"Journey To The West" Derivative Animation Film Narrative Research

The novel Journey to the West is one of the treasure of the Chinese culture in the history.It is also the novel with most reproductions among the four most famous novels in Chinese history.The Journey to the West has been reproduced in various forms including TV series,movie and animations.Ever since cinema technology was introduced into China,the novel has been constantly reproduced by artists because its stories and structure is suitable for movie reproduction.Particularly,the vivid presentation on the screen can greatly satisfy the audience who were seeking for folk stories and supernatural scenes.Many animations have originated from the novel as it has an abundant source of new ideas.This paper includes the four sections.The target of analysis is animated movie based on The Journey to the West.First,distinguish the difference between derivatives and modification based on the definition of animated movie.This enables one to clearly define derivative animated movies.Second,the animated movies of Journey to the West have different themes in different historical background,this part of the paper will try to find what political,cultural and aesthetic theme does the movies reflect in its historical background.Further,this section will analyze what ideological functions does the movie serve.Third,because each movie has its unique features,the paper will analyze different ideas and plots for each of them based on its stories and figures.Thus,one can distinguish the different features among them.Fourth,find out the challenges facing the development of animated movie for the novel in the new era through detailed scrutiny.This part will focus on three questions:” how to retell the story?”,“why do we retell the story? “and” how to tell a story of the Journey to the West?”.Thus,one can come up with the story,cultural and aesthetic features that can help solve the challenges facing the reproduction of the novel.This paper uses animated movies from the Journey to the West and their literature,movie scripts and theoretical knowledge to explain their changes throughout 20 th century.The analysis is not limited to the movies aesthetic features nor the differences between the reproduction across time.The more important thing is to find out the strong ideology functions the movie serves particularly in the latter half of 20 th century.Therefore,every time there is a new reproduction of the novel,one must think about why it is reproduced in the given time and methods.This means thechanges of animated movie of the Journey to the West somehow reflects the changes of history in 20 th century in China.At his new historical era,the challenges facing the reproduction of the novel somehow shows the challenges facing the nation and its culture in modern China.