Ryu Aoba: The Movie

Ryu Aoba: The Movie, known in Europe as simply Ryu Aoba, and in the US and Canada as The Ryu Aoba Movie, is a 2019 Malichkan computer-animated science fiction family comedy film directed by Marko Dugandžić and featuring his son, Malichkan singer Stanford Bačovnik-Dugandžić, as his fictional on-stage character Ryu Aoba. The film grossed 120 million Malichka dollars nationally.

Plot
Ryu is a master of weaponry and a pro assassin living in near-future Tokyo who goes bot-fighting for a living. He has since lost an eye to a gunfight (hence his trademark cybernetic eye). His girlfriend, Mayuko, sells lab-grown hybrid flowers for a living as well. Thirteen years later and they have a baby boy which they name Yoshio early into the film's runtime. Yoshio eventually grows up into a child prodigy, becoming skilled in all fields of technology and science, and dreams of becoming an artificial intelligence specialist.

On the night of December 10th, 2031, Mayuko's ex-boyfriend, Ken, is murdered by a notorious street gang. As Mayuko tries to intervene, she almost gets shot, but Ryu protects her from getting killed and kills two gang members with his laser beam. The police arrive and escort the Aoba family to the police station, where Ryu describes, through his cybernetic vision, the description of Ken's murderers.

At Ken's house, they find strange marks and a book with a strange alien-like symbol on the front, but are found by the street gang. As the leader commands his comrades to come after them, Ryu flees with Mayuko and Yoshio in the family car (somewhat like a Bugatti Veyron) and drives around the streets of Neo Tokyo, avoiding everyone that comes in its way (including Margrethe Tormann, who appears in a cameo). Ryu lures the gang members' cars into the Mitsuba Bay, drowning them.

Ryu finds the gang leader to be Yoshio's science teacher Shinji, and the alien symbol to be the logo of the street gang. Mayuko assumes that Shinji's death in an explosion at the science fair and the emergence of the street gang are linked. Yoshio suddenly has flashbacks of Shinji and tells them it really was him who is the gang leader, and is calling himself "Lord Aobozu" after the Japanese boogeyman creature aobozu.

To make matters worse, Ryu realizes that Ken is a close friend of his mother, Sora, the CEO of the robotics company RoboRyze, which is being threatened by Shinji as revenge for apparently murdering his entire family in a bungled teleportation experiment, and that Shinji's next target is the company chairman Yukari, who was also Yoshio's mathematics teacher. Realizing this, they infiltrate a RoboRyze trade show, and find him sabotaging the event and confronting Sora before threatening to murder her.

Ryu attempts to stop Shinji from killing Sora and her accomplice, Yoshio's mathematics teacher Yukari, through throwing her into one of the portals. However, he backs out and leads to an epic battle, with Ryu gaining the upper hand, and rescues Shinji's family from the portal, leaving behind Yoshio and Mayuko. Ryu returns from the portal carrying the bodies of Shinji's family, who wake up as if from a dream. He tearfully reunites with the rest of his family while Ryu watches on in satisfaction.

A year later, Mayuko gives birth to a baby girl named Mariko, and Shinji disbands the street gang and returns to his history of teaching. At school, Shinji asks anyone if they did anything over the winter break. Only Yoshio stands up and tells him that they had an adventure where he and his family were the heroes and Shinji was the villain. The latter smiles at Yoshio and forgives him, telling him he was just mad at his grandmother.

Voice cast

 * Ryu Aoba as himself
 * Denise Fiander as Mayuko Aoba
 * Quinn Davis as Yoshio Aoba
 * Marija Kocijančič as Sora Aoba
 * Ben Tran as Shinji Arima
 * Theresa Hendren as Yukari Shibuya
 * Leroy Tay as Ken

Production
The film's animation was made with Disney's Hyperion technology by RTVM's animation division. The film has a near-similar plot to the 2014 Disney film Big Hero 6, as well as the background of the movie's villain, Shinji.

Premiere
The film's world premiere was on May 19th, 2019, at the RTVM Theater in Dvoreki's arts and cultural district (25 Decembra). Present at the world premiere were Stanford, his father Marko (who directed the film), and mother Margrethe, Duchess of Devetzmajev (who wrote the film's story).