The promotional material of The Legend of Hei Photo: IC

Domestic animation film The Legend of Hei earned 205 million yuan ($28.97million) on Saturday after debuting on September 7, catching up with the total box office performance of Toy Story 4 on the Chinese mainland. 

It tells the story of how goblin cat Xiaohei lost his home because of damage wreaked to the environment by man. Xiaohei played a key role in two groups' rival on the treatment to the balance of human society and goblin world. 

Xiaohei is the hero of flash web animation series The Legend of Luo Xiaohei, which initially appeared on Chinese video sharing platform Bilibili in 2011 and keeps uploading in the following years. Although each episode lasts for about five minutes and normally takes months to be released, the hero has turned into a popular IP on the site in attracting over 2.5 million fans and being played over 120 million times. 

The post-80s generation director MTJJ told the media that the feature film doesn't just meet the fans' taste and is the prelude of the web series to avoid the background bias to the audience. Having a score of 8.3 out of 10 on Chinese media review site Douban, the film has been received well. 

Domestic animation film market

There are occasionally outstanding domestic animation films releasing in recent years, such as Monkey King: Hero is Back in 2015, Big Fish and Begonia in 2016 and White Snake in 2019.

Ne Zha made a history in ranking the second place in the Chinese mainland box office list of all the time on August 31, surpassing Chinese sci-fi film The Wandering Earth. Some netizens even commented that this year isn't the first year of an era for Chinese sci-fi as previously circling on social media when The Wandering Earth was screening but for Chinese animation.

When Ne Zha became the highest earning animation in Chinese mainland market, Wang Changtian, the CEO of Enlight Media, the distribution company for Ne Zha posted on his Sina Weibo account on August 2 that the success of Ne Zha is a big step on the progress of domestic animation but still the start-up moving. 

He has reasons for saying so. The box office blockbusters in Chinese mainland are mainly imported films. The second to forth places on the best earning animation Chinese dox office list of all the time, Zootopia, Coco and Despicable Me 3, were all produced by American studios, leaving the US-China cooperated Kung Fu Panda 3 the fifth place. 

Among the domestic animation films, the ones targeting child audiences and released spanning over Spring Festival are more likely to make profits in Chinese mainland box offices, such as the Bonnie Bears feature series and Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf feature series. The well reviewed original domestic animation that seeks to attract audiences of all ages with distinguished styles like Da Hu Fa and Have a Nice Day, didn't make a splash in theaters.    

Chinese animation story telling

Although The Legend of Hei isn't a blockbuster either, one merit of it is to have differentiated itself from other major Chinese animations suitable for all age or adult audiences in constructing a story frame based on an innovative IP. 

Many domestic animations rely on Chinese folk tales and myths for inspiration. For example, Monkey King is the undefeatable disciple to escort the monk Tang Sanzang in Journey to the West, Ne Zha appears as a renown religious figure in both Buddhism and Taoism. White Snake is the heroine in one of the most famous Chinese folk love stories. Chinese audience have already been familiar with the characters. The rich imagination of the plot details in depicting fully folded roles is conducive for Chinese animators to creating the storylines.

At the end of Ne Zha, the film indicates more feature films based on Chinese myths will come out, including Jiang Ziya, a historical politician and militant who has been adapted into fictional stories. Wang even responded to develop a whole Chinese myth universe to learn from and combat Marvel universe.

Influences and communication 

US and Japanese studios are the pioneers of the industry and have inevitable influences on Chinese animations. Some creative Chinese animators were first attracted by the engaging American and Japanese animations and turn their hobbies into professions. The director MTJJ is one of them. 

The Legend of Hei was influenced greatly by Japanese animation. Its healing style, the topics, and framework construction based on characters' inner superpower can be traced to the works of Hayao Miyazaki and the phenomenal series Naruto. It is set to be screened in Japan for one week from Friday.     

Wang previously expressed hope that Ne Zha could break through the overseas Chinese audiences and attract more foreign viewers during its international release. It's a difficult task and the actual meaning of having domestic animations screened worldwide is more about getting heard and for the sake of communication than winning recognition or earning profits. 


Newspaper headline: Development exploration