By Tze-yue G. Hu
Both books are authored by Olga Bobrowska, a Polish animated film scholar, professor and festival director. Published consecutively in 2023 and 2024, the publications reflect her passion and interest in animation studies and how we may bring perspectives of “cultural studies, political science and sociology” into a somewhat marginal “niche” subdivision of film studies. The matter of her focus is unique; it is not the commercial kind of Hollywood animation nor the ubiquitous Japanese anime per se but the opposite Other where its artistic, ideological, nationalistic and cultural values take precedence over its creation and production. The singular choice is Chinese animation. Bobrowska dwells into the subject studying its development from the 1940s to the 1980s.
The author’s first book, Chinese Animated Film and Ideology, 1940s-1970s Fighting Puppets is based on her PhD work where she researched Chinese animation as a subject of Chinese cultural history. Four puppet films made in the period of 1947-1973 were selected to chart her analysis: The Emperor’s Dream (Huangdi meng, 1947), Wanderings of Sanmao (Sanmao liulang ji, 1958), The Rooster Crows at Midnight (Banye ji jiao, 1964) and The Little 8th Route Army (Xiao balu, 1973).
The second book, Chinese Animated Film and Ideology: Tradition, Innovation and Interculturality is a continuation of her work on Chinese animation where the concept of minzu (national) and the distinctive Chinese animated art form shuimo donghua (wash-and-ink painting animation) are analyzed further in the periods of the political upheavals and reforms including the opening up of China from the late 1970s onwards, and the international exhibitions of Chinese animated films in the post-colonial period particularly with European (Western and Eastern) interest and support.
The sources of the research are fundamentally secondary relying mainly on English-language published works, occasional Chinese writings, some European language publications and original archival materials. The former is extensive as the citations show the already scholarly contributions of pioneer and recent researchers of Chinese animation and comics; they include the works of Marie-Claire Quiquemelle, Chris Berry, John A. Lent, Rolf Giesen, John A. Crespi, Wu Weihua, Sean MacDonald and Daisy Yan Du. Writings of American animator David Ehrlich and Japanese comic critic Kosei Ono are also cited. The European-language references are noteworthy especially when Bobrowska covered the animation festivals of Annecy (France) and Animfest (Zagreb) where Chinese animated films began to be noticeably shown in the West and a small handful of Chinese animators were invited to grace the events.
For such a prolonged research project resulting in two academic book publications, however, it appeared that there wasn’t any primary research conducted in Chinese. For example, the reader anticipated some face-to-face interviews whereby specific, original and fresh information might be collected, shared and analyzed. As the author wrote in one of the publications (2023: 31) praising the endeavors of a predecessor research couple John. A. Lent and Xu Ying particularly their interview-interviewee approach in extracting the “personal, individual life stories of the animators,” the study would have become more interesting and exciting if she had applied the field research method of conducting discussions and conversations with the Chinese animators per se — reaching out to the late animators’ families, friends, ex-colleagues or the Shanghai Animation Film Studio (SAFS) for any information they could assist with or give. Moreover, both publications showed exclusive selections of certain Chinese animators and animated works that she had chosen to focus on.
Nevertheless, Bobrowska is spot-on in stating that Chinese animated films only began to open up internationally in the 1980s and the Europeans were instrumental in making it happen as prior to that even overseas Chinese communities hardly had the chance to view such minzu art films. Growing up in Singapore, I remember that mainland Chinese Communist-made films were only gradually made available in the island-city from the mid-1970s onwards after President Richard Nixon’s historic visit to China in 1972. However, they were only shown in selected small commercial cinemas regarded as a kind of art-house exhibition and “foreign-content” Chinese-language cultural entertainment.[i] Such limited film screenings did not include any animated films as they were mainly live-action and documentary films.
It was only somewhere in the early 1980s that pirated video clip recordings of SAFS’s animated films began to circulate in the region. Among them were the exquisite wash-and-ink painting animation Where Is Mama (Xiao kedou zhao mama, 1960), the operatic Havoc in Heaven (Danao tiangong, 1961-4) and the later Nezha Conquers the Dragon King (Nezha naohai, 1979). Interestingly, at times, the animations were not shown in full as the video tape recordings included Western soft-porn films making the collection odd, ironical and intriguing. It is not the aim of this book review to discuss at length the consequences of the initial Chinese animated film exhibitions in Europe then. Essentially, Bobrowska’s focus is on the nationalistic concept of minzu and at times, the meishu (artistic) elements of Chinese animation, including the educational value that the Chinese Communist government has stipulated the medium should contain. In addition, the practical-socialist ideological values of making donghua (“moving pictures”, animation) are asserted as well. Undoubtedly, the rather separateness and elitism of the genre directly attract our attention and thus, the author’s research work further enlightens us the historical-cultural development of Chinese animation in the later part of the 20th century.
Even till today, a number of pre-war, wartime and postwar China-made animated films whether produced by the SAFS or not, are yet to be easily accessed on the internet (even in the local mainland Chinese side) or to be fully exhibited in some retrospective events. Among them is the animated puppet film The Emperor’s Dream. Therefore, Bobrowska’s analysis of the film’s production and its political background is timely and serves as one of the highlights of her study. The reviewer like many other foreign researchers and possibly a majority of mainland Chinese counterparts as well, only got to see a short version of the film at the Inaugural Conference of the Association for Chinese Animation Studies Zoom Webinar organized by the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (March- May 2021) with strict permission from the China Film Archive in Beijing. Bobrowska highlighted an observation that the director is Chen Bo’er who was not only a pioneer female film theoretician in China but an activist film feminist too (2023: 62, 74-5).[ii] Her critical writings existed decades before Laura Mulvey’s ground-breaking discussion of the problematic “male gaze” in film-making and the overall industry.
However, given the scope and obvious in-depth effort of Bobrowska’s research, one would expect at least a mere presentation of a chronological table of animated films made in China, minimally the significant animations that dotted the growth, turning point(s) and significant chapters of Chinese animation, and the critical parallel-concurrent political-social developments in Chinese history and current affairs. After all, the books’ focus was on the over-arching ideological impetuses of animation-making where collective and artistic thoughts both drove the creative process; diacritical and polemical as it might be, the readers could be further informed about the volume and breath of Chinese animation and the political-social background that sprouted the production work. Furthermore, readers would be able to compare, survey and trace the timeline of the cultural and narrative positions of the puppet animated films in the overall framework of the Chinese animated films made, which tended to be overshadowed by the grandly promoted shuimo donghua genre nationalistically.
The second publication is a continual extensive study of the socialist environment and its influences on the creative output of Chinese animation, as China opened up its economy globally. In contrast to the first one, it is disappointing to find that it did not include a glossary of Chinese terms and names. Moreover, both publications also grossly left out the lists of animated works cited, which are vital for serious readers and scholars for inter-referencing, cross-reading, future research purposes and so on. It also indicates that perhaps the publications are meant for postgraduate reference and above, or for those who have already obtained a considerable knowledge of Chinese animation history.
It is a pity that the lists are excluded as the author’s study reflects on her sharp-eyed selections of less mentioned animated works for interpretation and inquiry. For example, many older overseas born Chinese might be familiar with the Sanmao comics before, during and after the World War II period where various Chinese media works were still exported abroad; many were unaware that eventually it was adapted into an animated film in 1958, nor have they likely seen it till today. Animations discussed in her second publication not only included the internationally well-known Te Wei’s works like The Oxherd’s Flute (Mudi aka Cowherd’s Flute, 1963) and Feelings from Mountains and Water (Shan shui qing, 1988) but also other animated films less prominently exhibited or discussed, for example, The Orchid Flower (Lan hua hua, 1989), Deer of Nine Colors (Jiuse lu, 1981), Butterfly Springs (Hudie quan, 1983) and other less-known works of another notable SAFS’s animator-director A Da,[iii] in particular Super Soap (Chaoji feizao, 1986) and The New Doorbell (Xinchuang de menling, 1986) and that of his colleagues’ works, Tall Woman and Short Husband (Gao nüren he aizhangfu, 1989) by Hu Yihong and 12 Mosquitoes, 5 Men (Shierzhi wezi he wuge ren, 1992) by Ma Kexuan etc.
The author is also sensitively observant in pointing out and recognizing the hidden and unhidden brutalities, cruelties and violence featured in some of the animated films. For example, she identifies that at best, Wanderings of Sanmao portrayed an animated story “that speak up for the oppressed” whereas the original comic book did contain graphic stories that brutally depicted “Sanmao’s bayonet charges or tearing the enemies to shreds with grenades” (2023: 83, 85). The Little 8th Route Army on the other hand, is an almost replication and celebration of the Red Guards that had caused much terror, damage and death during the Cultural Revolution period. This supposedly children animated film yet featured vicious attacks and killings of the enemy as if such “disturbing” imagery is totally “pleasing” and “entertaining” for anyone to watch (2023: 150).
The later SAFS’s animated short films made in the 1980s by Hu Jinqing were also mentioned in her work: Snipe-Clam Grapple (Yu bang xiang zheng, 1983), The Straw Man (Cao ren, 1985) and Cockfight (Douji, 1988) – as Bobrowska has perceived, the charming rustic calm natural background is a facade for “destructive and disturbing forces” that lurked within and around. Hu’s later co-directed work, Snow Fox (Xuehu,1998), though not covered in her analysis, persisted to show the astute optical-camera storytelling position of the director that in spite of the beautiful portrayal of nature as represented by the innocent adorable-looking snow fox and the natural carefree environment it lives in, its young life is short-lived as the human kind harbors the dark side to be obsessed, take advantage of others, compete, claim victory, possess, destroy and kill.
Indeed, Bobrowska examined the circumstances of the changing and transforming contexts of Chinese animation and thus, the new experimental expressions that resulted. She speculated that inter-cultural exchanges and external visits of Chinese animators abroad, particularly to Europe, might have contributed to the “modernism” and “reforming” practice of some Chinese animators. She also touched on the phenomenon of “consumerism” which the above-mentioned animator-directors were concerned with and “a fast-changing world” that China had become, at least in the eyes of these veteran auteurs (2024: 156) in the last two decades of the 20th century.
In reality, embracing capitalism and the drive to make commercial animated productions were upmost in the minds of many young Chinese animators and even some veteran animators as well. The ideological turn of Chinese animation has been complex; in fact, interculturality and innovation are a progressive mixed bag of monetary exchange, acquisition of Western computer machines and skills, and the quest to obtain, design and produce exorbitant multi-million media projects unheard of in the founding days of SAFS.
Another comment is that perhaps, the publisher had wanted to make the publications as concise and compact as possible; hence, illustrations of Chinese animation and its related sample visuals and graphics are totally omitted or deemed unnecessary. The reader has to constantly refer to the internet or cross reference to other publications and sources in order to have a pictorial register or (re)acquaintance of the visuals of the animated films that Bobrowska discussed at length in both of her works.
One is introduced to a new word, “animasophic” which the author very briefly brought up when she referenced Estonian animator and film director Ülo Pikkov’s theoretical writings on animation studies.[iv] In summary, despite the shortcomings raised in this review, the two publications should be useful additions to any reference library. All the more, the author’s East European perspectives are exceptional; for the study of the “Other” begins with understanding the “subjectivities” concerned. Bobrowska’s insights do provide valuable analysis to various aspects of Chinese animated films made in that era thereby contributing to the growing academic research in the field of Chinese animation studies as a whole.
[i] Till today, due to the nation-building process although more than seventy-five percent of Singapore’s population is Chinese, the country’s official language is English and the Chinese language is taught in schools as one of the secondary languages — the others being Malay and Tamil.
[ii] The film was animated by Mochinaga Tadahito who taught the Chinese revolutionary artists how to make puppet animated films.
[iii] A Da’s most well-known animated short film is Three Monks (Sange heshang, 1980).
[iv] This theoretical term is only mentioned in the “Final Notes” of the second book (p.165) though Ülo Pikkov’s name was already mentioned in one of the footnotes in the author’s first book. Its definition is not clearly written in the publications. Bobrowska’s research approach suggests the idea that the creating and interpreting of animation involves the understanding of politics, history and culture which is “a domain of Central-East European researchers” (2023:48).
Bio:
Tze-yue G. Hu, Ph.D is an independent scholar and author of several book publications (see her website). The comparative development of Chinese and Japanese animations is partly covered in her work, Frames of Anime: Culture and Image-Building (HKUP, 2010). Her published essay on the Daoist’s elements of Te Wei’s Cowherd’s Flute is found in her co-authored volume, Animating the Spirited: Journeys and Transformations (UPM, 2020). She had also partly presented A Da’s Three Monks at the Asia Animation Forum 2015 organized by the 17th Bucheon International Animation Festival 2015 and later, at the 28th Society for Animation Studies Annual Conference 2016 in the organized panel, “Interactions of Buddhism: Art and Animation”. Her focus was on the Buddhistic aspects of A Da’s animated story. Her forthcoming monograph is Hong Kong Animated Screen: Comics, 3-D Images and the Xia Genre and is being peer-reviewed by a university press.
