Yi, a young woman with serious cankle problems, is grieving her father – not just his loss, but the music they shared and the adventures they’d planned but never went on. She spends less and less time at home, with her mother and grandma Nai Nai. Which is why her absence doesn’t raise any resounding alarm bells when she disappears suddenly.

Where has Yi (Chloe Bennet) gone?

Excellent question! The answer may surprise you! Unless of course you’ve seen the trailers, or the movie, in which case, the answer will be quite obvious.

A Yeti squats on the roof of her apartment building. He’s hiding out from the collector, Burnish (Eddie Izzard) who found him, and the scientist Dr. Zara (Sarah Paulson) who is determined to get him back. But poor Yeti (who Yi names Everest) just wants to go home – to, well, to Everest. So yeah, Yi sucks at naming pets, but the quest is clear: return Everest from whence he came, escaping bad guys in a series of escalating near-misses.

Along for the ride: next door neighbour and perennial cool guy Jin (Tenzing Norgay Trainor) and his rambunctious little cousin Peng (Albert Tsai).

[And just to satisfy your curiosity and save you a google search: yes, he is the grandson of  THE Tenzing Norgay, first man to reach the summit of Mount Everest alongside Sir Edmund Hillary. Nice reference, Abominable.]

Anyway: cue some effusively pretty animation of Chinese landscapes and countrysides, beautiful rivers and fluttering flowers. In fact, even the city scenes are pretty astonishing what with the attention to detail regarding lights and architecture and even advertising (I see you, McDonalds). And great use of music. It all works together to create something magical, and this movie wasn’t exactly short on magic, what with a yeti who speaks to nature with specific requests, and nature responds in creative yet helpful ways. But the script doesn’t sit back and let the animation do all the talking. There’s a sweet story in here about valuing what’s most important. “Sweet” is often a synonym for simple and perhaps minor, and that may be a fair assessment here. It’s most a movie for kids, with a King Kong reference or two thrown in for the grown-ups. And while it’s not really showing us or telling us anything we haven’t already seen, it is inherently endearing.