From NetEase:
Viral internet domestic animation video 《打，打个大西瓜》["See Through"]
Recently, a video titled《打，打个大西瓜》["Hit, Hit A Big Watermelon", but the official English title is "See Through"] has been spreading on the internet. The video’s imagery is shocking, the content/message captivating, and crowds of netizens have claimed it to be the most outstanding domestically produced animation. The creator spent over 3 years time making this 16 minute animation.
The VeryCD website editor’s review was: “This is the most niubi animated short film I have seen, not just for this year, not just one of [but the most ever], and it was made by a Chinese person!” We specially contacted the animation’s creator “饺克力” ["jiao ke li", or "Jokelate", pictured below], and “饺克力” introduced us to the difficulty/bitterness of animation and his hopes for China’s animation industry.
Scenes Are Extremely Outstanding
“See Through” is an animation that revolves around opposing the development of war, its scenes and creativity are extremely outstanding, the animation both interesting and humorous. The animation’s plot is mainly: Two powerful leaders fighting for territory start a world war. Two pilots from both sides are entangled in a dogfight in the air. By chance, the two pilots are stranded upon a small island in the middle of the ocean. Once sworn enemies, the two become friends willing to die for each other. The animation uses extremely humorous methods to show its disgust for war.
On Tudou [another], many of the people leaving comments all praise the video as being made extremely well, a rare piece of fine work amongst domestic animation.
Comments from Youku:
1.stonehong009
To the person behind this original animation I salute!!
A niubi anti-war cartoon! War indeed is a pile of bodies and blood…[I] commend [this]!
2.风流∑二少
We are all earning money to survive, and for money, we are doing everything! But you, spending four years of time to complete your own dream! Ding you!~
3.q306693056
Very good, war is indeed frightening, if leaders cannot properly lead us, even previously peaceful compatriots can fight and kill [each other], so we can imagine the importance of leadership.
4.sighcauss
Up to now, what China’s animation lacked the most was creativity/ideas. This short film finally gives me hope~~very impressive. Creator, jia you!!
5.comosum
Very niu. Not only in presentation/form, the ending was also extremely profound.
6.伊水兰
Once war breaks out, the cost is no longer cared about.
7.Desy130
Support!~~~Chinese animation must develop, everyone come support!!!
8.xiloxy
This animation is absolutely awesome! Not only art, but also meaning! Niu work!
A high quality version of “See Through” can be downloaded from RayFile.
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I don’t know. I wish everyone could act reasonable.
awe, becky…
that put a smile on my face. :)
If this short was made by a Chinese, then it should reflect the issues that concern China. Instead you have two white guys duking it out senselessly for no real good reason other than for the sake of fighting. Of course, it’s easy to condemn “whitey” for being barbaric and savage, but what if this movie was about a Chinese and a Japanese? After all, this was the last war China fought (besides that civil one) and has repercussions to this day. After all, war and ignorance isn’t just an foreigner issue. I hope that the same reasonableness would prevail.
If you want a cool short animated movie about war check out the Oscar-winning “Neighbours” (1952), a movie directly inspired by the Mao revolution. And if I may add, it doesn’t star any Chinese actors nonetheless.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neighbours_(film)
http://www.nfb.ca/film/Neighbours_Voisins/
Who are you to say that this does not reflect what Chinese people think.
You think you know better, you can direct them and tell them what they should be concerned about.
Nice short animation.
I don’t think that’s what he meant. The point (and a very good point) was that it’s very easy for them to condemn the war when they don’t identify with the sides. Do you really think that the anti-war chorus would be as strong if one side was recognizable as Chinese and the other as Japanese? Or any other issue they feel strongly about? Seriously, you think people who, for example, suggest to “liberate” Taiwan and “unify” it with China by nuking the whole Taiwan population, those people would applaud an anti-war short film?
if the short was about chinese vs japanese I would have found it predictable and most probably I wouldn’t have watched it (and maybe if would even have been blocked by the government). War, no matter where in the world, is a bad thing.
I would have preferred to have unidentifiable characters though.
haha
who wants to “nuke” Taiwan, be reasonable. James Bond doesn’t exist for real.
Reasonable? Sorry, I don’t invent this stuff, you can find this and more right on this site. This being said I’d rather note right now: no, I don’t think that these statements are necessarily representative of the way the whole nation thinks.
zorg,
I find it difficult to jump so confidently to the conclusion that they “don’t” identify with the sides. It’s important to keep in mind that not all Chinese netizens are the same. They are as diverse as netizens from any country. You have liberals and conservatives, peaceniks and warmongers, intelligent and ignornace, lovers and haters. If the film portrayed the two sides as Chinese and Japanese, I’m confident it’ll attract the anti-Japanese crowd, and they’ll make their views known for sure. But, that doesn’t mean all Chinese netizens are like that, or that they’re all hypocrites, being anti-war if the film portrays whites and being for war if it portrayed Chinese and Japanese. You just attract a different group and they get represented.
Not all Chinese people suggest “liberating” Taiwan and “unifying” it with China by nuking Taiwan. Those who do seriously think this (and they are very few, though perhaps too much for many of us, if we go looking for them), aren’t likely to be the ones making anti-war or supportive comments on this animated short. So, seriously, I don’t think the people who suggest nuking Taiwan are applauding an anti-war film. It’s the Chinese people who, seriously, don’t suggest nuking Taiwan. Yet, both are part of the Chinese netizen moniker. Again, the key is recognizing that not all of them are the same.
I didn’t intend to imply that all Chinese people are blood-thirsty warmongers, so I apologize if that’s how it came across. Still, we seem to agree that “there all kinds” and that the tone of the reaction would be somewhat different if the issues in the film were “closer to home”. What is anybody’s guess is _how many_ people would react differently. What we are talking here about are people who, although very moral when making statements about theoretical situation, especially when it seems totally unrelated to them, the same people will behave completely different when you ask about them and their neighbours. Anyway, since no one has any hard statistical data on the issue we’ll probably never know.
I second Kai. If a few bunch of Fenqing represent China’s thinking and Chinese people want to nuke Taiwan, why we donate about 1 billion RMB(about 140 million USD, which is the biggest donation made to abroad in PRC’s history) to Taiwanese people when a recent typhoon Morakot brought huge damage and death to the island? We call Taiwan our blood brothers and sisters, and that’s not just a name we put on mouth, but also in heart.
People who think the two white males at the beginning of the CG present something, are too sensitive, or too picky. They are just two unidentified figures. They are whoever you think they are but that’s not important. What matters is the message from this short CG: war sucks and peace is precious. All people on this planet, including Chinese, are concerned.
lasttoblame,
First, I don’t know why you’re so quick to conclude that the issue portrayed in this short doesn’t reflect issues that concern the Chinese or China. Just because the characters are white? Instead of suggesting that this Chinese creator is maliciously saying “oh, this is only something that applies to foreigners”, perhaps it’s just because white culture dominates our global society, and “white” characters are something of a default for a lot of things?
Second, I don’t think the creator portrayed them as fighting “senselessly for no real good reason other than for the sake of fighting.” The message, to me, was that leaders often go to war for lines in the sand, and their egos commit tons of other people to their deaths. What I found interesting was the map, how the two sides (continents) are shaped like dogs fighting over the island (a “bone”) in the middle.
It didn’t come across as as a “condemn whitey” film to me. Respectfully, I think you’re reading too much into it.
Haha. Lasttoblame is tripping out… so funny.
The movie? I can’t believe why he didn’t turn it into 20 min scathing critique on the 5000 years of Chinese history and our evil enslavement of the world! Other than that, it’s awesome.
…
How come people here always feel like they have a right to say this and that about China, often with a basis in history (cause & effect leading to today’s fuckups. 5000 years of history).Yet they refuse to look at themselves and refuse to acknowledge historical causes & effects. Like where was the world police when you guys were “coming up” and basically globally thugging it out? “Oh noes, what does it have to do with me!!! I exist here and now! ommmmmmppft zen!” But China and Chinese, what is wrong with you! You guys are racist and bad!
Again, it’s all just real politiks and position maneuvers…has been this way through history, and probably will be this way until the world ends here soon. The fools on here either: 1) are too stupid to see it. 2) Laughing inside themselves knowing full well what is going on but feinting ignorance. 3) Really don’t give a fuck.
Don’t act like you are above this shit. Please.
I don’t believe in the current systems of control & rule. It’s all fucked. I’m not biased and blindly thinks China has some sort of manifest destiny to fufill (MD, lol!). All I’m saying is these dudes (both sides) on here live in a vacumn of black & white. Very out of touch with the TRUE reality that is our world. Nothing is nice about our world. NOTHING. ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.
All you can do is sit there and eat your little meals at your little restaurants. Enjoy your weekends baby. Start your little families.
This shit will end one day.
awe man…
drinking beers while lying down on a hammock,
early afternoon blowjob followed by a joint on the beach,
dinner and drinks with friends, bar fun until you ready to fuck,
a girl that enjoys doing all of that even more than you
sleeping-in and repeating the same, every time you’re off work…
‘Nothing is nice about our world. NOTHING. ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.’
too bad…
Nothing good about that. Both you gonna wake up with a hang over. THen to find out you got no more weed. And you are short on cash…and damn hurricane is coming in.
Whatever, each to his/her own.
Kidding.
No some things are good. And awesome. But the negativity just brings you down.
Stop smoking weed & get a job, mkkkay.
ehehe yo! only reason i GOT a job is so i can KEEP smoking baby! :D
nah, i feel ya man but you gotta keep on keeping on you know?
dont let shit bring you down.
its all, always, a matter of choices and decision. wherever you are, its all up to you.
and FUCKING HELL how’d you know about the hurricane?!
always comes up in the worst moment too… :D
Please move away from the edge of the building. Do not jump!
Actually, you contradicted yourself with the last paragraph. That’s three nice things.
Tony.
These 2 white men start a war because of a piece of land….but nowadays most of land disputes are in this part of the world…and especially China is leading the way: Taiwan issue, China/India border, China/Philippino dispute over some islands, China/Russia border, etc… going to war because of a piece of land?? WW2 is long time ago (except over here of course)….next war will be fought for water
Iraq war is long time ago…next war will be fought with China!
USA will only keep going fighting against weak country. Nobody can attack China as China has nuclear bombs. Thus China do not need to keep increasing their military spending like hell.
They say they are pacifist, Nuclear bomb prevent other attack you, and if you do not want to attack other, no need to build huge army.
China and the U.S. have been steadily moving closer together to the extent the CCP is abandoning Communism in favour of Capitalism. The CCP is still a corrupt, oppressive, fascistic and parasitic, freedom hating organisation whose early demise would have quickly propelled China to become the No.1 economic powerhouse many many years ago, but the CCP tends to confine its Communist habits to the mainland these days and is not really a threat to the free world.
Of course, in the “Fallout 3″ parallel universe the U.S. and China have aready traded nukes and the Washington D.C area is now a radiation scared wasteland overrun with gouls, raiders, supermutants and all manner of foul and dangerous creatures. Who wants that? I rest my case.
Tony.
I’m just playing. I don’t want to have these “oh no you did this and that” back and forth rant on here.
Yeah I agree with you are saying.
thats some real good work!
no need to criticize.
photoshop and maya only?! damn!
he should get more money
and we should see what he can do with better equipment.
looks good, nice concept, funny, ok soundtrack…and i hate electronics so…
could be made a bit shorter IMHO
i love that he lists his idols at the end. thats pretty cool.
in my experience best chinese animation ive seen, all in all, not just how it looks.
it would look much better if someone funds this guy a bit more.
3-4 years he works on it, big props on that one!
keep up the good work!
Props to the makers, but I wish it wasn’t too white guys. It reflects badly upon the Chinese mindset.
eh, its not like chinese will start thinking bad of the white race (western people) NOW
because of this short animation.
they dont really have a much more different opinion on whites.
barbarians, bullies, killers, evil…whatever…
No thats exactly what I’m saying. It gives the impression of the Chinese being rather racistly stereotypical of whites.
is that not true?
I remember in grade school I learned what imperialism is before what I know communism is.
Can I ask, did they teach you about imperialism, or about foreign imperialism…?
Zorg, above, I get what you’re saying, and I also can’t help but wonder why this movie doesn’t show two east Asian characters going at each other. Perhaps the maker was hoping for to get wider distribution, or perhaps he’s trying to avoid a hornets nest….
Because, Beholder, it’s been over a thousand years since two East Asian powers of equal strength have struggled over an intermediate land mass.
Wow, get the fuck out of here u fucking lib.
I never knew that kids in China were capable of thinking in this way.
I liked the art style. The Metal Slugesque tanks were a nice touch.
i guess that’s just a prejudice of yours
that’s exactly what I thought too. Definately imitated/influenced by SNK’s Metal Slug art style.
Nice animation! Can someone translate the final credits?
watched it again… it’s pretty awesome animation.
Sigh… got to work harder.
BTW, I would not be surprised that it was all done in Maya (and some photoshop). Maya is a pretty capable program.
Why the white guys? if he thought about it, the face colours could rotate through different races.
Because its more realistic. White guys run the world. Anything else would just seem to fantastic and unrealistic.
What a fantastic animation. Congratulations, 饺克力, what you did was amazing! Great message and great execution, I hope to see more from this wonderful author.
Actually many animations, ads, and media in general in China (asia) use white actors and white animated characters as the “default.” Its an interesting phenomenon but in this case its probably more related to western cultural pervasiveness than any desire on the author’s part to put-down white people…
that said am i the only one who noticed a shout-out to condoleeza rice at the end of an anti-war cartoon? wtf?
I must admit that I was wrong thinking the Chinese lacking originality and artistic creativity! This short animation blew my mind. The creator understands every well how our human civilization works and I have no doubt that he’s one of few people on this planet who really gets it. You whities can take offense all you want but it’s an irrefutable fact that you have invaded every continent on earth and have wiped out (or tried to) every indigenous race on it with a misplaced sense of entitlement. Bravo!
What is wrong with using white guys? how about those soldiers who decided to have peace on that islands, are they not white? Maybe you don’t have to be so fucking blind to realize in this short animated film, there are good people who are white too.
You are right. But, on the other hand if, let say, an Amercian had made the same animation, but had put Asian faces for the caracters on the film, for sure, it would have been a scandal in China.
Well, we also have to recognize that a majority of the bloodest conflict of the past 100 years were caused by Europeans and North Amarican states…
petit bonheur: “Well, we also have to recognize that a majority of the bloodest conflict of the past 100 years were caused by Europeans and North Amarican states…”
Uh, what about:
Chinese Great Leap Forward: 20-43 million dead
Chinese Civil War: 3.2 million dead
Pol Pot’s reign: 1.7 – 2.5 million dead
Sino-Vietnamese War: 50,000+ dead
Stalin’s Purges: 680,000+ dead
Second Sino-Japanese War: 22 million+ dead
And that’s not even including the non-Western fighting in the Vietnam War and the Korean War.
And of course, the list could go on:
The Darfur Conflict: 200,000 – 400,000 dead
The Sri Lankan Civil War: 80,000+ killed
The Second-Congo War: 3.8 – 5.4 million dead
The Indo-Pakistani Wars and Bangladesh Atrocities: up to 3 million dead
The Rwandan Genocide: 0.8 – 1 million dead
Famine Under USSR policies: 6 – 10 million dead
Just watched the cartoon for a third time, and I’m very impressed by it. Very creative, well done to Jokelate.
I am not impressed by the cartoon at all. The visuals are fantastic, but the plot is adolescent and ignorant. The cause of war is dictatorship. Without dictatorships there are no wars, and sometimes war is necessary to destroy them. Before showing disgust for war, show disgust for its cause which is dictatorship.
Tony.
It’s a shame for many people here commenting on this film, that they’re paying more attention to the race/facial features of the characters, than to the message.
Nice work – be interesting to see if anyone picks him up to do any local or national commercial work – he has a good touch. As for the work – shorten it a bit and it could be used as a video for Edwin Starr’s Classic Hit – “War”.
I forgot the name of the film – but there was a WWII with Lee Marvin that parallels parts of this short.
That would be “Hell in the Pacific” where Lee Marvin plays an American pilot stranded on a Pacific island with a Japanese naval captain.
Tony.
Oh I know the one you are talking about…can’t remember the name either.
I was thoroughly moved by this short, simplistic as it may be. Then I got to the comments and it was like wading through a swamp of tripe.
I’ve no idea why – wait, that’s not true, I’ve plenty of ideas why – it takes about four seconds before there’s a shitfight about which warring state has fucked up most in history. The FUCKING POINT is that apportioning blame is NOT the way forward. The idealistic tone of the short was simply crushed under the irony of your petty squabbles.
Pause for a few seconds before opening your mouth, Pavlov’s Dogs.
why 2 white guys with European swords ? what about the 30 million people MAO killed ? and the chines scary attachment with the ARMY ? 60th anniversary was like a mujaheddin parade ……… if you are a chines animator then stick in the chines problems…..nice communist propaganda im sure he is part of the communist youth….
from DAVE:
Chinese Great Leap Forward: 20-43 million dead
Chinese Civil War: 3.2 million dead
Pol Pot’s reign: 1.7 – 2.5 million dead
Sino-Vietnamese War: 50,000+ dead
Stalin’s Purges: 680,000+ dead
Second Sino-Japanese War: 22 million+ dead
My take on the “two white guya with European swords” is, as I mentioned earlier, probably at attempt by Jokelate to maximize his chances of distribution. It also sidesteps any issues which might be raised by having two Asian guys unleashing their armies. In either case, fair play to him: he’s obviously considered his cartoon from a wide number of angles, and it shows in the quality of his animation.
Having said that, I think that questions like “Why are they two white guys/Why aren’t they Asian, if the animator is Chinese” are perfectly valid, and indeed need to be asked. I don’t think there is any one answer to these questions, but they are worth considering. The devil is in the detail, boys and girls….
I think its great that a young animator has shouted out that WAR IS STUPID!
we must except that China is now becoming an empire and an empire will wage war in order to secure what it wants… I just hope there are more smart young people like this animator who will speak out against stupid old people who run the country
its unfortunate that most countries are run by stupid old men these days