Industrial transformation in Chinese animation cinema (1995–2015)

Abstract

Abstract This article focuses on Chinese cinema animation works between 1995 and 2015 in terms of industrial transformation, thus providing an up-to-date view of cinema animation as an important subsector of Chinese cultural creative industries. The findings of this study can be divided into three parts. First, Chinese cinema animation shows a child-oriented trend over the last two decades. That is to say, Chinese animators always, consciously or unconsciously, find opportunities to cater to children’s pleasure while ignoring the entertainment appeal for other age groups. Second, the serialized and broad-based cinema animations, which have the possible advantage of the audience’s pre-existing familiarity with the characters and stories, can be regarded as an important link of animation value chain. Meanwhile, the above works have exerted mixed effects on its parent brand. Finally, the majority of completely original animated films in China have fallen into a paradox between sound reputation and poor box office performance.