Creator / Shanghai Animation Film Studio

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Shanghai Animation Film Studio (Shànghǎi Měishù Diànyǐng Zhìpiānchǎng, 上海美术电影制片厂), also known as SAFS (Měi Yǐng Chǎng, 美影厂), is an animation studio located in Shanghai, China (duh), possessing a reputation in its home country rivalling that of Disney in the west or Studio Ghibli in Japan. If you wanna understand just how lauded they are, know that Hayao Miyazaki, yes that Hayao Miyazaki, considered them his animation idols, even once saying "It is I that have to learn from the Shanghai studio."

Although officially established in 1957 as an independent department under the Chinese Ministry of Culture, the studio traces its origins to the founding days of the People's Republic in 1950 when the communist government assigned a team of artists to study animation for the purposes of establishing a CCP-headed animation studio known as Animation Film Group (美術片組, Měishù Piàn Zǔ), which was given the mandate to produce animations that were entertaining, taught morals, and most importantly, distinctively Chinese. These pioneering animators were transferred to Shanghai the following year for greater access to better resources, and they soon made a name for themselves with early works like 1955's The Magic Brush and 1956's The Conceited General, both of which received global acclaim and were instrumental in the official founding of the studio. And while the studio started off working on films, they moved into television in 1958 with the establishment of China Central Television, where they worked on both commercials and TV shows.

With over 500 animated productions to their name (including short films, feature films, and TV series, the latter two forming most of their output since the 1990s when they switched over entirely to producing commercial animation), SAFS is considered the country's most prominent animation studio, its output covering 80% of all of Chinese animation ever made. It is particularly noted for its engagement with a wide variety of animation styles, many of which embrace traditional Chinese forms of art, including paper cutouts, inkwash painting, folded paper Stop Motion, and puppetry. Many of their works are inspired by Chinese legends and folktales while also drawing influence from traditional Peking opera, with some of these animations being considered to be among the highlights of Chinese animation as a whole. Among the most iconic examples of their work are Havoc in Heaven, Nezha Conquers the Dragon King, Calabash Brothers, Lotus Lantern, and Black Cat Detective.

The studio was briefly shut down between 1968 and 1973 as a result of the Cultural Revolution, with many of their works being banned or condemned as "anti-revolutionary" by the Red Guards. Many of the studio's animators lost their jobs as they were sent to work in peasant villages instead, but over time, many returned to the studio and got to work producing propaganda for the Red Guards. Fortunately, things started to turn around for the studio after Mao Zedong's death and Deng Xiaoping's rise to power in the late 70s and early 80s, as the capitalist reforms and new political stability allowed the animation industry to flourish once more, even despite the new competition from anime and American animation entering the Chinese market. Today, it is part of the Shanghai Film Group Corporation, itself a conglomerate of various Shanghai-based film and TV studios, established in 2001.

Many of their works can easily be found on the Chinese side of the Internet through official uploads on Youtube and the like. However, most are not available in English (or any other language that isn't Chinese) or with subtitles.

Do not get them confused with Shanghai Film Studio, one of China's biggest live-action TV/film producers and another part of the Shanghai Film Group Corporation (which also includes Shanghai Documentary Film Studio and Shanghai Dubbing Studio). Also not to be confused with a similarly named Shanghai Yilimei.

Notable Original Productions of Shanghai Animation Film Studio

Foreign Series Worked on by Shanghai Animation Film Studio

• Animen: The Galactic Battle
• Around the World in Eighty Days
• Baby Follies
• Care Bears (1980s) (additional production facility in season 4; with Hanho Heung-Up, Mihahn and Wang Film Productions)
• Eckhart
• Earth to Luna!
• Fishtronaut
• Five Weeks in a Balloon
• Kangaroo Creek Gang
• Ketchup: Cats Who Cook
• Keraban's Fantastic Journey
• Long Ago and Far Away: Noah's Ark
• Maya & Miguel (uncredited)
• Merlin and the Dragons
• A Miss Mallard Mystery (with Shanghai Yilimei)
• The Mysteries of Providence
• Nanook's Great Hunt
• The Nightingale
• Reynard the Fox
• Robinson et Compagnie
• Simon in the Land of Chalk Drawings (2002)
• Space Hip Hop Duck
• Sweet and Sour
• The Toothbrush Family (with Shanghai Yilimei)
• Tracey McBean

Anime

• Ashita e Free Kick (In-Between and Finish Animation)
• Idol Densetsu Eriko (In-Between Animation for episodes 40, 42, 44 and 48)
• Idol Tenshi Yokoso Yoko (In-Between and Finish Animation)
• Legend of Heavenly Sphere Shurato (In-Between and Finish Animation)
• NG Knight Lamune & 40 (In-Between and Finish Animation)

Tropes associated with their work:

• Animated Adaptation: Many of their most famous animations are retellings of folktales and legends from Chinese Mythology.
• Banned in China: Despite their origins as a government studio and the pro-communist undertones common to their work, many of their works were banned by the communist government during the Cultural Revolution, which deemed animation worthless and a threat to the revolutionary consciousness of the people. Thankfully, their works survived the terror of the Red Guards, and the studio experienced a renaissance after Mao's death brought an end to the excesses of the Cultural Revolution.
• Beast Fable: Many of their short films follow the lives of anthropomorphized animals, especially those based on Chinese folktales.
• Breakthrough Hit:
  • Havoc in Heaven. While the studio had already had some success in China with works like The Magic Brush and The Conceited General, it was their rendition of Journey to the West's early chapters that made them world-famous. To this day, it remains their most famous creation, and their version of Sun Wukong is considered among the most recognizable and popular in China, to the point of him being the studio mascot.
  • In television, these would end up being Calabash Brothers and Black Cat Detective, which are considered among their most recognizable works and some of the most all-time iconic animated series in China.
• Creator Thumbprint: Animation styles drawn from traditional Chinese forms of art (including paper cutout animation and inkwash paint animation), musical cues inspired by Peking Opera, and stories derived from Chinese Mythology and folktales are characteristic of their work, often overlaid with themes relevant to the politics of their time.
• Follow the Leader: Many of their early traditionally animated works drew heavily from Russian animation of the time. This led to an embarrassing incident when Why the Crow is Black won at an international award ceremony and was erroneously stated to be of Soviet origin by the presenters. Frustrated by this mistake, the studio would begin to search for a more distinctively Chinese look.
• International Coproduction: Generally better known for their domestic work, but they've done quite a bit of this, with their names appearing in the credits for western cartoons like the Canadian A Miss Mallard Mystery, the Australian Tracey McBean, and the German Reynard the Fox.
• Mime and Music-Only Cartoon: Quite a few of their short films are entirely dialogue-free, their stories being entirely conveyed through the visuals, sound effects, and music cues.
• No Export for You: The vast majority of their work has never been released outside the Chinese market.
• Propaganda Piece: They did a couple of these during the Mao era, particularly in the early-mid 1970s when they were under the thumb of the Cultural Revolution and the Red Guards. But even before and after the Cultural Revolution, their films are generally interpreted as having political undertones, with Havoc in Heaven being seen as a metaphor for the overthrow of bourgeois imperialists (which didn't save it, or countless other SAFS works, from being condemned during the Cultural Revolution as "anti-revolutionary") and Nezha Conquers the Dragon King being considered an analogy for the toppling of the Gang of Four.
• Reused Character Design: If Sun Wukong shows up in any of their productions, expect him to resemble exactly or near-exactly as he does in Havoc in Heaven.
• Stop Motion: Well known for their frequent dabbling in this style. Rather than claymation though, they typically use paper cutouts, felt puppets, or folded paper models.