‘White Snake’: Seeding the Future of Chinese Animation in the East and West1 min read
Reading Time: < 1 minuteThe White Snake legend is one of the Four Great Chinese Folk Tales, shape-shifting into abundant texts, operas, movies, and television across China ever since it was published during the Ming Dynasty (1368 to 1644).
While the tale is not eminent in Western pop culture, the 2019 computer-generated film White Snake may introduce the tale to Western eyes in its own style. Not that the fourth feature of the Beijing-based Light Chaser Animation Studio, teaming up with Warner Bros, adapts the tale itself; instead, it tells an imagined prequel with standalone qualities.
White Snake has paid off in China as a box office success, earning 447 million CNY ($65 million). It played in competition at the Annecy International Animated Film Festival last month. White Snake is now the first Chinese-acquisition for GKIDS, an indie animation distributor known to release Studio Ghibli pictures, and it will receive a wider North American release as well as dubbing.
Photo credit: Slashfilm
