\n\tYu Shui was well pleased with the $215 million his most recent feature, Nobody, earned at the Chinese box office last year \u2014 but the animator freely admits to bigger global ambitions.<\/p>\n
\n\tSpurred by the runaway success of Ne Zha 2 \u2014 whose $2.2 billion worldwide haul made it the biggest animated hit of all time \u2014 Yu and his contemporaries are keen to broaden their horizons.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cWe hope to promote our culture abroad, allowing more people to see and understand it, and ultimately achieve shared human values \u2014 this is our ultimate goal,\u201d he said. \u201cAmerican animated films definitely have this advantage, both in terms of content and distribution networks. China<\/a> has also done quite well in recent years, with films like Ne Zha, and earlier Chinese films like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Hero, which are very well-known worldwide \u2014 even Wong Kar-wai\u2019s In the Mood for Love is a film that can be understood and loved by many. This is a timeless topic. I will consider this aspect in my next production.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tYu was speaking on the sidelines of the Shanghai International<\/a> Film Festival, where he is serving on the Golden Goblet animation<\/a> jury alongside chair Will Becher of Aardman (A Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon<\/a>) and groundbreaking Indian animator Gitanjali Rao (Bombay Rose).<\/p>\n \n\tWith the global animation market now estimated at around $460 billion \u2014 and recent international hits including the Netflix smash KPop Demon Hunters and Oscar winner Flow \u2014 the trio said they had been spending their down time watching and discussing one another\u2019s work and debating the industry\u2019s shifting landscape.<\/p>\n \n\tRao \u2014 who revealed that In the Mood for Love first inspired her to become a filmmaker \u2014 believes animators are increasingly drawn to stories that travel.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cI have realized that we must reach a global audience,\u201d she said. \u201cIf we want Western audiences to understand, we must simplify our stories. So, over the years, we\u2019ve all known what British humor and American humor are, but the world needs a moment where people can understand what Chinese humor and Indian humor are. Now that we\u2019re so globalized, we don\u2019t need to explain every detail.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tRao\u2019s debut feature, Bombay Rose, premiered in International Critics\u2019 Week at Venice in 2019 before finding an international audience on Netflix.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cWhen I tell stories, I often present them layer by layer,\u201d she explained. \u201cThere might be a layer that any audience in the world can understand, or a layer that might be easier for Chinese people to understand, or a layer with a satirical undertone that not all audiences need to grasp. But the story must have a richness across these layers.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tBecher and Aardman achieved genuine global reach with A Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon \u2014 an estimated 80 percent of its $43 million total came from outside the U.K. \u2014 despite its distinctly British sensibility.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cBefore a film\u2019s release, you don\u2019t really know how well it will be received; some films are very successful, while others are not,\u201d he said. \u201cHowever, Shaun the Sheep resonated widely and was welcomed by a broad audience. It\u2019s a very authentic British production, but we know there\u2019s cultural satire in other places. Comedy actually shares many commonalities in terms of culture.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Yu Shui was well pleased with the $215 million his most recent feature, Nobody, earned at the Chinese…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":744132,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[789,5806,49,48,95,75,77,337,263676,266702],"class_list":["post-744131","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-animation","tag-asia","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-china","tag-entertainment","tag-international","tag-movies","tag-shanghai-international-film-festival","tag-shaun-the-sheep-movie-farmageddon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/744131","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=744131"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/744131\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/744132"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=744131"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=744131"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=744131"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}