(world master of animation, the first person in Chinese paper-cutting art, founder of Chinese animation film, world famous director, one of the 500 celebrities in the modern world: Wan Laiming)
China's first animated film prototype
Wan Laiming is not only a Chinese animation The forerunners of the film are the leading masters in the world. The first cartoon in China was written by Wan Laiming and his brother Wan Guchan.
In 1925, the Wan Brothers launched China’s earliest cartoon "Shu Zhendong Chinese Typewriter"
, which is a one-minute advertising cartoon, but it has a unique cultural value and historical significance in the history of Chinese animation. Although this short film is crudely produced and can even become a test subject today, he definitely has a decisive position for the animation feelings of the Wan Brothers. The cartoon
has always been controversial. There are three opinions about his age:
said in 1922 that "Chinese Animation Film History in the Twentieth Century" (
1926 said that Jin Baoshan once called this animation in popular films and the Spring and Autumn Period of Literature and History. The film was born in 1926, but there are not many claims that hold this view. In 1925,
said that through analysis of Wan Laiming’s memoir "Me and Monkey King" Wan Guchan’s memoir "My narrative" and other related data analysis, this work should be Born in the second half of 1925.
China’s first animated film
In 1926, the Wan brothers, after studying animation for many years, launched the real animation in Chinese history, "Breaking the Studio", which is also a combination of live action and animation The cartoon tells the story of a painter who drank ink in a painting and turned into a little black man. Compared with "Typewriter", this work is no longer purely advertising. Both the plot and the picture are more mature. It's a pity that there is no video preservation for this work.
China's first audio animation
In 1935, the first Chinese audio animation "Dance of the Camel", which continued to be written, directed, produced, photographed and recorded by the Wan brothers, came out.
It is based on a showy camel in Aesop’s fables. The camel danced in public at a banquet where the beasts gathered, but the camel made a fool of himself, causing the beasts to laugh, and was finally kicked off the stage.
camel dance to unlock the Chinese art film The new page marks the beginning of a mature stage of Chinese cartoons.
China’s first large-scale cartoon
In the mid-20th century, Disney’s "Snow White" was shown in China, and exposure to this mature cartoon touched the Wan Brothers. It’s very big, so I decided to shoot a high-quality animation. A team of 100 people. It took a year and a half to shoot. In 1951, Wan Laiming brought a masterpiece of up to 80 minutes: "Iron "Princess Fan".
The film was shown simultaneously in 3 movie theaters in Shanghai, and its box office revenue exceeded all feature films released at that time. "Princess Fan" also became a world-class animation blockbuster at that time.
