"White Snake: Floating Life" is released, why is the Chinese style animated film so "burning"
2024-08-19
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Recently, the animated film "White Snake: Floating Life", adapted from the folk legend "The Legend of the White Snake", was released, and the box office on the first day reached 94.28 million yuan, becoming the box office champion of the Qixi Festival. This is not the only Chinese-style animated film that has received high attention. "Falling into the Mortal World", adapted from the legend of the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl, and "Erlang Shen: Deep Sea Dragon", which originated from the story of the Conferred Gods, also debuted in the summer season and gained good reputation.
China's excellent traditional culture has always been a fertile ground for animated films. Since the 1960s, Chinese animation has produced a large number of excellent works with a strong national flavor and full of oriental aesthetics, such as "Havoc in Heaven", "Nezha Conquers the Dragon King", and "The Magic Book", which have had a wide impact at home and abroad. In recent years, Chinese-style animated films have flourished again, and many phenomenal works have appeared, which is a beneficial exploration of the film industry in the innovative expression of traditional culture.
What is most striking is that, on the basis of accurately grasping the original connotation of classic works, retaining the emotional core and character relationships of the original works, the Chinese-style animated films break through the original story framework, and construct a new story that is closely related to the original work and novel and vivid with bold and rich imagination. Starting from the life situation and emotional psychology of modern people, the characters are given new image characteristics, thus completing the reinterpretation of traditional culture and giving it new contemporary connotations. For example, "White Snake: Origin" refers to Liu Zongyuan's "On the Snake Catcher", depicting the experience of the snake catcher Xu Xuan and the snake demon Xiaobai meeting and falling in love in the struggle between the human and snake factions, creating a reasonable prequel for the well-known White Snake story, and its theme has also expanded from praising love to exploring human nature. "Falling into the Mortal World" can be regarded as the sequel to the legend of the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl. It tells the adventure of the descendant of the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl, Jinfeng, who came down to earth and joined hands with his lost sister Yulu to find the stars and unravel the truth of his mother's death, conveying the warmth of family and the power of family affection, as well as the belief of never giving up in adversity. The Weaver Girl is no longer a passive character bound by love, but a brave person with the common people in her heart, reflecting the autonomy and lofty ideals of contemporary women.
The innovative expression of Chinese traditional culture in national style animated films is also reflected in the active absorption and clever use of traditional cultural symbols. Mountains, rivers, markets, folk customs, poems, songs, calendars and constellations, etc. are all organically integrated into the plot, which makes the audience feel fresh and intimate. The bronze man, acupuncture, medicine cabinet, medicine jar and other Chinese medicine elements in "White Snake: Floating Life", combined with Xu Xian's identity as a doctor, convey the profound Chinese medicine culture and the way of practicing medicine to save the world and the people. The clip of "Romance of the West Chamber" performed in Baoqingfang uses the form of play within play to combine the two classic texts of "White Snake" and "The West Chamber", which not only shows the charm of classical drama, but also implies the severe test that the love between Bai and Xu will encounter. The cultural elements and the plot are integrated. "Erlang Shen: Deep Sea Dragon" combines legends such as Erlang slaying the dragon, Wen Zhong fortune-telling, and Jiang Taigong fishing, as well as various folk symbols such as sugar paintings, dandan noodles, and stone beasts that suppress water, allowing the audience to feel the richness and diversity of Chinese folk tales and folk culture.
The innovative expression of Chinese traditional culture by Chinese-style animated films is also reflected in the use of cutting-edge technology to give cultural elements a modern and international expression. "White Snake: The Rise of the Green Snake" uses new rendering tools to show the scene of water flooding Jinshan Mountain, combining the physical properties of water with the magical fantasy of the plot setting. It not only depicts the majestic momentum of the rolling waves from a macro perspective, but also delicately reproduces the form of water splashes from a micro perspective, bringing a double visual and psychological shock. "Falling into the Mortal World" uses a number of animation technology patents to depict the elegance of the gods and the prosperity and bustle of the human world, with a strong oriental aesthetic flavor.
The upsurge of Chinese-style animated films shows that the excellent traditional Chinese culture, which has been passed down and evolved for thousands of years, still has strong vitality, and can still meet the aesthetic needs and values of contemporary people, and burst out dazzling sparks in the collision between the present and the past, the East and the West, and the elegant and the vulgar. However, the excellent traditional Chinese culture is not a panacea that works with just one patch. Despite the blessing of the excellent traditional Chinese culture and the audience's feelings, the shortcomings of this type of film are also obvious, the most prominent of which is the weakness of the script creation. Logically rigorous plots, reasonable character actions, and smooth narratives have not yet become the norm in Chinese-style animated films.
While the production level is constantly approaching the international advanced level, the innovative expression of Chinese traditional culture by Chinese-style animated films needs to pay more attention to the output of high-quality content. After all, the display of advanced visual creativity, industrial standards and distinctive "Chinese aesthetics" needs to be supported by solid stories. How to grasp the balance between respecting classics and bringing forth the new from the old, the balance between technological innovation and content creativity, break through the "technical myth" and "marketing arrogance", tell new and good stories belonging to China, and convey a highly recognizable cultural spirit, may be a question that domestic animated films need to think deeply about.
(According to China Youth Network)
