Unlike Xiyou ji, Tripitaka also plays a quite central role here, being the teacher of both his disciples and the villagers, and making sure everyone gets on the right collaborative track. First, the reason for Monkey’s failure to borrow the fan is attributed to divisions among Sun Wukong, Pigsy, and Sandy second, the celestial help that Sun Wukong receives in his duel with the Bull Demon King is replaced with help from the villagers. The film revised the original story to better reflect its message about the Japanese invasion and the filmmaker’s political stance. The film made it quite obvious that the Monkey King’s victory over the Bull Demon King, a collective victory in collaboration with Pigsy (Zhu Bajie) and Sandy (Sha Seng) as well as the villagers, is the victory of the Chinese people against the Japanese invasion, thus making the theme of the film “all Chinese people must unite for victory against the Japanese invasion.” The two conflicting factions of the story, Sun Wukong versus the Bull Demon King and Princess Iron Fan, represent the two sides of the war. This story also serves well as a metaphor for the war between China and Japan. The choice of this episode enables the Wan brothers to produce an animated film with a Chinese theme in a Chinese style-a Chinese princess as a response to the American princess Snow White. The story then evolves around Monkey’s repeated yet frustrated efforts to borrow the fan, before he eventually defeats the Bull Demon King and Princess Iron Fan with the help of the other pilgrims and the local villagers. Arriving at the Flaming Mountains on their way to the Western Heaven, the pilgrims find out that they have to borrow a magic fan from Princess Iron Fan in order to put out the fire in the mountain and move on. Princess Iron Fan portrays the episode of the Flaming Mountains from Journey to the West, which features the conflict between the pilgrims and the Bull Demon King and his wife Princess Iron Fan. Made during the time of the Japanese invasion, Princess Iron Fan also has a strong didactic purpose.įigure 1: The Monkey King fleeing from the Flaming Mountains, Princess Iron Fan, 1941. Under the influence of the American animated feature film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), the characters of Journey to the West were caricatured as child-friendly figures, with Monkey bearing a remarkable resemblance to Mickey Mouse (Figure 1). Princess Iron Fan is among the earliest representations of Monkey King on screen.
These tasks continued to be crucial to Havoc in Heaven (1961, 1964) twenty years later.
In fact, Sun Wukong appears so frequently, and often at crucial and transitional moments, that the state of Sun Wukong in Chinese animation can serve as a reflection of the transformations in Chinese animation itself.Īnimation of a Chinese Style: From Princess Iron Fan to Havoc in Heaven įrom the very first feature-length animated film in China, Princess Iron Fan (1941), the task of representing Monkey King has been intertwined with the task of finding a path for Chinese animation. Animated film serves as an ideal field where the protean figure of Sun Wukong can play his game of form-changing. This theatrical tradition has influenced the image of Monkey in animation. Monkey operas are known as the specialties of famous martial sheng actors such as Yang Yuelou, Yang Xiaolou, Li Wanchun, and Li Shaochun. Although Monkey’s role was previously performed as a clown, as indicated in the Yuan dynasty zaju version of Journey to the West (z aju Xiyou ji) and the Qing dynasty imperial opera Precious Raft to a Peaceful World ( Shengping baofa), this performance in Peking Opera focuses on martial arts.
In Peking Opera, a monkey drama ( houxi) is a kind of drama that features Monkey King as an active character, brandishing his flip jumps, his cudgel-spinning skills, and monkey-faced tricks on stage. In traditional opera, Sun Wukong is not only a character but also a genre in himself. With his famous golden cudgel, his 72 transformations, and the somersault cloud, Sun Wukong is a celebrated fighter and trickster. Along the way, they come across various demons and obstacles, and Monkey is the main source of help that Tripitaka relies on to conquer them. As the protagonist of the sixteenth century classic novel Journey to the West, Sun Wukong is a disciple of the monk Tripitaka, who leads a group of people on a pilgrimage from China to the Western Heaven (today’s India) to acquire Buddhist sutras. It is no surprise that the character of Sun Wukong, better known as Monkey or the Monkey King in the West, has made so many appearances in the history of Chinese animation, given his longstanding popularity in China among children and adults alike.
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