Oriental people draw oriental things, and the animation works outlined by oriental brushstrokes are the most moving.
The 2023 Spring Festival film has appeared for a long time to have a big scene of immortal fighting, and 7 films were released at the same time, I don't know if the dead wood of Chinese movies meets the spring, or only one return to the light. However, one of the animated movies "Deep Sea" brought a different color to a joyful New Year file.
The deep-sea wonders rendered in the trailer and movie poster alone are captivating, and the original particle ink technique embodies the deep-sea Tyndall effect of the intertwined virtual and the real, bringing the brilliant colors of the oriental brushstrokes to life.
The first half of the film begins with the journey of the girl Betelgeuse into the Deep Sea Hotel, and the imaginative setting and dazzling special effects unfold a dreamlike picture of the underwater for the audience. In the last half hour, all the clues laid in front quickly retracted, and the gorgeous silk cloth covered in the gray reality was uncovered, leading the audience back to the time when they woke up.
Although animated films that attach importance to effectiveness have the common problem of thin narratives, they are flawed. It's totally worth walking into the cinema with a normal mindset and having an immersive visual adventure.
As a work brewed by Tian Xiaopeng, director of the rise of national comics "Journey to the West: The Return of the Great Sage", the road to the launch of "Deep Sea" is also full of twists and turns. It has been three years since the "shocking glimpse" at the end of "Jiang Ziya", during which Tian Xiaopeng once decided that the film was going to be aborted, but finally squeezed into the float of the Spring Festival stall. Douban currently maintains a score of 7.4 points, and has just been shortlisted for the new generation unit of the Berlin Film Festival, which can be regarded as keeping the clouds open and seeing the moon.
The road to the rise of national comics is always ups and downs, and the shock of "Journey to the West: The Return of the Great Sage" in 2015 opened the era of heroes chasing deer, and in recent years, "Nezha: The Demon Child Descends" and "Lion Boy", almost every year a well-made domestic animation enters the mainstream vision.
Although there are head national comics leading the way, the performance of the rest of the works is uneven. However, recently, an animation "China Qitan" has made people regain the confidence of national comics, and it received a score of 9.6 on Douban in the first week of broadcasting. The bizarre folk mythological stories make the audience dream of returning to the golden age of Chinese style animation.
"China Strange Tan" is produced by Station B and Shanghai Art Film Studio, and this time after many years of absence, Shanghai Meiying once again made efforts, like the national team personally rectifying the national comics. It gathered 10 directors to create 8 stories rooted in traditional Chinese literature. Each episode integrates art styles such as paper cutting, sketching, and ink to tell bizarre folk tales, allowing the audience to dream of returning to the golden age of Chinese style animation.
"The Summer of the Little Goblin" in "Chinese Odd Tan", which was evaluated by netizens as a god, can be said to have laid a solid step for the success of the entire series, and it is also the most out-of-the-loop episode. Featuring an unknown pig demon in "Journey to the West", the familiar green mountains and green waters return, focusing on the biography of small people in the background, humor and irony go hand in hand.
The plot is funny and poignant, through the perspective of "Party A and Party B" from the perspective of monsters, alluding to contemporary workplace culture and the fatigue of young people's work. The difference in demeanor before and after the little monsters before and after overtime, as well as the simple expectation of the pig mother "Jackie Chan", I don't know how many workers have poked in the hearts.
The painter also personally painted a complete fan for the little pig demon and the crow essence, making up for the audience's regrets for the brothers and brothers of Langlangshan.
Although the second episode "Goose, Goose and Goose" has a gloomy painting style, it was called "the episode with the most prominent personal characteristics" by the chief director, and the discussion was high in the whole drama.
"Goose Goose Goose" uses freehand black and white ink paintings and silent films, and also adds the "not so comfortable" effect of strobe. Delivery Lang's "black circles" are also one of the director's careful machines, aiming to reflect the confusion of the characters, quite "Chinese Gothic".
The plot with a large amount of white space seems to express the philosophical artistic conception of "I don't know who I am in my dreams", and it also leaves enough space for the audience to interpret.
The inspiration for the ghostly fox scholar with an injured leg is precisely from the lame fox demon A Qiu in "The Book of Heaven", which is also an Easter egg left by the director to pay tribute to the beautiful film.
The distinctive dramas are superficially Chinese quirky and weird, but in fact they explore the same path between humans and demons. The form of independent dramas is also called the Chinese version of "love to die" by netizens, but "Chinese Odd Tan" does not need to be aligned with any form. Because 60 years ago, we gave birth to animation works that rival the world.
Speaking of Shanghai Meiying, an old studio founded in the 50s, it is known as the ceiling of Chinese animation. As early as the 1960s, with works such as "Nezha Troubles the Sea", "Tianshu Qitan", "Trouble in the Heavenly Palace" and other works, he went abroad to amaze the world, and also single-handedly created the glory of domestic animation for nearly 30 years.
These animations are based on Chinese mythology, stories rooted in Chinese culture, allowing legendary characters to leap onto the big screen. The colors have added elements of Peking Opera and Chinese painting, and the unique Chinese classical aesthetic style has been regarded as a master color grading model.
Osamu Tezuka and Manchi
At that time, Chinese animation could be said to represent the highest level in Asia, and it won countless international awards.
As the "load-bearing wall" of national comics, Shanghai Meiying has also inspired many world-class animation masters. "The father of Japanese comics" Osamu Tezuka once said in an exchange that it was when he saw the first feature film "Iron Fan Princess" in Shanghai Mei Film that he decided to abandon medicine and start his comic career.
His iron arm Astro Boy was also created based on the Monkey King. Later, when Osamu Tezuka visited China again, he also specially created a "dream linkage" between Astro Boy and Sun Wukong, in tribute to Wan Yiming, the director of "The Great Trouble in the Heavenly Palace".
Wan Brothers
In fact, since Wan Yiming and the Wan brothers created China's first animation in 1922 - "Shu Zhendong Chinese Typewriter", the national comic has just gone through 100 years. Shanghai Meiying's return with "Chinese Strange Tan" at this juncture is just in time.
From the glory of the 60s to today's "Deep Sea" and "Chinese Wonders", it proves that we have never lacked good creators and stories. Therefore, it is not so much the rise of national comics, but in fact the revival of Chinese animation history. When the cultural confidence belonging to the East is everywhere, we seem to finally have the confidence to say that Chinese animation is back on the world stage, just around the corner.
Source: Douban, Bilibili, Weibo