A new ret­ro­spec­tive reveals the won­ders of clas­sic Chi­nese animation

The Shang­hai Ani­ma­tion Film Stu­dio was a vital part of China’s ani­ma­tion indus­try, both in terms of form­ing nation­al styles as well as cre­at­ing inter­na­tion­al inter­est in the country’s con­tri­bu­tions to the medium.

An online Chi­nese film sea­son, run­ning until 12 May, boasts an excit­ing selec­tion of shorts and fea­tures from the studio’s his­to­ry; pre­dom­i­nant­ly the gold­en age between 1957 and the mid-’60s when they enjoyed greater artis­tic free­dom and no-strings-attached gov­ern­ment fund­ing. It was a peri­od of con­sid­er­able devel­op­ment in which the stu­dio exper­i­ment­ed with mix­ing aes­thet­ics from Sovi­et and West­ern ani­ma­tion (pri­mar­i­ly that of Walt Dis­ney) with tra­di­tion­al domes­tic art.

The studio’s tumul­tuous his­to­ry can be seen in the selec­tion itself, with a scarci­ty of work avail­able from the late ​’60s through to the ​’80s. The main rea­son for this gap was the Cul­tur­al Rev­o­lu­tion, which led to com­pli­ca­tions for the stu­dio; for one, stu­dio head and direc­tor Te Wei was held in soli­tary con­fine­ment for over a year, result­ing in the stu­dio tem­porar­i­ly shut­ting down and a num­ber of its already released films being banned.

The ear­li­est film fea­tured in this ret­ro­spec­tive is Wan Guchan’s Fish­ing Child from 1959. The Wan broth­ers were trail­blaz­ers of Chi­nese ani­ma­tion and dom­i­nat­ed the stu­dio; their name pops up fre­quent­ly in the pro­gramme, with the studio’s most high-pro­file fea­ture, Mon­key King: Hav­oc in Heav­en, direct­ed by Wan Laim­ing and pro­duced by his siblings.

Based on a pop­u­lar folk tale by Zhang Shi­jie, Fish­ing Child is char­ac­terised by right­eous anti-impe­ri­al­is­m/­colo­nial­ism – a fable about fish­er­men resist­ing the oppres­sion of the West. Set at the end of the Qing Empire, before the Box­er Rebel­lion, it’s told with tac­tile cut-out ani­ma­tion (and even some stop-motion) that embod­ies both a cul­tur­al his­to­ry and the afore­men­tioned resis­tance movement.

Its rugged but beau­ti­ful ani­ma­tion style was pio­neered by Guchan and harks back to tra­di­tion­al Chi­nese paper-cut­ting, also dis­played in his 1963 film Gold­en Conch. The tales them­selves are a lit­tle samey – there’s more than one mys­ti­cal princess fished out of the sea – but the rough-hewn style is a fas­ci­nat­ing con­trast to the more ethe­re­al sen­si­bil­i­ties of the rest of the programme.

Direct­ed by Te in 1960, Where is Mama imme­di­ate­ly dis­tin­guish­es itself with a water­colour style that feels like a pre­cur­sor to Isao Takahata’s The Tale of the Princess Kaguya. (Giv­en that Hayao Miyaza­ki is said to have vis­it­ed Shang­hai Ani­ma­tion Film Stu­dios before the foun­da­tion of Stu­dio Ghi­b­li, it’s not a huge leap to draw a line between the two.) Where is Mama is osten­si­bly a children’s tale, with sim­ple nar­ra­tion based on rep­e­ti­tion and basic civic lessons via the nat­ur­al world. As Alex Dudok de Wit notes: ​“The chirpy voiceover reminds us that all plants need to be guard­ed against ​‘pests’.”

Te’s 1963 short The Cowboy’s Flute also stands as one of the pret­ti­est films on offer here, the direc­tor hav­ing fur­ther refined his water­colour style. Since the two char­ac­ters are a boy and his water buf­fa­lo, dia­logue isn’t need­ed, and so the film com­mu­ni­cates visu­al­ly and musi­cal­ly instead. Te’s art­ful min­i­mal­ism is again rem­i­nis­cent of Taka­ha­ta, with del­i­cate line- and brush-work that’s just as expres­sive as the move­ments and char­ac­ter draw­ings that they serve.

The hazi­ness of Te and co-direc­tor Qian Jiajin’s art direc­tion mar­ries well with the film’s dream­world set­ting; the colour wash­es away as the boy sleeps, reduced to gen­tle pink and red tones. Te’s loos­er, more expres­sive style allows for him to eschew dia­logue entire­ly this time around, a fur­ther con­fir­ma­tion of the director’s min­i­mal­ist incli­na­tions. It’s serene and con­tem­pla­tive work com­pared to the loud and chaot­ic satire of the Wan broth­ers’ films.

Feel­ing from Moun­tains and Water, made in 1988, was Te’s final film and the last by the orig­i­nal crop of ani­ma­tion lead­ers from Shang­hai Ani­ma­tion Film Studio’s gold­en age. (Fol­low­ing his arrest, Te was forced into exile and his career was put on hold.) It is per­haps the great­est real­i­sa­tion of his sin­gu­lar water-and-ink style. As with Where is Mama, Te’s choice of sub­ject mat­ter chimes per­fect­ly with his flu­id ani­ma­tion. Notably, he also inten­tion­al­ly leaves the hand of the artist on full dis­play, so imper­fec­tions such as smudges or slight­ly rough brush­strokes become part of the film’s texture.

Direct­ed by Wan Laim­ing and Tang Chen, the studio’s big cel-ani­mat­ed fea­ture Mon­key King: Hav­oc in Heav­en is less con­cep­tu­al­ly excit­ing. Like so many ani­mat­ed works (Drag­on Ball, The God of High School, Digi­mon; the list goes on) its char­ac­ters and themes are lift­ed from the clas­sic 16^th cen­tu­ry Chi­nese nov­el ​‘Jour­ney to the West’. But it is also emblem­at­ic of the diverse art direc­tion evi­dent across the studio’s out­put, adopt­ing fea­tures from Chi­nese stage art in its art direc­tion and rhyth­mic action sequences. It’s a lit­tle more lav­ish and grandiose than the oth­er shorts, full of bright yet soft colours and swirling patterns.

Just as it’s hard to pin down the exact inspi­ra­tions for Mon­key King: Hav­oc in Heav­en, the sheer breadth of Shang­hai Ani­ma­tion Film Studio’s influ­ences makes it hard to iden­ti­fy a house style beyond a shared affin­i­ty for tra­di­tion­al folk­lore and nation­al art. And that’s pre­cise­ly what makes the studio’s fil­mog­ra­phy, and the chance to see it now in its restored glo­ry, so thrilling.

The Shang­hai Ani­ma­tion Stu­dio Ret­ro­spec­tive can be viewed as part of Chi­nese Cin­e­ma Sea­son at chi​ne​se​film​.uk in asso­ci­a­tion with Trin­i­ty CineAsia