Princess Iron Fan (1941 film)
Princess Iron Fan (simplified Chinese: 铁扇公主; traditional Chinese: 鐵扇公主; pinyin: Tiě shàn gōngzhǔ), is the first Chinese animated feature film. The film is based on an episode of the 16th century novel Journey to the West. It was directed in Shanghai under difficult conditions in the thick of World War II by Wan Guchan and Wan Laiming (the Wan brothers) and was released on January 1, 1941.
| Princess Iron Fan | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Directed by | Wan Guchan Wan Laiming |
| Produced by | Wan Guchan Wan Laiming |
| Distributed by | Cinema Epoch |
Release date | 19 November 1941 (China) |
Running time | 73 min |
| Country | China |
Plot
The story was liberally adapted from a short sequence in the popular Chinese novel Journey to the West. Princess Iron Fan is a main character.
Specifically, the film focused on the duel between the Monkey King and a vengeful princess, whose fan is desperately needed to quench the flames that surround a peasant village.
Creators
| English Production | Original Version | Crew | Romanized |
|---|---|---|---|
| Producer | 監製 | Shankun Zhang | 張善琨 |
| Screenwriter | 編劇 | Wang Gan-Bai | 王乾白 |
| Consultant | 顧問 | Chen Yiqing | 陳翼青 |
| Recording | 錄音 | Liu En-Ze | 劉恩澤 |
| Music Conductor | 音樂指揮 | Huang Yi-Jun | 黃貽鈞 |
| Music Consultant | 音樂顧問 | Zhang Zheng-Fan | 章正凡 |
| Composer | 作曲 | Lu Zhongren | 陸仲任 |
| Effects | 效果 | Chen Zhong | 陳中 |
| Editing | 剪輯 | Wang Jin-Yi | 王金義 |
| Printing | 洗印 | Xu Hexiang Lin Xiangfu Chen Xinyu |
許荷香 林祥富 陳鑫甫 |
| Design | 設計 | Qi-Bin Chen Fei Ba-Yi |
陳啟發 費伯夷 |
| Photography | 攝影 | Liu Guang-Xing Chen Zheng-Fa Shi Feng-Qi Zhou Jia-Rang Sun Fei-Xia |
劉廣興 陳正發 石鳳岐 周家讓 孫緋霞 |
| Background | 背景 | Chen Fangqian Cao Xu Tang Tao Fan Manyun |
陳方千 曹旭 唐濤 范曼雲 |
| Drafting | 繪稿 | Yu Yiru Li Yi Liu Wenzhao Wu Guang Yin Fusheng Chen Jintao Xie Minyan Liu Yufei Zhao Fengshi Zhu Yong Liu Yimeng Shen Yiming Hu Sixiao Guo Ruisheng Wu Hao Jin Fangbin Cao Zhong Zhang Danian |
羽翼如 李毅 劉文頡 吳光 殷復生 陳錦濤 謝敏燕 劉嗔非 趙逢時 朱湧 劉軼蒙 沈叩鳴 胡斯孝 郭瑞生 吳焱 金方斌 曹忠 張大年 |
| Painted Lines | 繪線 | Chen Min Wu Minfa Sun Xiupaig Yu Wenwang Wu Yueting Huang Zhenwen Lu Zhongbai Dai Jue Ye Lingyun Zhang Liangqin Sun Song Guo Hengyi Yuan Yongqing Shen Ruihe Chen Jinfan Zhang Jutang Fang Pinying Yu Zupeng Sheng Liangxian Shen Zhongxia Tang Bingde Lu Guangyi Zhang Tan Zhu Shunlin Ding Douguang Shi Fikang Zhao Shengyu Qin Qixian Yang Jinxin Feng Bofu |
陳民 吴民發 孫修平 俞文望 吳悅庭 黃振文 陸仲柏 戴覺 葉凌雲 章亮欽 孫松 郭恆義 袁永慶 沈瑞鶴 陳錦範 張菊堂 方品英 俞祖鵬 盛亮賢 沈忠俠 唐秉德 陸光儀 張談 朱順麟 丁竇光 石發康 趙盛哉 欽其賢 楊錦新 馮伯富 |
| Color | 者色 | Yuan Huimin Weng Huanbo Ge Yongliang Wang Zengting Wang Congzhou Quan Han Lin Kezhen Li Shifen Yan Longnian Yuan Yuyao Yuan Zichuan Xu Huifen Zou Guiying Xu Weilan Chen Huiying Cai Yongfa Dai Keshu Dai Kehui Luo Wei |
袁慧敏 翁煥伯 戈永良 王增庭 王從周 全漢 林可珍 李世芬 宓龍年 袁玉瑤 袁子傳 許惠芬 鄒桂英 許蕙蘭 陳慧英 蔡永發 戴克淑 戴克惠 羅粽 |
| Main Picture | 主繪 | Wan Guchan Wan Laiming |
萬古蟾 萬籟鳴 |
Background
The Wan family twins Wan Laiming and Wan Guchan with their brothers Wan Chaochen and Wan Dihuan were the first animators in China. After the release of their first "real" cartoon, Uproar in the Studio (1926), they continued to dominate China's animation industry for the next several decades. In the late 1930s, with Shanghai under Japanese occupation, they began work on China's first feature-length animated film. In 1939 the Wan brothers saw Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and set the standard in attempting to create a film of equal quality for the nation's honor.
The film took three years, 237 artists and 350,000 yuan to make. Although Disney and Fleischer influence is apparent in much of the animation, there is also a distinct Chinese flavor in the film - a flavor that would grow much stronger with the Wan brothers' subsequent films in the following decades. Rotoscoping was used extensively to save money, and the eyes of the live actors are often visible in the faces of the animated characters.
By 1940 the film would render past 20,000 frames, using up more than 200 thousand pieces of paper (400ream＝500×400). They shot over 18,000 ft (5,500 m) of footage. And the final piece would contain 7,600 ft (2,300 m) of footage which can be shown in 80 minutes. The Wan brothers also invited the following actors and actresses for sound dubbing (白虹),(严月玲),(姜明),(韩兰根),(殷秀岑). At the time they were at the Xinhua Film Company animation department since it was the only remaining production company left during the period of the Japanese occupation. The manager of the company who help financed the film was Zhang Shankun.
Princess Iron Fan became the first animated feature film to be made in China and the 12th worldwide (although it is only the 9th that still survives, as the films of Argentina's animation pioneer Quirino Cristiani are thought to be lost). Upon completion the film was screened by the Chinese union film company.
Influence
Its influences were far-reaching; it was swiftly exported to wartime Japan (in 1942), inspiring the 16-year-old Osamu Tezuka to become a comics artist and prompting the Japanese Navy to commission Japan's own first feature-length animated film, 1945's Momotaro's Divine Sea Warriors (the earlier film Momotaro's Sea Eagles is three minutes shy of being feature-length).[1]
See also
- History of Animation
- History of Chinese Animation
- Chinese Animation
- List of animated feature films
- List of films in the public domain in the United States
References
- Du, Daisy Yan (2012). "A Wartime Romance: Princess Iron Fan and the Chinese Connection in Early Japanese Animation," in On the Move: The Trans/national Animated Film in 1940s-1970s China, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2012. University of Wisconsin-Madison.
- Jonathan Clements. (2002). "Chinese Animation". Nickelodeon Magazine.
- Travel Channel China. (2004). "Extensive Info on Wan Brothers". Tieshangongzhu first-length cartoon.
- Daisy Yan Du. (2012). "A Wartime Romance: Princess Iron Fan and the Chinese Connection in Early Japanese Animation," in On the Move: The Trans/national Animated Film in 1940s-1970s China. University of Wisconsin-Madison, 15-60.
External links
- Princess Iron Fan on IMDb
- Princess Iron Fan is available for free download at the Internet Archive
- Princess Iron Fan is available for free download at the Internet Archive (another version)
- Completed English subtitles for the film
- A few stills from the movie