BEIJING, Oct 15: Light Chaser Animation, a leading Chinese animation production team, has just announced that it would extend the theatrical run of its annual feature “White Snake: Afloat” from Oct. 10 to Nov. 10. The animation, released on the traditional Qixi Festival, known as Chinese Valentine’s Day, on Aug. 10 this year, tells a well-known Chinese love story. Its current box office is 424 million yuan (60 million US dollars). In the animated film, Bai Suzhen, or Blanca, is a thousand-year-old white snake spirit who transformed into a beautiful young woman to repay a life-saving debt. Along with her sister Verta, the green snake, she finds and marries Xu Xian, a gentle doctor and the reincarnation of her benefactor, in Hangzhou during the Song Dynasty (960-1279). However, their brief happiness ended with the intervention of a monk named Fahai, who imprisoned the White Snake under a pagoda by the West Lake.

In despair, Xu became a monk, and their son would later grow up to become a top scholar to free his mother. Founded in 2013, Light Chaser Animation recognized the necessity of embracing traditional Chinese cultural IPs to establish and distinguish their brand. In 2016, they decided to start with the well-known legend of the White Snake. However, they told a completely new story, setting the events of the White Snake legend five hundred years earlier and recounting the poignant love story between Bai Suzhen and Xu Xian’s previous incarnation, A Xuan. This work premiered in January 2019. In July 2021, the second installment of the “White Snake” series chronicled Verta, who, overcoming numerous challenges, ventured to the modern West Lake in search of her sister. The 2024 release of “White Snake: Afloat” marks the culmination of this eight-year journey. Unlike the previous two animations, which narrated entirely new stories, this one offers a fresh perspective on the centuries-old legend to captivate the modern audience. In “White Snake: Afloat,” Hangzhou is depicted as bustling and vibrant. Details abound in the animation. Co-director Li Jiakai said the production team had purchased replicas of Song painting scrolls to study and integrate the most lifelike elements. Even the Song Dynasty dishes on the dining table were meticulously researched. Li noted that the team consulted numerous Song records and even remade the dishes from scratch. However, elements from the refined traditional culture extend far beyond these examples. In an effort to save Xu, Blanca travels to the Kunlun Mountains to gather immortal herbs. The magic incense burner used to send her off is modeled after the burner unearthed from the tomb of a Han Dynasty (202 B.C. to 220 A.D.) prince, evoking a classical Oriental fantasy.

The White Snake series has achieved international success. The 2019 release ranked the second most popular animated film of the year in Japan. Its sequel, White Snake 2, launched globally on Netflix in 10 languages, became the third most-watched foreign-language film, with over 40 million viewers worldwide. For many years, driven by a passion for Chinese history and culture, Japanese manga artist Shichimi Rou has created a series of manga works set in the Chinese history. She also watched the 2019 release of White Snake. “I was really impressed. The heroine’s black hair was as beautiful as an ink painting, and it reminded me of traditional Chinese paintings. Also, the power of the action scenes, the composition of the screen, and the color scheme are all wonderful,” she said. “I expected a tragic ending, but seeing the characters reunite on the Broken Bridge across time made me so happy,” she said, adding that she appreciates such beautiful, sad, thrilling, and gentle work. Notably, the legend of White Snake shares a deep connection with the rise of Japan’s animation industry.  (Xinhua)