''Lotus Lantern'' () is a Chinese animated

feature film A feature film or feature-length film is a narrative film (motion picture or "movie") with a running time long enough to be considered the principal or sole presentation in a commercial entertainment program. The term ''feature film'' originall ...

based on the Chinese fairy tale,

The Magic Lotus Lantern ''The Magic Lotus Lantern'' is a Chinese fairy tale from the Tang dynasty (618–907). Story Sanshengmu was an immortal who had fallen in love with a mortal man. Her brother, Erlang Shen, was against it but she stole a magical lotus lantern and ...

, produced by

Shanghai Animation Film Studio Shanghai Animation Film Studio () also known as SAFS () is a Chinese animation studio based in Shanghai, China, as part of the Shanghai Film Group Corporation. Shanghai Animation Film Studio was officially established in April, 1957, led by pion ...

Plot

The story is based on the traditional Chinese

folklore Folklore is shared by a particular group of people; it encompasses the traditions common to that culture, subculture or group. This includes oral traditions such as tales, legends, proverbs and jokes. They include material culture, ranging ...

about a boy named Chenxiang. His mother, Sanshengmu, is a goddess and his father, Liu Yanchang, was a mortal. Since their marriage was forbidden, his maternal uncle,

Erlang Shen Erlang Shen () or Erlang, also known as the Lord of Sichuan (), is a Chinese god with a third truth-seeing eye in the middle of his forehead. Erlang Shen may be a deified version of several semi-mythical folk heroes who helped regulate China ...

, who was a god, punishes them by killing Liu Yanchang. Sanshengmu escapes and gives birth, but Chen Xiang grows up without knowledge of his ancestry. Sanshengmu possesses a magical Lotus Lantern whose light can scare away evil. When Erlang Shen, a strict and powerful god, kidnaps Chen Xiang, Sanshengmu fights to save him. Unfortunately, Erlang Shen is victorious and Chen Xiang is forced to live in his palace on the sacred mountains. Erlang Shen then imprisons Sanshengmu beneath a mountain for her crimes. Although he is quite young, Chen Xiang manages to escape from the palace, taking the magical lotus lantern that Sanshengmu lost during the battle. After surviving adventures with many beloved characters of Chinese mythology, Chen Xiang finally matures into a courageous young man who must battle Erlang Shen to win Sanshengmu's freedom and fall in love at the same time.

Main characters

* Chenxiang: Half-god boy. His mother is a goddess and his father is a mortal. He gets through tons of adventures to win his mother's freedom from his uncle Er langshen. * Sanshengmu: Powerful Goddess who possesses a magical lotus lantern. She fell in love with a mortal and gave birth to Chenxiang. For which she is imprisoned beneath Hua Mountain. * Er langshen: Er-lang Shen may be a deified version of several semi-mythical folk heroes who help regulate China's torrential floods, dating variously from the Qin, Sui and Jin dynasties. A later Buddhist source identify him as the second son of the Northern Heavenly King Vaishravana.

Background

The production took four years and required over 150,000 animations

cel A cel, short for celluloid, is a transparent sheet on which objects are drawn or painted for traditional, hand-drawn animation. Actual celluloid (consisting of cellulose nitrate and camphor) was used during the first half of the 20th century, bu ...

s and over 2,000 painted backgrounds. It was the most popular film in China in 1999 and influenced China's animation a lot which later makes a great difference to the world

Home media

Released in 2004, it contains English- and

Japanese-language is spoken natively by about 128 million people, primarily by Japanese people and primarily in Japan, the only country where it is the national language. Japanese belongs to the Japonic or Japanese- Ryukyuan language family. There have been m ...

soundtracks A soundtrack is recorded music accompanying and synchronised to the images of a motion picture, drama, book, television program, radio program, or video game; a commercially released soundtrack album of music as featured in the soundtrack o ...

along with the original Mandarin dialogue.

References

External links