Promotional material for Calabash Brothers Photo: Courtesy of Douban

Chinese animated television series: Calabash Brothers

Produced by the Shanghai Animation Film Studio, the Calabash Brothers is an animated TV series released in 1986.  

As the first Chinese paper-cut animated series, the Calabash Brothers merges the advantages of both hand-painted animation and paper-cut animation, presenting a unique visual style that appealed to the audiences.

The series tells a story about seven brothers born from different colored calabashes on Calabash Mountain. They each possess a unique power such as super-strength, invisibility or the ability to control fire. The Calabash Brothers fight against a scorpion and a snake in order to protect local villagers.  

The script for the animated series was initially called the Ten Brothers and told a story of 10 brothers with different powers who vanquish bad guys and protect the people. After reading the original script, the director of the series Hu Jinqing realized that it was impossible to bring the story to life with the budget and time they were given. 

Hu changed the 10 brothers in the script into seven siblings that look the same in order to lower production costs. He also changed several concepts in the series to further streamline production. 

However, Hu's idea for the Calabash Brothers was opposed by the leaders at the studio due to the lack of a detailed script. Fortunately, Yan Dingxian, who had just become director of the studio at that time, had strong faith in Hu and his story, and therefore the project was finally green-lit.

The character design for the Calabash Brothers was completed by Wu Yunchu, who had been collaborating with Hu for more than 10 years. Hu wanted the characters to be simple while preserving the beauty of paper-cut animation at the same time.    

Wu recalled that they always focused on the traditional Chinese style while designing the characters. Their goal was to make them distinguishable from other paper-cut characters and also different from characters in Japanese and US animated works. 

Only 13 episodes, the Calabash Brothers created unforgettable childhood memories for a generation of kids. 

It was hailed as one of the most influential works of all Chinese animations. Many sequels were later produced due to the vast popularity of the series.

Global Times