Wan Liming (1900 —1997),
World Animation Master, Founder of Chinese Animation Film,
Representative animations include "Big Trouble Studio", "Iron Fan Princess", "Big Trouble Heavenly Palace" and so on.
Wan Li Ming
In China, when it comes to the cartoon "The Haunting of the Heavenly Palace", it can be said that women and children are well known. And the director of this animation film, Wan Liming, may not know so many people.
Wan Liming is known as the "father of Chinese animation". His life reflects the twists and turns and hardships of the growth of Chinese animation.
"The Great Haunting of the Heavenly Palace"
One
On January 18, 1900, Wan Liming was born in Nanjing to a merchant family.
Wan Liming, whose real name is Wan Jiazong, is the eldest son in the family. His father sold satin for a living, and various satin patterns left a deep impression on Wan Liming. His mother, on the other hand, was skillful in embroidery, paper-cutting, and brocade weaving. Under the influence of his parents, Wan Liming fell in love with painting and shadow puppetry.
Wan Liming was lucky, he chose his own life path according to his hobbies - in 1917, he was already a draftsman and a copywriter at the Nanjing Higher Normal School. And the significance of this school to Wan Liming is not only to provide a job. Here, he met Tao Xingzhi, an educator who had just returned from studying in the United States.
Tao Xingzhi saw that Wan Liming was not very old, but he worked hard and studied diligently, so he let him listen to his own lessons. In Tao Xingzhi's class, Wan Liming's "three views" were once again shaped, especially the feeling of home and country.
In 1919, the Commercial Press recruited all kinds of staff from all over the country, and Wan Liming sent his own paintings on his own initiative, and the results were selected. So he came to Shanghai and worked as a full-time painter at the Commercial Press.
Two
Wan Liming's work at the Commercial Press is mainly to paint various publications. However, for him, who has a strong desire to create, drawing step by step does not satisfy him.
Once, he drew a cartoon called "Mosquito Repellent", which satirized a person who chased his own mosquitoes at others, and then put it in an envelope with the words "Commercial Press" printed on it and submitted it to the World Pictorial, a popular art magazine in Shanghai at the time. Lacking self-confidence, he didn't even write his detailed address.
Not long after, someone specifically found the Commercial Press and asked if there was a person named Wan Liming. It turned out that his submission was taken by Zhang Guangyu, who was the responsible editor of World Illustrated at the time, and Zhang Guangyu hoped that he would draw more and use it in each issue.
Wan Li Ming
Influenced by Tao Xingzhi, coupled with professional connections and contacts with many progressive figures in the cultural and artistic circles, Wan Liming soon threw himself into the creation of comics that were needle-in-cheek and anti-imperialist. In his early twenties, he painted a "Wall map of national shame"—from the Treaty of Nanking to the Treaty of Maguan to the Treaty of Xinugu—and he used his brush to record China's history of humiliation and blood and tears.
The comic was published and distributed by the Commercial Press at the time, and schools, factories and shops around the world rushed to buy it, hanging in a conspicuous place to warn the Chinese people.
It was also during this period that Wan Liming noticed a new thing: comics that could "move".
In the early 1920s, after the silent film, animation spread from Europe and the United States to China. Wan Liming was deeply shocked after watching the disney-produced animation in the movie theater: the characters under the original brush can really move!
After the shock, there is an urgent desire to create: the truth is clear, so why can't we have our own cartoons?
Just think about it. Wan Liming summoned his 3 younger brothers, Wan Gu Toad, Wan Chaochen and Wan Dihuan— all of whom attended art school and also worked in the film and drama department of the Commercial Press.
Wan Brothers
In a pavilion on the second floor of Shikumen in Shanghai, the four Wan brothers began experimenting with making cartoons. A very short cartoon also requires at least a few hundred original paintings.
The four Wan brothers worked during the day, and at night they worked among the pavilions, sometimes even overnight.
Wan Liming recalled that at that time, many accessories were found at the thrift stalls, "many people said that we were pioneers of Chinese animation, in fact, at that time, it was more like a scavenger."
In 1926, Wan Liming and his brothers released their first cartoon. This advertising cartoon called "Shu Zhendong Chinese Typewriter" caused a sensation for a while. Subsequently, the animated short film "Big Trouble Studio" produced by them was even more amazing.
"Big Trouble Studio" is only 10 minutes long, but it is a combination of live-action and animation, and the plot is that when a painter is painting, an ink villain suddenly drills out of the ink. After making a big fuss in the studio, the villain is caught in the bottle.
"The Big Trouble Studio"
"Big Trouble Studio" is China's first silent black-and-white animation film, which was screened in major theaters along with another work of the Wan brothers, "Paper Man Troublemaker", and the audience was overwhelming and well received.
However, Wan Liming did not indulge in making commercial films or advertising films, but successively made two animation films called for the Chinese people to resist Japan, "Compatriots Wake Up" and "Sincere Unity", and produced China's first sound black-and-white animation film "Camel Dance" in 1934.
By 1938, Wan Had made more than a dozen anti-Japanese cartoons. In 1939, Wan Liming witnessed the situation in Shanghai after the fall of Shanghai and decided to make another cartoon.
Unlike previous animated shorts, this time, he wanted to make a big production.
Three
In 1941, the first milestone in the history of Chinese animation appeared.
Led by Wan Liming and directed by the Wan brothers, China's first large-scale audio-black-and-white animation film "Iron Fan Princess" turned out to be a stunning world.
Prior to this, there were only 3 audio animated feature films in the world, namely "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs", "Villain Country" and "Pinocchio", all of which were produced by the American Disney Company.
"Iron Fan Princess" is the world's fourth animated feature film, the film is 9000 feet long, can play 1 hour and 20 minutes, based on the "Journey to the West" in the Tang monks and apprentices four people passing through the Flame Mountain, Sun Wukong borrowed the banana fan from the Iron Fan Princess This storyline, the two sides in the film back and forth fighting, quite wonderful.
The Iron Fan Princess
When recalling why he wanted to do the cartoon "Iron Fan Princess", Wan Liming said: "At that time, I thought that since the Americans could engage in "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" that expressed their Western national characteristics, we could of course also do "Iron Fan Princess" with mainland national characteristics. ...... There will be an opportunity for the people of the whole country, including the vast number of overseas Chinese and some foreigners, to see the faces of the two 'princesses', and make a comprehensive comparison from ideological content to art forms. ”
In fact, this is just one of Wan Liming's original intentions in making "The Iron Fan Princess", and there is also an initial intention, which can only be understood, and cannot be said: he wants to inspire the confidence of the Chinese people and resolutely resist the aggression of Japanese imperialism through the story of Sun Wukong and others working together to defeat the bull demon king in the movie. One of the most obvious pieces of evidence is that there was a line of subtitles at the end of the film, but it was cut during the release, and that line of subtitles was: "The people rise up for the final victory!" ”
"Iron Fan Princess" was very popular after its release, and it was screened for a month, and the scene was full. Everyone knows the theme behind the movie, and sometimes the whole theater will silently burst into warm applause.
Because "The Princess of the Iron Fan" is too popular in China, the Japanese people are also moved, they took a batch of copies to japan to screen, but also sensational all day, the cinema crowded. As a result, after a period of screening, some critics pointed out that the film actually had an "anti-Japanese" metaphor, and the Japanese official hastily removed it from the shelves and then ordered a full-day ban.
The promotional poster for "The Iron Fan Princess" was released on Japan
But it was the screening of "Iron Fan Princess" in Japan that changed the fate of a Japanese person, and then affected the entire process of Japanese anime development.
This person was Osamu Tezuka, who was later known as the "father of Japanese anime".
In 1943, 15-year-old Osamu Tezuka watched "The Iron Fan Princess" in a movie theater, was deeply shocked, and gained two inspirations: First, it turned out that Asia could also make large-scale animation like Disney in the United States; Second, cartoons are not only for children, but also for adults.
Influenced by Princess Iron Fan, Osamu Tezuka changed his dream of becoming a doctor and decided to dedicate his life to animation.
Osamu Tezuka has been to China five times. During his fifth visit to China in 1988, he went to meet Wan Liming, took his hand and excitedly said, "I only embarked on the road of animation after watching your animation!" ”
In 1961, Wan and his team released an animated film that shocked China and the world. This cartoon, even with today's eyes, is undoubtedly a "divine work".
This time-tested cartoon is called "The Haunting of the Heavenly Palace".
Four
Wan Liming has actually always wanted to make a "Journey to the West" animation with the theme of "Making a Big Fuss in the Heavenly Palace".
After the founding of the People's Republic of China, Wan Liming entered the Shanghai Fine Arts Film Studio. In 1954, the then director of the factory, Te Wei, approached him and hoped that he could lead the production of an animation film, and this cartoon was the "Big Trouble in the Heavenly Palace" that Wan Liming dreamed of making.
In order to make the best animation for Wan Liming, Te Wei equipped him with the top production team in China at that time, including chief animation designer Yan Dingxian, and invited his former friend Zhang Guangyu, the editor-in-charge of World Illustrated, as the chief art designer - Zhang Guangyu was already a professor at the Central Academy of Fine Arts and the founder of China's decorative arts. A top team began the creation of a landmark work in the history of Chinese animation.
According to the production technology at that time, 9,000 to 10,000 original paintings were required for a 10-minute cartoon. At that time, there were no computers, and they were all hand-drawn, which showed the intensity of work at that time.
Wan Liming checks the film with the editor
But it is such a picture after a picture, frame after frame, a detail after a detail, an unprecedented masterpiece finally slowly took shape.
On the day of the audition, the trial room of the Shanghai Fine Arts Film Studio was crowded with people. As soon as the lights in the room dimmed, the accompaniment music of the orchestra's orchestra immediately sounded in unison, and the gongs and drummers banged on each other, only to see Sun Wukong in the distance take off in the air, and in an instant, everyone was amazed.
Wan Liming sat in the front seat of the test room, with mixed feelings, and soon burst into tears: "Sun Wukong is laughing, but I am in tears..."
In 1961, the 40-minute episode of "The Haunting of heavenly palaces" was officially released nationwide.
Like Sun Wukong jumping out of a rock, this movie came out of nowhere and shocked the world.
It is hard to imagine that in the 1960s, the level of animation production could reach the height of "The Haunting of heaven". The production team actually comes from "poor and white" China.
The media around the world have not skimped on their praise for "The Haunting of heavenly palaces".
The Finnish media commented on the animation technique of "The Haunting of heavenly palace": "It is first-class in the international animation industry, combining the most outstanding characteristics of animation technology with the traditional oriental painting style. ”
The French particularly admired the cartoon and dubbed it in French. The French newspaper "Humane" commented: "Director Wan Liming's "The Great Haunting of the Heavenly Palace" is a real masterpiece in the animation, it is like a set of wonderful picture symphonies. ”
The French newspaper Le Monde directly compared this work with the works of Disney in the United States: "'The Haunting of the Heavenly Palace' has the beauty of ordinary American Disney works, and its plastic art is impossible for Disney-style art, which perfectly expresses the traditional Chinese art style." ”
Americans themselves do not deny this, and the Yonhap News Agency commented: "This film is very beautiful, a bit like Fantasia, but more wonderful than Disney's work." The United States would never have made such a cartoon. ”
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Text / Zhang Wei