Ni Hao Kai-Lan - Celebrate With Kai-Lan (Fullscreen)

Ni Hao Kai-Lan - Celebrate With Kai-Lan (Fullscreen)
by Allan Jacobsen

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DVD details

Actor: Angie Wu, Clem Cheung, Jack Samson, Jade-Lianna Peters, Khamani Griffin
Director: Allan Jacobsen
Brand: NIC
Editor: Philip Malamuth
Writer: Karen Chau
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Full Screen, NTSC
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 30 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2009-01-06
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: Nickelodeon

DVD Reviews of Ni Hao Kai-Lan - Celebrate With Kai-Lan (Fullscreen)

DVD Review: grandson loves this
Summary: 5 Stars

I recieved this DVD from the seller quickly. My grandson is mesmerized by Kai-Lan.
Nancy

DVD Review: One of our new favorites!
Summary: 5 Stars

My 4 and 6 year old love Kai Lan and her friends. They are always happy and learning to deal with feelings. Basic Chineese vocabulary is an added bonus! Also appropriate for younger ages.

DVD Review: mediocre, upset my son!
Summary: 2 Stars

We bought this DVD because we're Chinese American and wanted a product that would introduce our son to Chinese culture and language. We had been very satisfied with the Dora and Diego series and what it did for Latino/Hispanic culture. We were very disappointed. Evidently Nickelodeon used up most of it's talent and resources for it's money maker Dora the Explorer and Kai Lan seems like an afterthought.

Our biggest gripe is that each episode involves one of Kai Lan's friend's exhibiting some poor personal characteristic (selfishness, anger, etc) and upsetting their set of friends and generally disrupting whatever fun task they have that day (going to the beach, etc). The rest of the episode is then spent rectifying this problem and "teaching" everyone what attitudes are proper. In theory this is fine for older children who understand the concept that the show is imaginary and can distance themselves from the show. For younger children (like my son) it may be upsetting to see one of the central characters being angry, sad/crying or acting out (grabbing toys from other children, throwing tantrums). In one episode a character spends most of the episode depressed and feeling left out, my son actually cried. The happy ending was too little too late to make him feel better.

What we wanted was something fun and educational focusing on Chinese culture, not lessons in behavior and morality taught by intense emotional scenes and demonstrations of poor behavior. Older kids may be able to grasp and benefit the lessons and see it only at a show but the paradox is that this age child would probably not enjoy the show. I think the plot and "acting" of the episodes are too intense and abstract for the children Nickelodeon is targeting. As an adult I found the characters and their troubles actually very annoying. Others on this site have echoed this main complaint of mine, so rest assured it's not just me.

Additional brief complaints: the songs are not catchy and light years behind the music in the Dora and Diego episodes. The Chinese is also minimal (taking a back seat to each episode's morality lesson) and I would have liked it to be more of a focus.

On the positive side (what saved it from being just one star): In all fairness though you buy these DVD's to watch with your kids and provide a starting point for conversations and not to use it as a sole teaching method. So it would be a nice way to facilitate lessons in Chinese with your children and a good starting point. The pronunciation is correct and the portrayal of Kai Lan and her Chinese culture and ethnicity is great and authentic. The characters are cute and initially captivating, if it wasn't for their annoying behaviors my kid probably would probably love them.

The bottom line is that my Chinese-American son remembers more of his Spanish-centered Diego episodes (characters, plots, songs, etc) and has more fun watching these than theses videos about his own culture and about a language he hears everyday from his grandparents. It's a shame.

DVD Review: Ni hiao Kailan
Summary: 1 Stars

I ordered this product to assist my children in learning basic chinese, however, as we live in Australia the product could not be played due to a mismatching regional code. We are very disappointed that we cannot use the purchase!!!

DVD Review: Nice show but kids might mimic some bad behavior
Summary: 3 Stars

My kids (twin boys 5yo and girl 3yo) and I do like this show, and I like the fact that the star is a Chinese girl. My daughter loves Kai-Lan, and I'm glad Kai-Lan is a good role model.

However, I did write a review of the first Ni Hao Kai-Lan DVD, Super Special Days, and rated it 2 stars only because of the bad behavior my kids picked up from watching the show. Because some the shows teach a lesson about behavior, they have to show bad behavior before showing the good/proper behavior. Unfortunately for me, my kids mimic the bad behavior.

This bad behavior continued in the 2nd DVD. For example, in "Celebrate with Kai-Lan" during the Happy Chinese New Year! episode, the characters get under a dragon costume to perform a dragon dance. Rintoo is not happy about being in the middle feeling that it was not an important position and keeps repeating "I don't want to be in the middle" and eventually storms off (like a spoiled brat) leaving his friends behind. He eventually learns he's an integral part of the team and does participate. However, now my kids never want to be in the middle and they say, "I don't want to be in the middle."....they are mimicking Rintoo's bad behavior! It's been a few months since they watched this show, but my daughter often tells us during dinner that she doesn't want to be in the middle! Although this episode has great educational value, my kids only remember Rintoo's not wanting to be in the middle. It's really a pain to deal with my kids acting this way. Although my kids are usually well behaved, they are picking up the negative stuff from this show. It's might only be my kids, but I wanted other parents to know.

I hope the producers of Ni Hao Kai-Lan change the attitude of Rintoo from a spoiled, short-tempered tiger into something less confrontational and more wholesome. Children are extremely impressionable and learn good and bad behavior. I'd rather my kids only learn good behavior, so I have to screen the shows and remind the kids not to act the bad way Rintoo does.

I will probably continue to buy the DVDs from this series because of the good educational value, but I will be screening the episodes so I can be prepared to tell my kids how not to act and to emphasize the proper behavior of the characters.

Description of Ni Hao Kai-Lan - Celebrate With Kai-Lan (Fullscreen)

It's Chinese New Year, which means a big feast, red envelopes, and friends and family all together! Kai-lan and her friends are thrilled because this year, they are old enough to carry the huge dragon costume. It's going to take a whole team of friends to carry it for the celebration, and Rintoo is assigned to march in the middle of the dragon. But Rintoo doesn't think the middle is important, and walks away. Can you help Kai Lan show Rintoo his actions are affecting his friends? Find out in the main episode of this DVD plus three additional episodes for a total approximate runtime of 100 minutes.

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