Given total creative freedom by Adidas, Chow chose to create a stop-motion animation film noir that explores the dark underbelly of homicidal wildlife. “It is my version of a piñata,” he said. “Destruction equals celebration.” The aesthetic embraces the bold black-and-white graphics reminiscent of 1960s London fashion designer Mary Quant, with elements like stripes, polka dots and hounds tooth. Chow’s love of the Beatles and psychedelic ’60s music also influenced the mackerel’s Beatles-inspired wardrobe.

“I grew up in a historical part of Hong Kong with old wooden buildings with lots of trees and bushes. The Chinese are superstitious about banana trees harboring fox spirits, which are very scary. Spirits get into your body and make you do crazy stuff. Bad behavior is usually blamed on spirits, not necessarily alcoholic! Even though I was terrified of ghosts and spirits, I was intrigued by them and watched plenty of horror films, which did not make nighttime walks through my neighborhood easy ones. I always thought ghosts would come at me from the woods and bite my ass! So now as an adult, for a long time, I have wanted to do a dark theme, but in a funny way. Sort of like Casper or Ghostbusters, but no quite so light.”

“Dark, dripping and dramatic.”
“Kind of sick—but we liked it.”
“Really hit their internet-savvy demographic.”