By Thomas William Whyke The opening episode of Yao-Chinese Folktales (Season 2), titled How to Become Three Dragons (2026), arrives carrying both the weight of expectation and the conceptual continuity of its predecessor. Directed by Yang Mu, who also helmed the Season 1 episode She Wolf (2023), the short episode is a deceptively simple parable about three … Continue reading Review of How to Become Three Dragons (2026)
By Ying Zhu With a world-wide box-office of US$2,259,822,417, Ne Zha 2 (Yu Yang, 2025), a story about the mythological child-god Ne Zha, made history for Chinese animation, indeed Chinese cinema, by topping the 2025 global box-office chart.[1] The box-office victory of the film created a patriotic fervor in China, with state media touting the … Continue reading Ne Zha 2 and the Good China Story
By Thomas William Whyke, Zhennuo Song, Zhaoyu Zhu, and Yibo Fan Jiao Zi’s Nezha 2 (2025) represents a watershed moment in Chinese cinema, not merely as an animated feature film but as a cultural phenomenon that has redefined global expectations for non-Western animation. Released during the Chinese New Year 2025, the film shattered box office … Continue reading Redefining Chinese Animation: A Review of Nezha 2 (2025)
By Mihaela Mihailova Since its US release in February 2025, the Chinese computer-generated feature Ne Zha 2 (Yu Yang, aka Jiaozi, 2025) has continued to fascinate and confound the Anglophone entertainment press. Popular animation blog Cartoon Brew has been obsessively tracking the film’s impressive box office run and chronicling the various profit records it has … Continue reading Spectacular Digital Maximalism: Some Thoughts on Ne Zha 2 (2025)
By Shasha Liu Released in 1978, the animated film One Night in the Art Gallery (画廊一夜, Hualang Yiye, hereafter One Night, Fig 1) was produced by the Shanghai Animation Film Studio (SAFS) immediately following the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976). It was directed by Ah Da and Lin Wenxiao (徐景达, 1934-1987, 林文肖, 1935-), two renowned animators at … Continue reading Reconstructing Media Specificity: A Review of One Night in the Art Gallery
By Cui Zhou “The immortal’s saddle beast had the head of a unicorn, the tail of a wolf, and the body of a dragon.”[1] This passage describes a heavenly creature in ancient China—the nondescript “Four-Unalike” (sibuxiang), recorded in the canonized gods and demons fiction Creation of the Gods (Fengshen yanyi). In this novel, the nondescript … Continue reading The Nondescript: Hybridization in the Animated Feature Film The Legend of Deification (2020)
By Shaopeng Chen Historically speaking, Chinese animated films have always targeted children and ignored their entertainment appeal for adults. At the same time, the Chinese cultural authorities required animated works to be both instructive and interesting. Weihua Wu argues that animation in China is “the practice of hidden education in an appealing form,” which suggests … Continue reading Adults as Audience: A Review of The Guardian
By Rebecca Liptay and Shannon Brownlee Feelings of Mountains and Rivers (Shanshui qing, Te Wei, 1988)[1] is the last of the four analogue ink-painting animations (shuimo donghua) made at the Shanghai Animation Film Studio. All but one of these were directed or co-directed by legendary animator Te Wei,[2] and all were filmed by Duan Xiaoxuan, the … Continue reading Feelings of Mountains and Rivers: Minimalism and Monumentalism in Motion
By Olga Bobrowska “Look how nice it is to be Monkey King. No parents, no control. Just do as he will. And no shifts of WTO (World Trade Organization),” says Guo Binbin, a tragically passionless hero in Jia Zhangke’s film Unknown Pleasures (2002). Binbin is an unemployed 19-year-old who does not dare to kiss his … Continue reading The Ambiguous Superhero in Wan Laiming’s Havoc in Heaven
By Shannon Brownlee California-based Pixar Animation Studio is not, at first glance, a likely producer of Chinese animation. However, Bao (Domee Shi, 2018) proves otherwise (Fig 1).[1]As Disney and Pixar’s opening logos appear, they are accompanied – even eclipsed – by the strings of the guzheng, then pipa and erhu, playing a pentatonic theme. The … Continue reading Chinese Diasporic Life: A Review of Bao