Dreaming Fish, Becoming Fish: Animating Modern Mythology and Zhuangzian Philosophy in the Fantasy Film Big Fish & Begonia
-
Dingding Wang
Abstract
This paper analyzes the 2016 Chinese animation film Big Fish & Begonia and its precursor, a 2004 Flash animated short video, in conjunction with Zhuangzi’s philosophy of becoming and transformation. It traces the origin of the film in the auteur’s dream experience and the development of cinematic language and animation technology from the initial short video to the full-feature film. Adopting a form closely associated with the fantastical and speculative traditions of Chinese mythology, Big Fish & Begonia represents animal becomings through the apparatus of the dream, as both crucial content and form, and the formal characteristics of animation. Both the dream and the animation forms allow the expression of desires to break through the ontological and epistemological constraints of the human subject and to render the physical form unstable. By engaging with key passages from Zhuangzi that discuss dreams, knowledge, “free and easy wandering,” and “becoming/transformation,” the paper asserts Zhuangzi’s continued influence in contemporary Chinese animation. The film offers new ways of conceptualizing and addressing modern environmental crises while aligning itself with the cultural–political agenda to create “authentic” Chinese stories.
References
Ames, Roger T., and Takahiro Nakajima. 2015. Zhuangzi and the Happy Fish. Honolulu: University of Hawaiʻi Press.10.21313/hawaii/9780824846831.001.0001Search in Google Scholar
B&T Studio. 2004. “Dayu·haitang 大鱼·海棠 [Big Fish & Begonia].” Video 7: 36. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dlzd_Tdlkhw&t=306s.Search in Google Scholar
Du, Daisy Yan, and Allison Alexy. 2019. Animated Encounters: Transnational Movements of Chinese Animation, 1940s–1970s. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.10.1515/9780824877514Search in Google Scholar
Eisenstein, Sergei. 1988. Eisenstein on Disney, Edited by Jay Leyda. translated by Alan Upchurch. London: Methuen.Search in Google Scholar
Goh, Irving. 2011. “Chuang Tzu’s Becoming-Animal.” Philosophy East and West 61 (1): 110–33. https://doi.org/10.1353/pew.2011.a409457.Search in Google Scholar
Huang, Hanmin 黄汉民. 2017. Fujian tulou: Zhongguo Chuantong Minju de Guibao 福建土楼: 中国传统民居的瑰宝 [Fujian Tulou: The Treasure of China’s Traditional Dwellings]. Beijing: Shenghuo. dushu. xinzhi sanlian shudian.Search in Google Scholar
Isaacson, Nathaniel. 2017. Celestial Empire: The Emergence of Chinese Science Fiction. Middletown: Wesleyan University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Jullien, François. 2000. Detour and Access. Translated by Sophie Hawkes. New York: Zone Books.Search in Google Scholar
Lamarre, Thomas. 2009. The Anime Machine: A Media Theory of Animation. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Search in Google Scholar
Leslie, Esther. 2004. Hollywood Flatlands: Animation, Critical Theory and the Avant-Garde. New York: Verso.Search in Google Scholar
Li, Xueqin 李学勤, eds. 2012. Ziyuan 字源 [Origins of Chinese Characters]. Tianjin: Tianjin Guji Chubanshe.Search in Google Scholar
Liang, Xuan 梁旋. 2016. “Donghua Shenzuo: Daiyu haitang Daoyan Liang Xuan Zhuanfang” 动画神作:大鱼海棠导演梁旋专访 [Masterpiece of Animation: An Interview with Liang Xuan, Director of Big Fish & Begonia]. Liuzhou: Liuzhou Wanbao. http://www.sgpeiyin.com/pyxw/419.html (accessed July 29, 2024).Search in Google Scholar
Liang, Xuan 梁旋, and Zhang Chun 张春 dirs. 2016. Dayu haitang 大鱼海棠 [Big Fish & Begonia]. Beijing: Beijing Enlight Media.Search in Google Scholar
Qinghua Vision 清华映像. 2016. “Dianying dayu haitang beihou de gushi” 电影《大鱼海棠》背后的故事 [The Story Behind the Film Big Fish & Begonia]. Beijing: Qinghua Vision. https://www.tsinghua.edu.cn/info/1365/81298.htm (accessed July 29, 2024).Search in Google Scholar
Zhuangzi 庄子. Chinese Text Project. Translated by James Legge. https://ctext.org/zhuangzi/ens (accessed July 29, 2024).Search in Google Scholar
© 2024 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Editorial
- Introduction
- Research Articles
- Between Shenguai and Science: The Visual Imagination of Technical Objects in Republican China
- The Broken Human–Object Continuum: The Technological Future and Socialist Contradictions in Rhapsody of the Ming Tombs Reservoir (1958)
- Myth and Cyber: A Study of the Narrative and Visual Language of Chinese Cyberpunk Anime Films
- Navigating the World of The Stranger (1979) After the Cultural Revolution: Unveiling Hong Kong Leftist Science Fiction Film by Bao Fang
- Imagining an Alternative Future: Children’s Bodies in Wonder Boy (1988), Magic Watch (1990), and Mad Rabbit (1997)
- A Palimpsest of Hong Kong Futures Across Three Fictions (1962–2046)
- Cinematic Science Fiction, Indigenous Mythology, and Multispecies Entanglement: An Ecological Reading of The Mermaid (2016)
- Dreaming Fish, Becoming Fish: Animating Modern Mythology and Zhuangzian Philosophy in the Fantasy Film Big Fish & Begonia
- The Poetics of Journey to the West (2021): Disclosing a Way to Dwell in the World
- From Home to Homeland: Re-Imagining Chinese Diaspora in Recent Science Fiction Films
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Editorial
- Introduction
- Research Articles
- Between Shenguai and Science: The Visual Imagination of Technical Objects in Republican China
- The Broken Human–Object Continuum: The Technological Future and Socialist Contradictions in Rhapsody of the Ming Tombs Reservoir (1958)
- Myth and Cyber: A Study of the Narrative and Visual Language of Chinese Cyberpunk Anime Films
- Navigating the World of The Stranger (1979) After the Cultural Revolution: Unveiling Hong Kong Leftist Science Fiction Film by Bao Fang
- Imagining an Alternative Future: Children’s Bodies in Wonder Boy (1988), Magic Watch (1990), and Mad Rabbit (1997)
- A Palimpsest of Hong Kong Futures Across Three Fictions (1962–2046)
- Cinematic Science Fiction, Indigenous Mythology, and Multispecies Entanglement: An Ecological Reading of The Mermaid (2016)
- Dreaming Fish, Becoming Fish: Animating Modern Mythology and Zhuangzian Philosophy in the Fantasy Film Big Fish & Begonia
- The Poetics of Journey to the West (2021): Disclosing a Way to Dwell in the World
- From Home to Homeland: Re-Imagining Chinese Diaspora in Recent Science Fiction Films
