is crazy. Meanwhile, Leafie is saddened to learn the local water birds don't like or accept her in their community when Mr. Otter accidentally blurts it out to her. She then meets up with Greenie, who has been teased by the other ducks and blames Leafie for him being an outcast. After discovering that they are indeed both different, Greenie leaves Leafie, feeling that he doesn't need her anymore.

Hearing about this, Mr. Otter attempts to comfort her by telling her about Wanderer - him having been the guard duck of his flock and of how he crippled his wing while fighting One-Eye, who lost one of her eyes in the struggle, and of how Wanderer was subsequently imprisoned by the farmer although he managed to escape. Meanwhile, Greenie meets the barnyard's four white ducks who introduce him to the farm, but after coming across the place he is captured by the Farmer, who intends on clipping his wings, however, Chirpie, a sparrow who is friends with Leafie, sees this and goes to warn Leafie about what's happening.

To distract the farmer, Leafie, with the help of Mr. Otter, releases all of the hens and manages to get them out of their cages after Mr. Otter scares them all. Leafie reunites with Greenie and Mr. Otter frees him by biting off the string that held him down, however, Rooster stops them and calls Leafie a disgrace to chickens everywhere, and in a short scuffle, all of the animals discover Rooster's comb is fake and one of the ducks assumes his place as the one in charge. Leafie escapes the farm with Greenie and Mr. Otter, and both Leafie and Greenie reconcile after Mr. Otter departs. The two are suddenly confronted by One-Eye, who then hunts down Greenie to eat him. Despite Leafie's intervention, the weasel managed to pin Greenie down on an old tree, which breaks off and sends the two plummeting over a cliff. Believing Greenie to be dead, Leafie mourns, but Greenie escaped certain death by successfully learning how to fly while One-Eye managed to save herself by grabbing hold of a ledge on the cliff.

A flock of ducks soon come during the autumn season, and Leafie realizes what Wanderer meant when he instructed her to take his egg to the everglades. An adult Greenie goes to meet the flock and learns about an upcoming contest to decide who will be the new guard duck of the flock. The ducks flee from Greenie after seeing the human string that was still wrapped around his leg from his past encounter with the farmer. Leafie gives Greenie her support and reassures him to participate in the contest after taking a portion of the human string from his leg just in time. Greenie returns to the flock and announced that he wants to be in the contest as well, quickly forming a rivalry with another duck named Red Head.

During the race, Greenie recalls the words of his mentors, and successfully wins the contest, becoming the new guard duck of the flock. After the competition, Leafie finds a nest of baby weasels which she begins to take care of. While Rooster is finding a home with Mr. Otter after escaping from the farm, Greenie tries to find Leafie to say his goodbyes but comes across One-Eye once again and saves a female duck from the hungry carnivore. Their brief scuffle lands them in front of Leafie and the nest of baby weasels, and One-Eye pins down Greenie, preparing to kill him. Leafie attempts to help Greenie, but One-Eye threatens her to not come near. During the confrontation, the baby weasels Leafie had been caring for are revealed to be One-Eye's offspring. This makes Leafie realize that the weasel who killed Wanderer and his mate, was just killing to provide food for her kits. After agreeing to not harm the weasel kits in exchange for letting Greenie go, Leafie and Greenie were allowed to escape. Before they leave, Leafie sees how One-Eye, who is malnourished due to the rough winter season, is unable to produce milk to feed her offspring.

The flock of ducks prepare to leave the everglades, and Leafie and Greenie say their heartfelt goodbyes to one another before Greenie departs with his flock, now able to set out and see the world. Leafie then wonders why she never thought about learning to fly before One-Eye finds her. Knowing that One-Eye will have to find food for the winter and that Greenie can now take care of himself, Leafie decides to let One-Eye kill her so she can feed her offspring. Upon realizing this, One-Eye tearfully kills Leafie and it is implied that she is able to fly in spirit, watching as Greenie flies with his flock.

Production
Director Oh Sung-yoon struggled for more than twenty years as an animator under adverse economic circumstances before finally debuting with this feature film. Originally titled YIPSAK - A Chicken Wild, the movie took Myung Films six years (three years for pre-production including scriptwriting, and one and a half year for storyboard) and ₩3 billion (US$2.8 million) to produce.

Shim Jae-myung (also known as Jaime Shim), the head of Myung Films, which co-produced Leafie in conjunction with the local animation studio Odolttogi, said that it was her experience with major motion pictures that made her want to produce animated films that could compete with those from Hollywood and Japan. "And as a woman and mother, the plot touched my heart," she said. "Many people were doubtful about whether the film would be a success, but I believed in the power of the novel."

When asked what they did to distinguish their film from films by the world's major studios, director Oh said he and the crew focused on making the visual effects as beautiful as possible. "Most of my staff and I majored in painting, and we chose to make the film two-dimensional, so that the entire product looks like a beautiful picture," Oh said. Though the sharply drawn foreground characters have an international look, the gentler backgrounds seem typically Korean in their use of landscape and flora (with the Upo wetlands in the south of the country inspiring the everglades in which much of the action takes place). "In addition to that, we have many quality animators on staff who draw for Pixar and Disney in Korea." Disney, Pixar and DreamWorks often hire small- and medium-sized Korean animation studios to work on their illustrations.

South Korea
The film was released in South Korea by Lotte Entertainment on July 28, 2011. Historically South Korean animated features have struggled to draw viewers. This prolonged slump is evidenced by My Beautiful Girl, Mari (2001), Wonderful Days (2003), Oseam (2003), Aachi & Ssipak (2005), and Yobi, the Five Tailed Fox (2006) which all performed dismally at the box office. No domestic animated film had ever achieved 1 million viewers.

Undaunted by the knowingly discouraging prognoses from industry insiders, Leafie went on to rake in more than 2.2 million tickets, while recouping its production budget in just four weeks. It has become South Korea's most successful animated film since the country's first feature-length cartoon, A Story of Hong Gildong (1967).

International
Leafie, A Hen Into the Wild was released in the U.S. and Canada on September 7, 2012, by Warner Bros. Pictures, LIVE Entertainment and The Kennedy/Marshall Company, opening at a wide release of 1,053 theaters, which is by far the widest release of any South Korean animated film ever in the U.S.

The film's English dub was directed by Garrett Fredrickson, Jack Fletcher and Sunmin Park, and produced by Frank Marshall, Oh Sung-yoon, Jack Fletcher, and J. Ethan Park; The English script was written by David Freedman.

The English version was partly edited from the South Korean version, with Oh Sung-yoon's approval. Namely the scenes with toilet humor were removed, and some additional music by British composer Mark Thomas was added into the score.

Warner Home Video released the film on DVD and Blu-Ray on March 5, 2013, with the English and South Korean audio tracks included.

Leafie also sold to German-speaking territories via Ascot Elit and Brazil's Conquest Filmes. It has so far secured deals for 46 countries around Asia, Europe and the Middle East after going on sale at Busan's Asian Film Market, Cannes's MIPCOM and Rome's Business Street.

It became the first Korean animated film to play at Chinese theaters, opening at 3,000 screens, which is over one-third of the country's total. Clearly elated at the film's warm reception by the Chinese media, director Oh said he hoped this breaks new ground as investors traditionally judge projects based on their appeal to viewers in English-speaking countries. "It's time to change the standard," he said. "In the future, I'll focus more on the cultural values of the animation rather than giving too much emphasis to the business aspect."

Box office
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Critical reception
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