Major Post 11 – Monkey King, King of Heroes 2015

Posted on by Thang Tsz Ching, Janelle

Even though, Nezha has already taken the most credit of being the symbol of Chinese creative media now but let’s never forgets, the first animated movie recently that caught the world’s attention was Monkey King, King of Heroes, created in 2015.

The CGI in 2015 shocked Chinese audiences. After the release of the movie, everyone is talking about how rare and surprising that China produced such high quality 3D CGI animation in movie length. Because of the story is talking about the Monkey King, it attracted a lot of attention since Journey to the West is a very well-known mythology that every Chinese know when they were young, even some people from other nations know about it.

The story is about the all mighty Monkey King, Son Wukong, once roamed freely between Heaven and Earth but after angering the Gods and defeating the heavenly army, he is imprisoned by Buddha as a punishment.
500 years later, a monk boy ran into the cave where the Monkey King was imprisoned and released him from his curse without knowing it. However, Buddha has sealed Wukong’s full power. The boy told Wukong that he admired his legend and hoping Wukong could take him back home safely. So the adventure began, the journey to Chang An with the boy and the journey of finding back his own self.

Major Post 10 – Nezha 2019

Posted on by Thang Tsz Ching, Janelle

I know I have been talking about this movie since forever but I just can’t stop loving this animated movie, especially after my research paper about it. The amount of work did to this movie is insane and mind-blowing. My major is animation, pathing towards 3D productions. The movie is a 3D CGI animation so it caught my heart even more. My future of career is to be involved in either animation/movie or game industry, mainly wanted to work in Asia so seeing this proof of evolution of Chinese creative media is a big encouragement to move on on my path !

Jiaozi is the director of the movie, also responsible for writing, editing the plot, art director, props and environment, character lead designer, action model. In the interview of about the production, Jiaozi mentioned too much that the video has to skip through. Basically he wanted to say that he is doing 80% of the work I would say, ENLIGHT MEDIA and other fifthteen companies that he found were just doing a tiny part of help to assist Jiaozi through the production.

The movie took them three years to complete yet the script of the story has already taken 2 years to edit and polish. This project was the first animated movie that ENLIGHT MEDIA and Jiaozi himself ever did. With very limited experience, it was a really struggling process for them but also a very valuable experience.

I hope for the best to Chinese creative media. A sequel of Nezha is confirmed by the director since the story is not ended, the movie just showed the beginning of legend of Nezha. There are much more to be told about the story of Investiture of the Gods, one of my favourite mythology of China.

Major Post 13: Asianimation

Posted on by Sammy Liu

It was super fun looking at less main-stream animations apart from the Western and US, and diving into Chinese animation. I thought it was interesting how many adaptations of the same story exist; like remakes of Godzilla or King Kong, but with “The Journey to the West” and “Nezha”.

Many animations used Chinese Ink as their medium, giving each one a soft, elegant texture. Therefore, it was fitting that calm and slow pacing was used often.

The first artist of the day is Wan Brother, one of the earliest animators in China, who was inspired a lot by the US and has Snow-white/Disney vibes seen in their layout, set-up or background. Again, he worked with ink and used Rotoscoping which was also inspired by the US.

In 1956, a new movement began called the Hundred Flowers Campaign, which was to lift the restrictions felt imposed upon Chinese intellectuals, to stir up socialism and thus grant greater freedom of thought and speech.
It brought up the opportunity to create something new and original to represent China.
The name of the movement originated from a poem: “Let a hundred flowers bloom; let a hundred schools of thought contend” (百花齐放，百家争鸣, Bǎihuā qífàng, bǎijiā zhēngmíng).
 “The policy of letting a hundred flowers bloom and a hundred schools of thought contend is designed to promote the flourishing of the arts and the progress of science”. – Mao Zhedong.
We can definitely admire the initially pure intentions to try and build creative freedom in China, and it’s something that’s worthwhile to remember and be grateful of.
It makes me curious to: if China had carried on developing their style, what would that look like?

Extra class notes:
Te Wei – Founder of Shanghai Arts and Film Studio!
Chinese manhua artist and animator, Developed chinese ink-wash animation
Studied in Changchun, Tadahito Mochinaga
Tadpoles Looking for Their Mama (1960) – Te Wei
Yu Zheugang A Clever Duckling (1960) an origami
A-Da/ Xu Jinqin –
Wan Brother:
Princess Iron Fan (1941)
Uproar in Heaven (1964) mixes in Chinese Opera make up on their characters.
Shanghai Arts and Film Studio, first coloured chinese animation (1956) Why is the Crow Black-coated.

Major Post 12 – Chinese Animation

Posted on by Julia Reymundo

For this class, Chinese animation was introduced. It featured a lot of beautiful films and I’m glad I got to learn the history of it. There are so many other films I never got to see till now. The films were elegantly animated and it really felt like the culmination of the creativity artists had at that time. I got to do further research so I could fully understand the history of the country’s animation.

The Wan Brothers played a crucial part in the animation industry in China. They would remain one of the most renowned animators. In 1956, the government introduced the Hundred Flowers Campaign which was to “let a hundred flowers bloom in the field of culture.” This caused an influx of all of China’s artistics fields, which included animation. The country’s most unique visual styles were paper-cut animation, folded paper animation, and ink-wash animation.

The films that featured each of those technique were Piggy Eats Watermelon (1958), A Clever Duckling (1960), and The Buffalo Boy’s Flute (1963) respectively. Te Wei was the one who developed the Chinese Ink-wash animation and helped create one of the said films above. The Wan Brothers would come back and release their film Uproar in Heaven (1964) which was based on the novel Journey to the West. This film was full of vibrant colors and fluid animation. It was highly praised just for it.

Julia Reymundo