A poster of "Monkey King: Hero is Back". （Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn）
In recent weeks, Chinese animation fans have been stunned by the the new movie "Monkey King: Hero is Back", based on the legendary Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) novel Journey to the West.
Although the screening rate of this movie in Chinese cinemas is only 9.17 percent on average when it debuted, it quickly took China's social media by storm with its excellent reviews and attracted more people who flocked to cinemas to discover its charm.
According to box office data through July 29, it had raked in 705 million yuan (about $113.6 million), snatching the spot of the highest grossing animated film in Chinese cinemas, formerly held by "Kung Fu Panda 2".
The "monkey" not only captured the nation's attention with its high visual quality and sincerity, but also won praise from Andrew Mason, producer of Hollywood blockbuster "The Matrix", during the 2015 Cannes International Film Festival.
"There is no involvement of a Hollywood team? According to my understanding of the industry, the cost of such a film will not be less than $100 million," he said after watching the movie.
In fact, Tian Xiaopeng, the movie's director, and his team finished their work on a budget of only $10 million in eight years. In the exclusive interview with chinadaily.com.cn, he said that they couldn't afford the cost association with a Hollywood 3D animated film, so they had to find their own edge.
"We lack experience and mature technology. So the biggest difficulty for me is to compete with myself. At the beginning, almost for every single frame, we needed repeated modification and discussion. During the whole production, I'm struggling with the imperfections, trying to make everything better. We put in our time and mental and physical efforts to remedy the shortcomings of our technology," Tian said.
Tian admitted that he made a movie that's a traditional Chinese story with a classic Hollywood structure. "For me, the Hollywood style is to tell a simple story with the most abundant details. We did follow such a way to make our movie. To some degree, the kernel of our story is a little bit Hollywood-style: with inspiration from a child, a sorehead, middle-age guy found his true self and became a hero again," he said.
He thought that the only way to compete with Hollywood is to find a connection on cultural and emotional levels. He tried to tell the story in a Chinese way, using traditional philosophy and aesthetics to explain the world in Chinese people's eyes.
"Chinese people are willing to release their emotions slowly rather than express them directly. When a Chinese feels happy, he normally will not dance with joy like Westerners. Even as a child, the liveliness of an American child is totally different from a Chinese child. In the main, we are more introverted. In our design, the monkey king doesn't speak that much, but he is emotional," Tian explained.
