A still from "China Strange Tan"
Like a sudden hurricane, "China Strange Tan" quickly became the center of entertainment topics in just a few days. Started on January 1, the number of broadcasts on that day exceeded 2 million, less than ten days, the number of views on station B has exceeded 40 million, and nearly 80,000 people on Douban scored a high score of 9.5, a rare high score that is the highest score for domestic animation in recent years.
Why did it become the first phenomenal anime of the opening year? What is the existence of the Shanghai Film Studio behind it in terms of Chinese animation? Why is it that every time the phenomenal animation comes out, we fall into the discussion of "national comic revival", and then fall silent?
Today's hardcore reading club enters the magnificent world of "Chinese Wonders" and reflects on what kind of animation we need.
The former glory of domestic animation
The producer of "China Strange Tan" is the well-known Shanghai Art Film Studio (hereinafter referred to as "Shanghai Meiying"). Founded in 1957, Shanghai Meiying's famous works have run through almost every important historical period after the founding of New China.
The Wan brothers, who made "Trouble in the Heavenly Palace" in the 1960s, produced the first animated feature film in Chinese history, "The Iron Fan Princess", in the 30s. In 1978, "Trouble in the Heavenly Palace", which had been produced fourteen years earlier, was finally released. It also won the best film award at the BFI London Film Festival.
A still from "Trouble in the Heavenly Palace"
In the following 10 years, works such as "Nezha Hai", "Tianshu Qitan" and "Nine-colored Deer" that influenced many generations came out one after another, and "Avanti" and "Black Cat Sheriff" were also born in this period. In the more open 1990s, the production of Shanghai Beauty Film was more avant-garde and avant-garde.
"Cube Mansion", adapted from Zheng Yuanjie's fairy tale, is biased towards psychological thrillers, with a complex plot and depth, and gloriously becomes the "childhood shadow" of a generation. At the end of the century, "Pauline Lantern" is star-studded and has the style of an international blockbuster. In the 21st century, TV productions such as "Big Ear Tutu" are very popular, but the overall bias is towards young age. Shanghai Meiying seems to have lost its direction in the new century, and until the explosion of "Chinese Odd Tan", there was no work that could be called a masterpiece of the 21st century.
"Pauline Lantern" stills
The former glory of domestic animation has made the audience wait for a "savior" who can revive the glory of the past. We can't help but ask, what went wrong, no one is serious about animation?
If you pay attention to the domestic animated film market, you will find that in fact, animated films of acceptable quality can generally get more attention and box office in the market, and these works have a common feature: they all emphasize "Chinese elements".
"Big Fish and Begonia" takes the Hakka Wailou as the main scene, and "Classic of Mountains and Seas" and "Getaway" as the background of the story. The background of "White Snake: Origin" and "Journey to the West: The Return of the Great Sage" whetted the audience's appetite in the title. In 2019, "Nezha: The Devil Child Descends" was released and achieved a double harvest of box office word-of-mouth, people are looking forward to the emergence of a "Chinese mythology and story universe" series, after all, works from "tradition" such as "Soushenji" and "Classic of Mountains and Seas" provide a blueprint for sufficient play.
A still from "Nezha: The Devil Child Descends"
However, domestic animation has always been between "rising" and "over".
Occasionally high-quality works that emerge will be quickly forgotten after gaining traffic for a period of time, and literary and artistic works have become de facto "fast-moving consumer goods".
Good animation is very expensive to produce. In general, the number of frames in animated films is the same as in ordinary movies, which is 24 frames. That is to say, 24 still paintings are needed to form a picture that looks like it is moving, and each one needs to be drawn by the artist. The cost of 3D animation fluctuates greatly, the cost of "Zootopia" is as high as 200 million US dollars, and the cost of domestic animation released in domestic theaters may only cost millions of yuan. Disney's recent animations have been able to express human hair and subtle expressions very well.
Disney's performance of hair, delicate expressions is worth mentioning. / "Zootopia" stills
In rough 3D animation, cheap modeling and poor action, the expressiveness is not even as good as flash animation. In recent years, most of the domestic animation works that have caught fire are 3D animations with a high production level.
So out of the loop
After the release of the trailer in mid-December, "China Qitan" did not cause much waves, and the comments of few followers were mixed with many skeptical voices. But on the first day of 2023, after the first two episodes of "China Strange Tan" were broadcast, almost one-sided praise quickly swept the Internet.
The first episode, Summer of the Little Goblin, is set in Journey to the West, and implants a fairly modern workplace story into the framework of a story that has accompanied many people growing up, and social issues are the "atomic freezing point" that has led to widespread discussion.
The little pig demon takes the buns home to visit his mother. / Stills from "China Strange Tan"
The fit with the current people's psychological state also makes the spread of this episode jump out of the show itself, and "Langlang Mountain" has become a synonym for a tired workplace. The hierarchy of various companies also has a clear correspondence in this episode: the middle-level "bear demon" who cheats and does nothing, the high-level "wolf demon" with a mysterious face, and the "king" who has never appeared.
It's a story with clear clues, and at its core it's modern and easy to accept. At the same time, it combines many elements of traditional Chinese art, and I believe that readers who have watched this episode are deeply impressed by the ink painting style chase scene when the wolf demon chases and kills the piglet demon. The last scene of the four Tang monks and apprentices is even more full of "feelings", a social animal who has been away from home for many years, saved by a hero in childhood, who can not be moved?
The hero of the piglet. / Stills from "China Strange Tan"
This foreshadowing makes the more obscure second episode "Goose Goose Goose" into more people's vision, and its story is based on the Six Dynasties Chi Weird novel "Continued Qi Huanji". Lu Xun called this story "especially strange", such a strange story has no big reason to tell, and the audience may only have a stunned feeling after watching it.
The same is true of many other Chi Wei stories of the Six Dynasties, such as the following Chi Wei story that is contemporaneous with "Yang Envy Scholar":
"Immortal Magu descended to Dongyang Cai Jingjia, and her claws were four inches long. He said, 'This woman is so good that she wants to scratch her back.' Aunt Ma was furious. Suddenly, his eyes were bleeding. (Taiping Yuyan, 370)"
The core concept of "Chinese Odd Tan" is a story "rooted in traditional Chinese culture", and in the trailer, it is pointed out as eight "strange stories". What is "Chi Wei"? Lu Xun said in "A History of Chinese Novels":
"The strange works of Chi, Zhuangzi is said to have Qi harmony, and Liezi is called Yijian, but they are all fables and not enough to be credited. The "Hejaz" is a barnyard official, but the barnyard official, whose job is to collect rather than create, 'street talk' is born from the people, it is not the creation of one person and so, and exploring its roots, it is also the same as the Utah nation, lies in myths and legends. In the past, the first people, seeing all things in heaven and earth, mutated infrequently, and their phenomena, which were above the power of manpower, created their own sayings to explain them: whatever is explained, is now called a myth. ”
A History of Chinese Fiction
By Lu Xun
People's Literature Publishing House, 2022-1
In classical Chinese literature, the novel is considered a genre that does not reach the hall of elegance. This is especially true of strange stories that are born out of oral traditions among the people. But it is precisely such oral stories that constitute the background of the nation's imagination of the world.
However, most of the classical novels have been lost, and it is only known in historical texts that they once existed, and the "Qi Xiangji" has been lost for a long time, and the "Continuation of Qi Xiangji" is not the original text. By the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the narrative structure and writing techniques of Chi Wei novels were more complex and changeable. The early Ming Dynasty's god and demon novel "The Legend of the Flat Demon" was also compiled from folklore, and "The Book of Heaven and Wonder" was born out of its chapters.
Under the momentum of the first two episodes, after the release of the third episode "Linlin", it quickly appeared on the hot search list of Weibo. After the episode aired, people were somewhat disappointed, and its story structure was more old-fashioned, with many commenting that it "knows the end when you see the beginning". Unlike the close reality of the first episode and the rich interpretation space of the second episode, the audience is not so buying the story. But it won back to the city with music, and the soundtrack of the episode used many traditional Chinese instruments, which received good reviews.
Who will tell the next story?
The discussion around "Chinese elements" has been the biggest point of contention in domestic animation.
The format in which eight different teams produce different episodes in "China Qitan" is inevitably reminiscent of "Love Death", and comparing the two is also inevitable. After the broadcast, Zhihu's hot question unexpectedly appeared: "Can "China Qitan" be regarded as the Chinese version of "Love Death"? ”
The main reason for believing that "does not count" is that the content source of the two is different, one is "traditional Chinese stories" and the other is "large-scale fantasy story clubs".
We cannot deny that national sentiment must be at the center of this discussion vortex. In the behind-the-scenes footage of the production of "Goose Goose Goose", director Hu Rui mentioned that the use of dark circles to express the gloomy and sad character comes from Gothic aesthetics, which is an "aesthetically technical grafting". Some of these clips are also reminiscent of Junji Ito's "Vortex", but people can generally feel that the story is full of "Chinese interest".
Hu Rui explained his creative ideas. / Behind-the-scenes stills of "China Strange Tan"
But the history of Chinese animation is also a history of blending and colliding with art from all over the world. In fact, as early as before the production of "Tianshu Qitan", the BBC had the intention to cooperate with Shanghai Meiying.
We seem to be desperate to revive "traditional culture", but years of slogan-style propaganda and mechanical collage of elements have not yielded satisfactory results.
On the other hand, several domestic animations with good reputation, the Jade Emperor, the Son of Heaven, and officials at all levels in "Tianshu Qitan" are all different from the traditional narrative; The story background of "The Great Protector" is absurd and dark, full of complexity and disdain. The expression of "animation" in the Chinese market has long been not exclusive to children's stations, and people are very welcome to animation that does not avoid real problems. Legends form part of national culture in "being remembered" and "being relayed", so if stories make people not want to be remembered, how can they be passed on?
Since 2005, Jamie Byrne, publisher of Cannongate Publishing House in the United Kingdom, has called on a group of writers to rewrite the myths of their country and nation. The work given by Chinese writer Su Tong is "Binu", which is based on the story of Meng Jiangnu crying on the Great Wall.
In the preface, Su Tong wrote: "The most magnificent and unrestrained imagination often comes from the people. By writing this book, I am largely reliving an emotional life from the people, and the crystallization of this emotional life seems to me to form a kind of folk philosophy." If we look at it more optimistically, we are also producing "traditions" that belong to the present.
"Binu: The Legend of Meng Jiangnu Cry on the Great Wall"
By Su Tong
Chongqing Press, 2020-8
Why do we retell ancient myths, Jamie gave the reason: "This is a world-wide joint action, through the retelling of the ancient myths of the countries and regions involved in the modern context, giving them the meaning of the new era, sustenance on deeper cultural and survival connotations, healing the lack of spiritual homes produced by modern people in the era of material expansion and spiritual scarcity, and through the retelling of myths, people have a sense of cultural identity and nation-state consciousness." It is more conducive to the stability of the world and the healthy development of the region. Myths are stories that are passed down from generation to generation and deeply rooted in the hearts of people that express and shape our lives – it also explores our desires, our fears and our expectations; The story it tells reminds us of what it means to be human."
Like "China Strange Tan", bringing such a discussion into the public eye again may be a precursor to escape the shackles.