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.
ANIM223 - HISTORY OF ANIMATION - FALL 2019 