Lotus Lantern

Chen Xiang's mother, the goddess Sanshengmu, was punished by her elder brother for loving a mortal man and shut beneath a mountain. The brother is also the ruler of the gods. When Chen Xiang grows up he decides to save her. He has a talisman called the lotus lantern. The only way to free her is to split the mountain, and for that he first has to learn to fight. The story rests on a legend told in China for centuries. The film was made by the Shanghai Animation Film Studio and was one of the most ambitious pieces of Chinese animation at the end of the nineties; the studio was then trying to establish its own line against American animation. Well known actors including Jiang Wen, Xu Fan and Chen Peisi provide the voices. Eighty-five minutes. The story speaks to children, but its subject is a child standing up to authority for his mother.