From an Arabian story with a Chinese theme to a Chinese adaptation of a Chinese story. Nezha Conquers the Dragon King is an hour-long animated presentation of an episode from Chinese mythology, in which Nezha, a magical boy born from a lotus flower, uses his powers to defend his home town and its inhabitants against four destructive dragons. The film was made in 1979 by the Shanghai Animation Film Studio, and directed by Wang Shuchen, Yan Dingxian and Xu Jingda. It was dubbed into English by the BBC for a TV broadcast a few years later, something I never saw at the time but the dubbed version sounds like one to avoid. They also replaced the original score and no doubt cropped the widescreen image as well. The BBC dubbed René Laloux’s marvellous Time Masters for its TV broadcasts in the 1980s but they did at least leave the music alone.
One of my most enjoyable cinematic discoveries of the past year has been the wuxia films of Zhang Yimou: Hero (2002), House of Flying Daggers (2004), and Shadow (2018). Also Curse of the Golden Flower (2006) which is more of a straightforward historical drama for the most part, without any of the displays of balletic martial arts that are a common feature of wuxia films. Nezha Conquers the Dragon King is pretty much a wuxia story for children, with Nezha being a skilled fighter almost from the day he’s born. His feud with the dragons culminates in a battle in which he takes on an army of anthropomorphic animal opponents. (Another common feature of wuxia stories is pitting one or two skilled combatants against a mass of armed men.) The stylised animation, replete with motifs borrowed from traditional paintings, is beautifully rendered througout, while the basic storyline is so similar to Marcell Jankovics’ Son of the White Mare (1981) it’s tempting to wonder whether the Chinese film gave Jankovics the idea for his second feature. Son of the White Mare is based on Hungarian folk tales but it too concerns a magical child (born from a horse rather than a flower) whose super-strength enables him to fight three dragon beings who have been threatening the land. Like their Chinese counterparts, the Hungarian dragons can assume human form, and each has a special power related to a different element. Jankovics’ film was released on blu-ray recently; I ought to watch it again.
Nezha Conquers the Dragon King may be seen here in a print with embedded English subtitles.
I think you’ve unlocked a key memory for me with this – for years I’ve wondered what the strange animation was I saw on TV as a child, and your mentioning Time Masters being shown on the BBC has probably identified it for me! So thank you.
Incidentally, you might be interested to know that there seems to be a book on Sibylle Ruppert coming soon – if you scroll down to about the fourth item on this page, it’s mentioned: https://kunsthalle-giessen.de/en/home-english/
Dubious copies of Time Masters are all over YouTube and the Internet Archive so it’s pretty easy to see if you need it. I’m still equivocating over buying a French blu-ray (with no subs) or waiting for an English high-def release.
Thanks for the Ruppert news, that’s very good to hear. I knew her work would start to get more attention eventually but it’s still been taking a while; there was an exhibition in London recently, now this.
Speaking of coming attractions, Centipede Press just announced large format art books on the work of both Bruce Pennington and Kelly Freas due Fall 2026.
That’s good to hear as well, although Centipede books always sell out immediately and the big ones weigh a ton (I’m in two of them). Given the current state of things I bet the shipping costs will be the same price as the book itself.
Shadow was absolutely fantastic!