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"Ni Hao, Kai-lan" Travels Well for Her "Great Trip to China" DVD
By Ed Liu
07-28-2009, 2:55 AM |
 It's a sign of faith that Nickelodeon was willing to give Ni Hao, Kai-lan a double-length episode at the tail end of its first season. If nothing else, it indicates that Nick believes the pre-schoolers in the target audience will sit still for the added time. The good news is that the title episode of the Kai-lan's Great Trip to China DVD proves to be as good or better than any given episode of the show, easily using the extra length to tell a longer story than the show's regular running time would allow, and also taking advantage of the setting for a lot more lessons on language and culture as compared to any two normal episodes of the show.
If the title doesn't already give it away, in "Kai-lan's Great Trip to China," the energetic girl Kai-lan, her Yeye (grandfather), and her friends Tolee the koala, Rintoo the tiger, and Hoho the monkey all pack up and ship off to China at the invitation of Kai-lan's Gu Nai-nai (grand-aunt, who turns out to have been Mulan in a past life since she is voiced by Ming-na). The true lure of the trip is for Kai-lan and her friends to meet a baby panda, and after the introductions are made, the remainder of the episode is about the gang's quest for appropriate gifts for the baby panda's naming ceremony.
The China shown in the episode has as much in common with the real China as the normal background of the show has in common with Kai-lan's home in the United States: both are simplified, brightly colored, perfectly safe places where animals and people will talk with each other. Gu Nai-nai seems to live an unrealistically large home as well, and everyone in China seems to speak English. However, there are a number of grace notes sprinkled throughout that serve to distinguish the two locales and provide the flavor of China if not its reality, such as the clothing and architecture surrounding them, or the street noodle stand where Kai-lan and her friends sample the local cuisine without any fear of the hepatitis that most tourist guidebooks warn you about. As mentioned, there is a lot more use of the Chinese language in both spoken and written form, and there is quite a bit of Chinese culture on display as well, such as the "tiger shoes" that most babies get as a gift. The changes should be just novel enough to keep fans of the show watching without difficulty for the extra running time.
 Two more regular-length episodes of the show round out the DVD. "Rain or Shine" shows what happens when rain cancels the play plans of Kai-lan and her friends, while "The Ant Playground" is an object lesson on what happens when you don't look at things from other people's perspective. Thankfully, none of the episodes on the disc have the unintended lesson taught by the episodes on the other Kai-lan DVDs, which is that if you throw a bratty temper tantrum long enough and loud enough, eventually all your friends will bend over backwards to find out what's wrong and make you happy. There's nary a temper tantrum to be seen, and the show's socially conscious lessons do not suffer for their absence. Plus, "Rain or Shine" features the Hula Ducks quite prominently, and it's a fact of life that Everything is Better with Hula Ducks.
Ni Hao, Kai-lan's Great Trip to China is a standard Nickelodeon pre-school DVD. The image is in its original full-frame aspect ratio with a stereo soundtrack. Extras are limited to a music video of "We're Going to China," and there are the usual annoyances of no chapter stops within an episode and forced trailers for other Nick pre-school DVDs when the disc is inserted.
Existing fans of the show are sure to enjoy Ni Hao, Kai-lan's Great Trip to China; those that don't like it will still find little reason to change their minds. If nothing else, perhaps Kai-lan's great trip will inspire young minds to learn more about China, or even encourage the more well-heeled families to undertake a great trip of their own. Perhaps Nickelodeon could even expand past resort cruises to the Caribbean with Kai-lan China tours.
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