Princess Iron Fan

1941 FantasyAnimation 73 minutes Directed by Wan Laiming

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About Princess Iron Fan

Tripitaka, Sun Wukong, Zhu Bajie, and Sha Wujing are stopped by the Flaming Mountains and need Princess Iron Fan's Banana Leaf Fan. She refuses because Wukong once subdued her son, Red Boy, and she blows him away with the fan. He turns into an insect, enters her stomach, and forces her to hand it over. Her husband, the Bull Demon King, takes the fan back. Villagers help the disciples subdue him, put the fire out, and start west again.

Cast & crew

More about Princess Iron Fan

Wan Laiming and Wan Guchan returned in April 1939 to the International Settlement and the French Concession, the Solitary Island, and made the feature in the Xinhua animation department. United China Film Company distributed it. Sheng Pihua, head of Shangyuanyin, helped pay for it. The job took three years and 237 artists. It opened in China on November 19, 1941. A Shanghai run in December lasted a month and a half.

Themes

  • The Banana Leaf Fan
  • A grudge over Red Boy
  • Fire around a village
  • A demon husband
  • Journey to the West
  • Sun Wukong
  • Princess Iron Fan
  • Bull Demon King
  • Flaming Mountains
  • Shanghai animation

Background

Shanghai's foreign concessions were still outside Japanese army control in 1939, which is where the Wan brothers set up the production.

Look

Liu Guangxing, Chen Zhengfa, Zhou Jiarang, Shi Fengqi, and Sun Feixia are credited as photographers. Live-action footage was rotoscoped, and actors' eyes remain visible in the drawings.

Technique

It is the first Chinese animated feature and is counted as the first Asian animated feature. Rotoscoping, bouncing-ball lyrics, and hand-drawn color on black-and-white cels were part of the production.

Music

Lu Chongren composed the score, with Chinese folk material in it. Huang Yijun was musical director and Zhang Zhengfan musical consultant.

Notes

  • The voices include Bai Hong, Yan Yueling, Jiang Ming, Han Langen, and Yin Xiucen.
  • By 1940 the crew had drawn more than 20,000 frames on more than 200,000 sheets of paper and had shot over 18,000 feet. The finished piece is described as 7,600 feet, which can run about 80 minutes.
  • Rotoscoping was used to save money. The eyes of the live actors often show through the drawn faces.
  • Open Culture notes a 1939 screening of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs as the push, plus bouncing-ball song sequences and color drawn onto the black-and-white animation.
  • The Japanese military banned it in Japan for its wartime rhetoric. Copies still circulated there.
  • It played in Hong Kong and South Asia after the Shanghai run.

Scenes

  • Princess Iron Fan blows Sun Wukong away with the fan.
  • He becomes an insect, enters her stomach, and makes her give up the fan.
  • The Bull Demon King takes the fan back until the villagers help subdue him.

Influenced by

  • Journey to the West
  • Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)

Influenced

  • Momotarō's Sea Eagles (1943)
  • Momotarō's Divine Sea Warriors (1945)
  • Astro Boy (1963)

Also available

  • Internet Archive (princess_iron_fan)
  • Wikimedia Commons (鐵扇公主 1941.webm)