Jiang Ming

The first feature-length animated film made in China, produced by the Wan brothers at Shanghai's Xinhua Film Company in the middle of the Second Sino-Japanese War. Drawn with rotoscoped movement in a style openly inspired by Disney's Snow White, it adapts an episode of Journey to the West: the Monkey King and his companions are halted by the Mountain of Flames, and only the magic fan of the reluctant Princess Iron Fan can quench the fire. Made under brutal wartime conditions, the film doubled as a patriotic allegory of united resistance, and its influence reached Japan, where a young Osamu Tezuka credited it with inspiring his own career in animation. The film is in the public domain.

Animation · Fantasy · Adventure