I’m currently downloading the restored version of Da nao tian gong, or Havoc in Heaven, a Chinese animated film from the early 1960s. Ordinarily I would mention this on my animation weblog, but the film is worth noting for historical reasons:
The Shanghai animation scene had gotten going in earnest in the early 1950’s, once things had settled down from WWII and the Chinese Civil War, and had gotten bigger, better, and more successful. This film was the last one made there, and it was a critical and commercial success, getting all kinds of awards.
Shortly after this film was released, the entire industry was shut down by the Cultural Revolution. It’s one of the lesser crimes of that terrible event, but a crime nonetheless. The sheer mastery of the animation form in this film offers the promise of much that might have come after, but didn’t… because it didn’t fit within Mao’s idea of how the nation should be.