animated film usually refers to a large-scale feature film made in the form of animation that is shown in theaters. Animated films have always been an important part of film history.
Looking at the world, the United States and Japan are undoubtedly the two largest producers of animated films. Although the animation styles are quite different, American and Japanese animation basically influences and occupies the animation film market in the entire world.
China's animation film, the super word-of-mouth and box office miracle created by Tian Xiaopeng's "The Return of the Great Sage" in 2015 is a milestone event in the history of domestic animation film and also opened the road to the revival of domestic animation. This year's "Nezha: The Devil Boy Comes into the World" not only has a reputation, but also became the runner-up of the domestic movie history box office in one fell swoop, making the domestic animation completely proud.
Many years before "The Return of the Great Sage" and "Nezha", the animation film market has always been occupied by American Hollywood animation represented by Disney and Pixar, while TV is mostly dominated by Japanese animation. Domestically produced animations are completely powerless in terms of innovation and quality, and have fallen into a long trough.
In fact, as early as the 1980s and before, the animation of New China had a glorious history, produced many excellent animations, and won many international awards. Most of these excellent animation works are from Shanghai Art Film Studio.
Shanghai Fine Arts Film Studio, referred to as Meiying Factory. The factory was officially established in April 1957, and 428 art films were produced, accounting for more than 80% of the national art film output. The US Film Studio is undoubtedly one of the oldest animation studios in China, and it is also the largest art film studio in China.
Many of our shared childhood memories of cartoons, such as "Black Cat Sheriff", "Afanti", "Gourd Baby", "Sloppy King Adventure", "San Mao Wandering Story", "Shuke and Beta", "Cube Building", etc. And so on are from the US Film Factory. In addition to these animated series,
has to mention one of the few animated feature films produced by the US Studio (length of 60 minutes or more). They used to represent the highest level of Chinese animated films, and some of them have become classics with time and time even today. Among them, the top four long Douban movies scored above 9 points.
01 "Havoc in Heaven" produced in 1961 and 1964 Douban 9.3 points
In the history of animation in China, "Havoc in Heaven" has a pivotal position. "A Harass in Heaven" is divided into two episodes, completed in 1961 and 1964, respectively, adapted from the first seven chapters of the classic "Journey to the West", including Monkey King's Treasure in the Dragon Palace, Official Seal of Bi Ma Wen, and Harass in Heaven, etc. story. Co-directed by Wan Laiming and Tang Cheng.
Wan Laiming is known as the "Father of Chinese Animation Movies". He is the pioneers of Chinese art films along with Wan Guchan, Wan Chaochen and Wan Dihuan. As early as the 1940s, the Wan Brothers produced Asia’s first animated feature "Princess Iron Fan", which has a profound influence in Asia. Osamu Tezuka, the director of the Japanese animation "Astro Boy" and the originator of Japanese animation comics, gave up studying medicine after watching this animation and decided to engage in animation creation. Tezuka later visited China and drew a cartoon of Astro Boy and Monkey King together. After the establishment of
Beauty Film Factory, Wan Laiming became an animation director. In 1961, he began to create "Havoc in the Heaven", this film that condensed almost all of his hard work, is still an unsurpassable classic 60 years later. Since there was no computer production at the time, it was all based on a paintbrush in hand. The first episode of 50-minute "Havoc in Heaven" and the second episode of 70-minutes took nearly two years of drawing time alone.
"Havoc in Heaven" established the classic image of Monkey King in the true sense. Once the film came out, it caused a world-class sensation. It has been distributed and shown in 44 countries and regions, and has won many international animation film festival awards. It has also influenced a whole generation or even several generations and has become a monument in the history of Chinese animation film.
In 2009, a fan repair version based on the 40th anniversary version appeared on the Internet, with better picture quality, and more than 20 minutes of content missing in the 40th anniversary version were reinserted, 2.0 stereo sound was restored, and noise was eliminated as much as possible. This fan repair version may be the most complete version to date.
02 "Nezha Nao the Sea" produced in 1979 Douban 9.0 points
"Nezha Nao the Sea" is only 65 minutes long, but it is the pinnacle of Chinese animation history, just like "Nao Tian Gong". It is still China'sA wide-screen animated feature film, which became the first Chinese animated film to be exhibited in Cannes in 1980.
is the same as "Making a Trouble in the Heavenly Palace", "Nezha Trouble in the Sea" is also based on classical literary works; unlike "Making a Trouble in the Heavenly Palace", "Nezha Trouble in the Sea" basically got rid of the original work from the theme and conception. As a result, the talents of the animators get a lot of room for development.
"Nezha Naohai" successfully got rid of the dark colors of the original "Feng Shen Bang", but created a dreamlike and beautiful fairy tale world. The use of colors in the film is superb, and the character creation is also very glamorous. It is not only full of innocence and childishness, but also a deep tragic mood. After so many years, Nezha's long sleeves fluttering and the white robe is like snow, the scene of Hengjian's suicide in the dark storm is still vivid.
Since then, Chinese animation has almost ceased the positioning and direction of the "animation of all ages" from "Making the Heavenly Palace" to "Nezhao", and more began to move towards a younger age.
In 2019, another animated film "Nezha's Devil Child Comes into the World" to describe this myth was released, which swept nearly 5 billion box office. Compared with "Ne Zha Nao the Sea" 40 years ago, "Ne Zha: The Devil Child Comes into the World" is very different in style, concept, and theme, but it is also an adult-oriented animation, and its reputation is equally good. But the former's classic status in the history of Chinese animation is still difficult to surpass.
03 "The Book of the Heavens", produced in 1983, Douban 9.2 points
"You are born with eggs, so you are called Dansheng~" Do you remember this classic and somewhat nonsensical line?
"A Strange Book of Heaven" is adapted from some chapters of "Ping Yao Zhuan". It tells the story of Yuan Gong stealing the book of Heaven in the Heavenly Palace. It was carved in a stone cave and learned by three foxes. After the fox practiced Chinese calligraphy, it harmed the people. In the end, the swan egg was transformed into a human-shaped egg, and after learning the method, he and Yuan Gong eliminated the fox demon. However, Gong Yuan was caught back to Heaven for leaking secret secrets, and Dan Sheng was going to rescue the master.
Many of the character images in "The Book of the Heavens" come from opera modeling. They are full of ugliness and cleanliness, such as the slanted eyes of the fox girl and the two blushes, which have absorbed the modeling characteristics of Peking Opera Danjiao facial makeup. This fox girl is also one of the most impressive images.
"The Book of the Heavens" is extremely rare in terms of art style, story, especially imagination. It completely breaks away from the orbit of shaping the character image of "Gao Daquan" that was still popular in that era, and exudes a sense of humor everywhere. It is a very good film. Of domestic animated films.
04 "Golden Monkey and Demon" was produced in 1985. Douban 9.1 points
"Golden Monkey and Demon" is based on the well-known story of "Three Attacks on White Bone" in "Journey to the West".
After the smashing of the "Gang of Four" in 1978, in order to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the National Day, the US Film Studio planned to create a gift with this theme. Preparations started in 1982, and the shooting was completed after three years and four months of long-term work.
In "Golden Monkey Falling to the Demon", the work deeply highlights the character of Monkey King who is jealous and hateful, expresses his sincere feelings of deep love and righteousness, and his wisdom of superhuman strategy; through this vivid and emotional characterization , While showing the style of the famous family, it also showed the audience a great sense of love and deep meaning.
This is the last adult-oriented Journey to the West animation in the 20th century. This time it broke through the original Monkey King image in "Havoc in the Heaven", creating a more detailed, realistic, and full-character Monkey King. However, since then, the domestically produced animations have fallen all the way towards the shoddy road of younger age.
Speaking of this, I want to mention one person, he is strict constitution. Yan Dingxian is the chief animation designer of "Havoc in Heaven", and one of the directors of "Nezha Nao to the Sea" and "Golden Monkey Falling into the Demon". He also became the former director of Shanghai Art Film Studio, creating and witnessing the glory of domestic animation.
05 "Baolian Lantern" produced in 1999 Douban 8.1 points
14 years after "Golden Monkeys Falling from the Demon", another animated feature film "Baolian Lantern" from the Beauty Studios came late.
A year before it was released, Disney launched an animated film "Mulan" based on the story of the Chinese poem "Mulan Ci", which has achieved great success worldwide. This makes domestic filmmakers and animators ashamed: Why not only can we not shoot Chinese themes, but also let foreigners give them awayWestern cultural logic, and a classic? The emergence of
"Baolian Lantern" has somewhat restored the face of some domestic animations. The film continues the tradition of Meiying Studio in absorbing materials and inspiration from Chinese myths and stories, and is adapted from the ancient legend "Splitting the Mountain to Save the Mother". At the same time, this domestic animation also learns from the advanced Hollywood action film production experience, uses computer three-dimensional special effects technology to draw animation, and conducts dialogue recording in advance and other production methods. In the style of painting, we can also see the shadows of American-Japanese animation.
In addition, as the domestically produced animation with the largest investment at the time, "Baolian Lantern" also fully considered commercial elements. Even today, the dubbing cast of the film is very powerful. Jiang Wen, Ning Jing, Chen Peisi, and Xu Fan are all big stars. The film's soundtrack and original songs have left a deep impression and long-lasting memory. And not just one song, but three songs that have become very popular classics-Zhang Xinzhe's "Love Is One Word", Coco Lee's "365 Days of Thinking of You", Liu Huan's "Heaven and Earth in My Heart" .
06 "Warrior" produced in 2007 Douban 7.4 points
This time, the Beauty Studio finally jumped out of the ancient Chinese mythology and inspiration for the theme and inspiration, but based on folklore. The film tells the story of the Mongolian youth Bater who came to the Horqin grassland to avenge his father's murder and accidentally fell in love with Wurihan, the daughter of the head of the royal palace.
"Warrior" is the largest Chinese animation film invested by Shanghai Film Studio after "Baolian Lantern". The whole film is 83 minutes long, lasted 4 years, and was built at a cost of 15 million yuan.
The famous international director Luc Besson also visited the "Warrior" crew. He was impressed by its smooth lines, innovative three-dimensional technology and persistent national characteristics. He exclaimed with great admiration: Your characters cannot be drawn by others. of!
recruited Sun Nan, Huang Yi, Li Yang, Wang Ji, etc. Huang Yi and Sun Nan, voiced by the heroine Wurihan and the hero Battelle, are completely free and voluntary.
The film has also won awards including the Huabiao Award and the Golden Rooster Award, but it is far less influential and well-known than the previous five animated feature films of the US Film Studio.
Nowadays, new domestic animation production companies represented by chasing light animation and color stripe house have begun to emerge. China's animation film industry has also shown signs of recovery, and more and more animation film works have emerged from a simple young age. To become a more mature adult. This year, in addition to "Nezha's Devil Child Comes to the World", "White Snake: Origin" and "Luo Xiaohei's War" and other works with good reputations.
However, domestic animation is still deeply influenced by the United States and Japan, and we can see too many shadows of the animation style of the United States and Japan. The road to domestic animation is still long. It is hoped that domestic animation, especially the US Film Studio, can reproduce the glory of the past as soon as possible.
