To say that the quality of Yobi, the Five-Tailed Fox is mixed would be a bit of an understatement. On the one hand, Yobi is fleshed out enough as such where she is rather likeable as a character when she comes to learn more of the humans she stays with, understand them and bond with Geum-ee. Her bonding with him and the other humans is genuine and the movie devotes enough focus on this development to make it engaging and relatable to audiences.
On the other hand though, the movie gets into the bad habit of trying to cram in too many plot threads and attempts at symbolism into its 85-minute run. The introductions of the mysterious shadow and the fox hunter created unnecessary attempts at conflict within the movie with villainous characters that could have just as easily not been implemented into the film. Also, the movie's attempts at implanting symbolism involving American Indian and Eastern mythical and religious influences comes across as rather heavy-handed, usually don't lead anywhere and often get lost in the convoluted story developments that take place with Yobi's development and the mentioned villainous conflicts she gets into. Also, I have to feel a bit befuddled over why this movie has aliens in it when a good chunk of its storytelling and symbolism is influenced through Eastern folklore.
Overall, I would say my reception to this is a bit mixed. While I did enjoy the focus on Yobi's bonding with the humans at the school she sneaks into, the movie seemed to lose track of what type of story it wanted to tell with its addition of aliens, villainous characters and folklore symbolism that could have just as easily been left out of this film to focus on Yobi coming to understand humans. It's still worth a look if you want to see more Korean animated films, but it would be hard to get into multiple watches of it.
