The application of traditional Chinese Beijing Opera movements in animation: A case study of the animated The Legend of Sealed Book.

The Legend of Sealed Book was created in 1983, as one of the pioneers of Chinese animated films, the director combines the movements of traditional Chinese Beijing Opera with those of animated characters to create novel effects. I’m going to give you two examples of fighting and emotion.
In terms of fighting scenes, the film makes extensive use of Beijing Opera stage fighting arts skills, such as somersaults, leg sweeps, hand thrusts and spins. For example, in this fight between two monks, such skills are extensively used. Compared with ordinary fighting movements, this kind of fight performance may weaken the feel of hit, but the sense of performance will be greatly increased, and the message conveyed by the movement is very clear. And the rhythm is bright, like the drumbeat of music, lively and interesting. Combined with the exaggerated actions inherent in the animation, the fight between the two people looks very funny and enhances the character.

In terms of emotional drama, Beijing Opera is characterized by the extreme extroversion of emotions through movement, because the performers are heavily coated with makeup in Beijing Opera performances, and the audience cannot see the facial expressions of the actors. The advantage of this is that the audience is easily aware of the character’s mental activity. For example, in the film, the fox monsters began an exaggerated dance to express their excitement after stealing the book, so that the audience can know the mood of the two people at this time even without reading the lines.

The combination of animation and this form of emotional expression has also produced new products, such as exaggerated facial manipulation. In this clip, the county magistrate uses unrealistic eye movements to express his feeling of lust for the fox monster, vivid and obvious.

As an early Chinese animated film, The Legend of Sealed Book undertook the task of promoting Chinese culture, so it would make extensive use of Beijing Opera techniques in action design and art. But it also revealed some new animation techniques and graphics. However, this technique still has limitations and cannot be used in emotionally sensitive stories, such as modern love stories or suspense stories. But maybe there will be a way to apply this technique to more kinds of stories in the future.