In “Kubo and the Two Strings,” a brave, one-eyed Japanese boy is faced with various paths to immortality*: Either he can give his remaining eye to his supernatural* grandfather, the greedy Moon King, in exchange for eternal* life, or he can stand up to the magical old-timer in a manner so brave that his story will become the stuff of legend*.

    Kubo, who hides his eye patch behind long black bangs*, chooses the latter option, of course, which makes perfect sense for the hero of the latest stop-motion film from Laika.

    The film, shot in exquisite stereoscopic* 3-D, is a hero’s journey that combines the lessons of Western mythology with the Eastern tradition of great samurai* tales.

    Armed with a long, square-bodied lute-like instrument called a shamisen* and a stack of origami* paper, Kubo (Art Parkinson) spends his days telling stories in a faraway village. The son of the legendary samurai Hanzo, the boy rocks the shamisen as if it were a surf guitar, which in turn causes the colored origami sheets to swirl around, magically folding themselves in sync with* his stories.

    No stranger to magic and quite powerful in her own right, Kubo’s mom has raised him alone since he was a baby, hiding him from his grandfather, the Moon King. While the boy’s Harry Potter-like backstory isn’t immediately clear, the mystery is effectively the point in a film whose pleasure is in discovering Kubo’s gifts — as well as many family secrets — as he sets out to gather the three artifacts his long-gone father sought to try to defeat the Moon King: the Sword Unbreakable, the Armor Impenetrable and the Helmet Invulnerable.

    Kubo is helped by two of Laika’s most memorable characters to date: the bad-tempered, serious Monkey (Charlize Theron) and a goofy* insect-human hybrid known as Beetle (Matthew McConaughey). In addition to boasting memorable voices and well-written personalities, both are wonders of design, the former a snow monkey whose fur appears to ripple as she contorts* her pink face, the latter a giant, six-limbed stag beetle whose oversized mandibles* suggest the horned helmets worn by ancient samurai warriors.

    (SD-Agencies)