Iwa ni Hana

Introducing Chinese "ink-painting animation (水墨动画)"

I just discovered a whole sub-genre of Chinese animation known as "ink-painting animation" (水墨动画). Essentially they are animation which are inspired by Chinese traditional ink painting. As usual, I think it best to let the video clips speak for themselves:

The Brush (绝笔)

This 3D video is only 2:21 minutes long, but it builds up to a splendid stylistic flourish between 1:45 - 1:50 which I strongly encourage you all to see. There is a wonderful conception of a story behind it as well (which we can discuss once you have seen it, behind a spoiler curtain.)

Lotus (荷)

Have you ever seen splashes of ink sinking and melting into a pool of water being animated? You have to appreciate the technical challenge of it if nothing else. Of course, the expression of classical Chinese aesthetic sensibility is an added bonus in this video clip. It feels like a simulation of what it would be like for one to be inside a traditional Chinese painting.   

The Peony Pavilion (牡丹亭)

Probably inspired by the Peking opera of the same name. Some creative camera work. I like the sparse colouring and the sense of empty space in Chinese aesthetics, or ji bai dong hei 计白当黑 which I wrote about here.

Shan Shui Qing (山水情)

This one is the longest in duration (19 minutes). If nothing else, it's a creative exercise which shows what it would be like if people and objects in a traditional Chinese painting could move. Press "play" and see what you make of it.

PRC Animation: 'The Legend of Shangri-la (桃花源记)'

Here is yet another animation project from the PRC I discovered this year that coloured me impressed - stylish integration of traditional ink painting and puppet play, great aesthetic sense of color coordination. I think I will let the video speak for itself.

I am an art direction nut. I am. This is just the sort of thing that makes my heart skip a beat.

'Talk (聊天)' directed by the PRC animator Meng Jun (孟军)

I just saw this 10-minute award-winner directed by the PRC animator Meng Jung and was utterly floored by the Kon Satoshi-style crazy storyboarding in the first half and the 2nd Life-like lyricism of the second half.

Seriously, the storyboarding and the mastery of continuity in the wild chase/flight in the first half is something that would not have been out of place in a Kon Satoshi film. I have no technical terms to describe it - it is just the sort of thing that I reckon a discerning animation fan like the blogger at AniPages Daily would immediately appreciate (he is my gold standard for judging excellence of the technical aspect of animation). Every frame just screams of invigorating dynamism and the viewer is kept on the edge from frame to frame.

The second half is slow in tempo, but develops the story and the main character. The story is more like a narrative blended with fantasy set against the background of the Seventies in China, in which a young man dreams of creative expression with his camera and the girl he loves next door. The whole animation feels like an ode to a bygone time.

There are some interesting touches to the story: The girl next door never shows her face. Perhaps she is not a real person but is an abstract metaphor for the youthful days the protagonist looks back in yearning for. The protagonist's father steals her picture away from him when he makes the protagonist do his homework, but gives it back to him in the end. Underneath her picture is written 'run for tomorrow'. There is something bittersweet about that.

I cannot seem to find any DVD release of it, but a Chinese blog posted the video here.

Taiwanese animation 'A Fish with a Smile (微笑的鱼)': A Tale of Urban Loneliness

While the Taiwanese illustrator Jimmy (幾米) is a unique topic in himself, I would like to focus on quickly introducing a 10-minute animation based on one of his illustration books called A Fish with a Smile (微笑的鱼) in this post.

The story goes like this: A man living in a city sees a fish from a pet shop that keeps smiling at him - a fish that smiles at him during daytime, night time, shiny days and rainy days. He wants to own the smiling fish and he ends up taking it home from the shop. When he eats, the fish smiles at him, When he watches TV late at night, the fish smiles at him. When he showers, the fish smiles at him. To him, the smiling fish is as faithful as a dog, as tender as a cat and as passionate as a lover. At night, he kisses the smiling fish goodnight.

That night, he dreams that the smiling fish has flown out of the fish bowl, emitting a green light. He follows the smiling fish as it flies through a sleeping city. He wonders if everyone in the city is asleep and if they are having good dreams. The smiling fish leads him to a bridge where he stops to gaze at the moon - then he realizes that he has not gazed at the moon for a long time and that he has forgotten how to make a wish to the stars.

The smiling fish then leads him to a forest and he remembers a dance he used to know when he was young, and he dances a little. He also remembers that he used to play hide-and-seek with his friends, and wonders where his friends have all gone. Finally, the smiling fish leads him to the sea, where he also swims like a fish - until he realizes that he is swimming in a fish bowl...

He wakes. He realizes that he cannot keep the smiling fish any longer. He takes the fish home to the sea, where he also takes a surprising action...

The theme of urban loneliness in a modern city is a theme Jimmy revisits time and again. The amazing thing about him is that he seems to be able to combine picturesque charm with a touch of melancholy and philosophy in his works. A Fish with a Smile is just one of those obscure gems in animation that is destined to be one of its kind. The storyboarding is smooth as silk, the art direction is wonderful and the whole thing just feels like poetry. Please take my word for it and go check it out.   

DVD release of '2nd Life (茗记)' from L-Key Studio

Further to my earlier post on 2nd Life (茗记) produced by the L-Key Studio, apparently they are now releasing a DVD version of this. The details can be found on the official website here. It is priced at RMB 25, and postage cost is RMB 10 - which makes it approximately USD 5 in total. As they are an independent studio with no distribution outlet, you can only get it from the Chinese auction site Taobao.

They also mention that if they sell 10,000 copies of this, they may be able to approach investors for the financing of larger projects.

The studio quite openly interacts with viewers on online forums etc. Here is an interview in Chinese about the plans and ambitions of L-Key Studio. The gist of it is that:

• There are 9 members of the studio. Some are working full-time in other jobs.
• Their leader's motto is: They should make thought-provoking works and beautiful things, in the hope of purifying the minds of viewers.
• Commercially, they aspire to be one of the most creative and high-standard animation studio in China.

Chinese slice-of-life animation series 'Life on the Cloud (云端的日子)' (Attn: fans of 'Honey and Clover')

So I watched the Chinese slice-of-life animation series Life on the Cloud (云端的日子). The series produced by Sinodoor is shown on various Chinese portals and each episode is 10 minutes long, and I have watched up to Episode 21.

Among other places, you can find the online videos on their official website here, where you can also download the OP and ED, as well as the original soundtrack. Apparently the OP, ED and original soundtrack were produced by a music studio called The One Studio - you can watch the OP and ED videos on their website (click on the third and fourth items on the scrollbar on the right and press play). You can also go here to watch a video clip of the show itself (the first 20 sec is an ad to recruit voice talent for the show though).

From what I understand of the production history of this series, it seems that the same story appeared in Flash version previously in around 2004 (which I mentioned some time ago here). The screenshots you see  above is a remake of the same story which was released in the fall of 2007.

It seems that Honey and Clover is a great influence on this Chinese series, which is set in Chengdu (one of the cities devastated by the recent earthquake in the PRC, by the way). The story is mainly about the friendships, relationships and soul-searching of a group of college students. Much like Honey and Clover, there is a good mix of comedy with reflective observations of fleeting life and loss.

I was skeptical about this series at first but got addicted to it in no time. The animation is decent (considering the studio's relative inexperience).The music works well to convey the atmosphere. The dialogue is well-written. More importantly, there is just something about the story that makes you want to find out what happens next.

To be honest, I don't know about the background of this series as to know whether it should be classified as a 'commercial' or 'amateur' project. I hear no news of any DVD release yet. When I look at the cast credit, I realize a lot of the voice actors are obviously using nicknames (the one who plays Sam - that would be the guy with green hair - has a beautifully deep voice). My gut instinct somehow tells me that they are probably amateurs with no training voice-acting for the first time in their lives, though they do a decent job of that.

To me, the wild card about it is that it is set in Chengdu out of all places. Chengdu (though a large city in its own right) is perceived to be something of a provincial backwaters - I just find it amazing that a touch of romance is bestowed upon Chengdu in this series in that it is given the Honey and Clover rendering of Tokyo - perhaps this marks a change of attitude of Chinese people toward second-tier cities or something. Incidentally, the studio Sinodoor is also based in Chengdu.

What else can I say? Chinese animators sure are catching up fast.

More Shinkai-ish animation shorts from Chinese animators

Did I not say that budding Chinese animators have a weakness for Shinkai-ish animation? Click here to see a student project call A Story About a Girl's Life I discovered here. It has both Chinese and English subtitles.

The impact of Shinkai Makoto on the next generation of student animators in the PRC is really something to behold. Yes, it's a student project and it does have some rough edges. But the fact that even a student project comes with English subtitles is a statement of their international ambitions. I for one am looking forward to see what these young animators inspired by Shinkai will produce a few years down the road.

[Update: 15 June 2008]

Here is another example of Chinese animators taking Shinkai's animation style to heart. I just learned from AnimeSuki about 1/60．∞ - which looks to be an independent Taiwanese animation scheduled for release this year. You can watch the trailers on YouTube here and here.

I tried to Google for more info but unfortunately cannot learn more except that it is a story about a photographer. I will definitely be on the look out for more info and post them here though.

Chinese animated Flash film: 'How Long is a Minute for a Girl (女孩，你的一分钟有多长)'

Further to my earlier post about Life on the Cloud (云端的日子) from the Chinese studio Sinodoor ( 中华轩), apparently the studio also produced another 80-min animated Flash film called How Long Is a Minute for a Girl (女孩，你的一分钟有多长) back in 2005. You can see the trailer below:

The story seems to have 'borrowed' its template from Dangerous Liaisons. It is set in an art college in China. Lung, a student from a disadvantaged background who is not doing so well at school, is in his final year and wagers with his friends that he would make the prettiest girl in the faculty, Xiao Ke, his girlfriend. The other students all think she is out of his league. And that was the beginning of a bittersweet story set against larger economic and social factors in rapidly changing modern China...