Batman and Robin of Shanghai animation heading for the big time
Two Chinese artists who make up Wolf Smoke Studio are working on their first full-length feature film, Kung Fu Cooking Girls, after making several well-regarded original short films
There are few partnerships as ingrained in global pop culture lore as Batman and Robin. Their shared vision, mutual trust and complementary skills set make them a highly successful team - the Dynamic Duo.
The partnership of Cloud Yang Hancheng and Clover Xie Xianhui shares similar traits, and that has allowed the Chinese artists to work together to take Batman and Robin off the streets of Gotham City and into the heart of the Bund district in Shanghai.
Yang and Xie are the founders and main staff of Wolf Smoke Studio, a small animation house in Shanghai that's been producing unique - and, by Chinese standards, high-quality - animation. In the studio's eight-year history, they've created several well-received original shorts, but it's their 2012 work Batman of Shanghai - featuring reimagined, oriental versions of the superhero in 1920s Shanghai - that's attracted the most attention and given them their current opportunity: creating their first full-length animated feature.
Yang and Xie are somewhat of an odd pairing. At first glance, they don't look like they have much in common. Yang, 34, grew up with, in his words, "very common blue-collar folks" and didn't set out to be an artist - he stumbled into the industry in 2000 while working as a lifeguard.
"I wasn't doing much with my life at the time, and one day I bumped into an old school friend," Yang recalls. "I think he felt sorry for me, so he suggested I work at this studio he was working in."
Yang knew next to nothing about the industry at the time, but took the advice and began as a low-level production worker at the now-defunct studio.