P2. In addition to this, the development of Chinese animation industry has always been influenced by Japanese anime and American cartoons.

P5.Unlike Japanese anime, the created cartoon images make audience recall the pure emotion of romantic love; the main purpose for watching American animation is to enjoy its entertaining moments. The cultural characteristics of American animation are very obvious, setting characters by Western humor, and exaggerated expressions.

Firstly, the exaggerated way of American cartoons uses an image language to indicate the culture, like Mickey Mouse and Snow White, taking Disney as a symbol.

Lotus Lantern (Baolian Deng, 1999, directed by Chang Xiguang) won the 19th China Film Golden Rooster Award for the best art film. It learned from Hollywood techniques and achieved commercial success, marking the beginning of Chinese animation into commercialization and internationalization (Ding, 2019: p. 59).

P5-6 The movies of the Monkey King: Hero Is Back (2015) and Nezha: I Am the Des- tiny (2019) did not follow the images of the previous Monkey King and Ne Zha. In other words, the characters of both Sun Wukong and Ne Zha created as any types but the one in the Journey to the West, who was full of divinity, and was a hero of a great master, or the one in Nezha Conquers the Dragon King, an image of children’s hero (Wu, 2016). They were rebellious at some point, brave but depressed, and kind but indifferent. The presentation of the two works made audiences very impressive.

P6 For instance, the character changed from om- nipotent to a seemed-selfish, evasive and tragic one, and more accessing to daily life. In Nezha: I am the Destiny, the boy bore the prejudices of the people of Chen Tangguan, and chose to be an “evil”, indicating kinds of prejudices in real life and their negation of human values (Ning, 2018).

P7. The image of Sun Wukong has been popular for decades. In 1964, Uproar in eaven (Da Nao Tiankong) marked a glorious page in the history of Chinese animation, taking Sun Wukong in Crystal Palace to fight with other kings. Sun Wukong was designed in a peach-heart face, with goose-yellow jacket, tiger skirt around waist, big red trousers, and a pair of black boots (see Figure 1). The so-called brave and vigorous description of Chinese characteristics of the hero (He, 2016: p. 80). While in the Monkey King: Hero is Back, the character of a hero is somewhat unusual. It was designed as exaggerated, along with horse-like long face, sloppy clothes and irritable temper (see Figure 2). By protecting Jiang Liuer and the lit- tle girl, though, The Monkey King: Hero is Back shaped Sun Wukong into an image of a knight, and a mature elder brother with affectionateness and righ- teousness.

P12-14 American’s Kung Fu Panda, for instance, the main character A Bao, with his fat body and grassroots behavior, represented very Hollywood-style (see Figure 16). His exaggerated expressions and rich body language made the American national characteristics more vivid. Despite a bit of luck of A Bao, the process of a hero’s birth embodied the social rule of fair play in American society (Yan & He, 2014: p. 21).

In addition, expectation of a hero and his value in Chinese culture lies in a noble moral character, ready to sacrifice the ego to ensure the interests of the public. The concept in both Monkey King and Nezha was particularly evident, in which sacrifice, reform, resistance and other distinctive symbolic characteristics were in compliance with the collective principles, so as to achieve Chinese-based image of heroes.

While again, in Kung Fu Panda, A Bao as a hero strongly revealed the indivi- dualism of an American character, implied a contradiction between the individ- ual and the social order. In the movie, A Bao didn’t have to abide by the long and orderly moral norms, and his pursuit of personal liberation and his realiza- tion of personal dreams could exist along with his defects and fears (Yu, 2017: p. 134). Furthermore, unlike American cartoon movies, either through images or di- alogues, it can be seen that American humors would be everywhere. The two Chinese animation movies also reflected an oriental charm of humor. Take Nezha for instance, in the portrayal of Tai Yi, a fat, round face, wine bad nose and big belly poo were arguably oriental, but the use of Sichuan dialect born most of the laughing points (see Figure 17).

P410. A few examples of the most popular of the dramedies released since 2010 alone include, in addition to Finding Mr. Right and American Dreams in China, So Young, Tiny Times I/II/III, and The Stolen Years. Neither historical epic nor martial arts romp, these films nonetheless invoke a certain time period or series of readily recognizable historical or current events. Often they are nostalgic coming of age narratives, or romantic comedies (or both) that invoke the shared pasts of moviegoers. In some cases they are loosely-based narrations of actual events (in the case of American Dreams in China, which is based on the saga of the highly successful New Orient English tutorial centers in the PRC) or referencing “real” trends (birth tourism in the case of Finding Mr. Right). The films zero in on the economic and social changes that have occurred in China over the past several decades, and on the ways in which friendships, partnerships, and romances (including bromances) are changed by China’s economic fortunes, in the process thereby altering the course of various histories, micro and macro.