SHANGHAI SOJOURN

 

Between 18-27 February, the National Film Theater at the South Bank, London will be showing a series of shorts made by the Shanghai Animation Studios.

Show schedules and ticket prices can be found here:

 BFI: SOUTHBANK SCHEDULE

There is one whose title makes it a “must-see” for me: UPROAR IN HEAVEN.

The Chinese have an acerbic sense of humor and in this tale of Ma Lao Jing (Sun Wu Kong in pingyin, the Monkey King), he disrupts the Celestials by becoming riotously drunk on immortality potions and causing mischief and mayhem at their banquet.

As a character he’s as famous as Mickey Mouse in the States, albeit his character is much more mischievous and more daring for young audiences.

The Monkey King is the protagonist in one of the four Chinese literary pillars: JOURNEY TO THE WEST, written in the 1590s during the Ming dynasty and widely attributed to Wu Chengen. In the book he agrees to accompany the Buddhist monk Xuan Zang’s pilgrimage to India to retrieve the Buddhist scriptures (sutras). His cohorts on the journey are Zhu Bajie (Pigsy) and Sha Wujing (Sandy) who are atoning for their mortal crimes.

I saw the Shanghai Animation of ‘Uproar in Heaven’ as a child and I’ve also seen the hand-painted panels depicting the Journey West in Beijing Summer Palace’s Green Corridor.