Episode 87 - Chinese Animation and the Shanghai Animation Film Studio (1956-1988) (with Yuanyuan Chen)

Three Monks (A Da, 1980).

The Fantasy/Animation podcast takes listeners on a journey through the intersection between fantasy cinema and the medium of animation. Available via Apple Podcasts, Spotify and many of your favourite podcast hosting platforms!

For Episode 87, Chris and Alex are joined by special guest Dr Yuanyuan Chen, who teaches animation history and theory at Ulster University, for this brief introduction to Chinese animation and the work of the pioneering Shanghai Animation Film Studio. From propagandist impulses and opera traditions to Chinese state politics and painterly aesthetic styles, the complex history of Chinese animation and its more recent iterations are reflected in this cross-section of contemporary examples, which all serve to highlight the creativity of the Shanghai Animation Film Studio and its influential filmmakers. Listen as the trio discuss The Conceited General (Te Wei & Li Keruo, 1956), a colourful yet damning treatment of leadership and pomposity; the comedic Three Monks (A Da, 1980) based on a Chinese proverb, and an early short within China’s rebirth following the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s and 1970s; A Deer of Nine Colours (Qian Jiajun & Dai Tielang, 1981), another adaptation, this time based on the Buddhist Jataka tale and replete with optical effects that communicates the spirituality of nature; the modernist simplicity and biting satire of modern China in Super Soap (A Da, 1986) and The New Doorbell (A Da, 1986) with their shared narrative of the dangers of ‘supply and demand’; and the lyrical Feeling from Mountain and Water (Te Wei, 1988), whose ink wash and shan shui style is the perfect accompaniment to its story of two travellers and their close master/student relationship.

Suggested Readings

  • Chen, Shaopeng. 2021. The New Generation in Chinese Animation. London: Bloomsbury.

  • Chen, Yuanyuan. 2017. “Old or new art? Rethinking classical Chinese animation.” Journal of Chinese Cinemas 11, no. 2: 175-188.

  • Chen, Yuanyuan. 2015. “The Rebel of the Chinese School: Modernist Expression in A Da’s Late Animations.” Modernism/Modernity 22, no. 1: 81-104.

  • Chow, Rey. 1998. “On Chineseness as a Theoretical Problem,” boundary 2 25, no. 3 (Autumn): 1–24.

  • Haswell, Helen. 2015. “To Infinity and Back Again: Hand-drawn Aesthetic and Affection for the Past in Pixar’s Pioneering Animation.” Alphaville: Journal of Film and Screen Media 8, available here.

  • MacDonald, Sean. 2016. Animation in China: History, Aesthetics, Media. London: Routledge.

  • Zhou, Wenhai. 2021. Chinese Independent Animation: Renegotiating Identity in Modern China. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

PODCASTChristopher Holliday and Alexander SergeantALLEGORY, CHINA, NATIONAL, ANIMATION, CEL-ANIMATION, RELIGIONComment