FILM (1961)

Uproar in Heaven featuring the voices of Qiu Yuefeng, Fu Runsheng, Bi Ke, Shang Hua Director: Wan Laiming

When Mickey Mouse, Bugs Bunny and Porky Pig - along with all 'American imperialist' celluloid characters - were banned from China's screens in 1950, it was hardly a case of 'that's all, folks' as far as the People's Republic's cartoonists were concerned.

Free from the commercial pressure to compete with Disney and Looney Tunes imports, and aided by a 1959 governmental directive promoting the nation's own graphic movie culture, the Shanghai Animation Film Studio embarked on its most ambitious project: a two-part feature-length fantasy featuring the mischievous monkey king, Sun Wukong (below left and right). Nearly a half-century later, his antics are a milestone in the history of world animation.

Beloved figures in the pantheon of Chinese mythology, the monkey king and fellow creatures from the ancient tale Journey to the West were no strangers to the world of entertainment, figuring prominently on the operatic stage and even motion pictures dating back to the silent era. The four Wan brothers (Laiming, Guchan, Chaochen and Dihuan), artists who established China's fledgling animated film industry in the 1920s, drew a prototype of the primate for the country's first black-and-white cartoon short, Uproar in the Gallery (1926), and first feature, Princess Iron Fan (1941).

Uproar in Heaven was a more formidable undertaking, the four brothers spending five years designing and supervising the project's 70,000 colour drawings. The result was an instant classic, a vibrant re-imagining of a familiar legend that today exhibits little evidence of its age.

The monkey king's behaviour as he matches wits and weapons with an array of gods, from child warrior Nezha (below centre) to the heavenly Jade Emperor, displays a cheekiness of spirit and irreverence to authority unlike anything in 'live' motion pictures of the time.