Rally Road Racers

Rally Road Racers, formerly known as Silk Road Rally, is a 2023 computer-animated sports comedy film directed and written by Ross Venokur. The film stars Jimmy O. Yang, J.K. Simmons, Chloe Bennet, Lisa Lu, Sharon Horgan, Catherine Tate and John Cleese. It follows novice racer Zhi as he tries to save his rural village from villainous real-estate developer Archie Vainglorious. The film is a international co-production between United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom and United States, and is produced by REP Productions 6 Ltd., Kintop Pictures, Riverstone Pictures, Vanguard Animation, Virtuso Productions and Lipsync Post. The film was theatrically released in the United States by Viva Kids on May 12, 2023. Despite having a limited release in theaters, the film received favorable reviews from critics. Plot Zhi is slow loris living with his grandmother in a rural Chinese village in a world of anthropomorphic animals. As a child, his idol is racer Archie Vainglorious, but as a young adult he discovers Vainglorious Industries' plans to demolish Zhi's village and put in cane toad housing. Initially hopeful that he can reach an understanding with Vainglorious, Zhi instead finds him boastful and dismissive. Vainglorious does, however, agree to challenge Zhi in an upcoming rally race for the fate of the village. Gnash, a retired racer, reluctantly agrees to help Zhi train, out of a sense of duty to Zhi's deceased mother. Gnash also provides Zhi with a car and rides with him in it. The race has no rules, and Zhi discovers the deep-pocketed Vainglorious is willing to cheat and play dirty at every opportunity. Zhi also struggles with performance anxiety when he's in the lead, something Gnash struggles to talk him out of.