Chinese Indie Animation Superstar Busifan on His Annecy Competition Player ‘The Storm’
China’s unwitting creative phenom Yang Zhigang, known as Busifan, presents an imaginative, heartwarming and gleefully chaotic animated journey in his latest feature, “The Storm,” selected to screen in main competition at this year’s Annecy Festival.
The auteur previously worked in telecommunications and never formally studied filmmaking, yet emerged as a self-taught cult figure on China’s animation circuit via its Flash scene in 2004 with “The Black Bird,” a seven-act episodic that craftily followed a wary warrior and his avian aide.
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With his brutal and defiant debut feature, 2017’s “The Guardian” (“Dahufa”), Busifan disconnected from the rules imposed by the commercial market as he sussed out his inner turmoil for the script. This solidified him as a boundary-breaking artist, and the film’s simmering success served to bolster the region’s independent movement and further out-of-the-box concepts.
Busifan followed this underground acclaim with an Academy Award nomination for his 2018 short “The Valley of White Birds,” which won Annecy’s Special Prize in 2017.
In his second feature, “The Storm,” Busifan returns to family-friendly fare with a punchy and sly hero’s journey for the ages. The narrative follows a young, spirited rascal named Mantou and his makeshift father, Daguzi, as the two explore a fabled dark ship that has arrived on shore. Legend has it the ship holds treasure that could secure their future, but as they inch closer to the prize, a raging storm in the distance sets the vessel’s terror in focus, revealing a fate the two will struggle to overcome.
“Creating ‘The Storm’ was both a personal and artistic adventure. Through this film, I wanted to take viewers on an immersive journey into the heart of Chinese culture and mythology while exploring universal themes such as family, courage and resilience. I hope this film will touch the hearts and spark the imaginations of everyone who watches it,” Busifan said in a statement.
Produced by the filmmaker and CMC Pictures (“Meg 2: The Trench”), the project uses 2D animation techniques to replicate traditional Chinese ink painting styles with resplendent pastel waterways that meet rolling green hills and forests. The characters are bold and vivid, lending innate charm to their stories. As tranquility fades and doom lurks, deeper aquatic hues and bursts of dark red, black, orange and brown create a dissonant and emotive scene-to-scene that culminates in a seismic finale.
Quintessential fantasy fodder, the scenery cradles its protagonists tight, anchoring the plot in space and time.
“We want to explore our own understanding of Chinese ink and wash, or more accurately, the impression of Chinese paintings, and how it will be represented differently through animation,” Busifan told Variety ahead of the film’s Annecy appearance.
“This is an exploratory process, not something that’s designed or set in stone at the beginning. We looked for a solution that was as satisfactory as possible in terms of our own abilities. Our art director leads the work of the art team, but also the staff of post-production special effects, such as the drawing of water, how to combine it with the art, and so on,” he added.
The film draws from rich cultural lore and deeply personal, broadly relatable themes of belonging, acceptance, grief and trauma. The captivating animation works to embolden the high-stakes set-up in the script and relay them distinctly; a live-action rendering of the same story might fall short.
“On one hand, it comes from the influence of Chinese culture, and on the other hand, it comes from what the eyes see in the ordinary world, and in micro-life, the empathy for the collision of contradictions,” Busifan relayed.
“In fact, the most difficult part of the creative process may be the construction of the fictional world. It’s only when the audience has no doubts about the fictional world that it’s possible to build the emotional part of the characters. Animation, as a means of narration, has its own unique expressive advantages, such as exaggeration and distortion, which can enhance the expression of the characters’ emotions.”
While the film seemingly comes together without a hitch, Busifan admits that getting his ideas from the page to the big screen did come with roadblocks.
“The first challenge is funding. There’s no confusion about that. Then, there’s the production team integration that needs to be faced. For large-volume productions with certain stylistic demands, this can greatly increase the difficulty of realization and become one of the most challenging aspects. In addition, the realization process will have a myriad of problems of all shapes and sizes, and facing them requires some patience. The essence of the realization process is the process of encountering problems and solving them.”
Ever-providing examples of the depths of Donghua (Chinese Animation), Busifan has faith that the talent pool will continue to drive a push in local production.
“The development trend of Chinese animation is good. In terms of the industry, it feels like it’s starting to mature. There are recognizable patterns of creativity and companies that have sustained production capacity. Of course, the development process is always difficult, and I can see that people are still exploring tirelessly.”
“This may have something to do with authorship, where breaking the mold becomes a demand, or excitement, of the creative process. This comes from an instinctive need, which is more or less expressed in the work.”
“The Storm” bowed in China in January ahead of screenings in the U.S., U.K., Canada, Australia and New Zealand. It is distributed by Play Big (“Kiki”), whose founder Frédéric Puech admits is, “delighted to be presenting ‘The Storm’ at Annecy, a vibrant and visually captivating 2D animated feature. Director Busifan demonstrates incredible visual talent, creating a breathtaking fantasy world. This film marks a new stage for Chinese animation and introduces an international audience to one of its greatest talents.”
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