New animated film “Kubo and the Two Strings” introduces kids to Buddhist concepts

Kubo and the Two Strings, a new animated film that hits theaters today, takes kids on an adventure with strong Buddhist themes.

Sam Littlefair
19 August 2016
Still from Kubo and the Two Strings

Kubo and the Two Strings, a new animated film that hits theaters today, takes kids on an adventure with strong Buddhist themes. The movie starts in a traditionally-Buddhist village in Japan, where the main character, Kubo, attends a Buddhist Obon Festival. Through his adventure, Kubo comes to understand that suffering is a part of life and accept mortality. The director, Travis Knight, says his mother-in-law and her family are Buddhist. About the Buddhism in the film, Knight said,

“That kind of spirituality is not something you typically see in film. I think it spoke to the basic idea about losing something that matters to you, which is a fundamental part of life. You don’t get through life unscathed. Being able to explore those ideas through the prism of fantasy and animation really allows parents and children to experience those things together, in a way they can understand. Sometimes these ideas are difficult to articulate, but in a film, if done in a poetic way, those things can make sense and you can talk about them.”

Sam Littlefair

Sam Littlefair

Sam Littlefair is the former editor of LionsRoar.com. He has also written for The Coast, Mindful, and Atlantic Books Today. Find him on Twitter, @samlfair, and Facebook, @samlfair.