On the afternoon of May 9, Dongkoh & Backwall, together with PALACE (百丽宫), held a small-scale screening of the newly released animated film Ranbiwa in Chengdu.
Those in attendance included:
Fu Sheng, Founder of Shenfan & Qiying (神番&奇影) | Xiong Zihua, Founder of Bear Bear Bear Cartoon (比格熊动漫) | Wang Shixu, Director of Hell’s Gate (《镇魂街》animator) | Da Da, General Producer & IP Operations President at Chengdu Yingda Shuying (成都应答树影业) | Liu Lishuo, Animation Department Faculty at Sichuan Conservatory of Music Chengdu Academy of Fine Arts | Liu Yimin, Animation Department at Chengdu Neusoft University | Zeng Zhilin, General Manager of Chengdu Zhongxing Lele Tourism & Culture Development | Wang Min, Founder & Producer at Chengdu Yaoyao Film (成都妖妖影视) | Meng Meng, Editor at Sichuan Children’s Publishing House | Wei Yutong, Marketing & Planning at Science Fiction World (科幻世界) | Xie Jinwu, Independent Animation, Comic & Game Creator……
And director Li Wenyu of Ranbiwa.
This was not a typical audience screening. It was a room full of Chengdu’s animation industry insiders, watching a singular Chinese animated film, and talking about how it got made.
“Like the character — lonely, confused, without direction”
During the post-screening Q&A, someone asked the director: What is this film actually about?
He didn’t answer with the plot. Instead, he shared his original intention:
“I wanted the audience to feel what the character feels — lonely, confused, without direction. He doesn’t know what he’s doing, just wandering lost in the jungle. But gradually, in life, we go through our own journeys too. Slowly, we figure out which way we want to go.”
It sounded like he was describing the film. It also sounded like he was describing his own five years making it.
Five years. Fifty thousand hand-painted sheets of rice paper.
“At the Berlin Film Festival, I felt like my dream had already come true. But later I realized — nothing ever goes according to plan.”
The Qiang mythology, reimagined as something else
The film is based on an oral myth from the Qiang people of Ngawa, Sichuan. The director said his original idea was to make a story “about growth, about companionship.” A friend from the Qiang region told him: their legend has it that “apes became humans thousands of years before Darwin’s theory.” The method of fire-starting was different too — two white stones struck together, unlike the versions found in most other myths.
He grafted his original concept onto this myth, but the adaptation was substantial — he worked with “one possibility behind the legend,” told that possibility out loud, and let it become legend through oral retelling.
“There are many deliberate choices in the film. For example, the shadow puppet scene — I made sure to show the audience it’s fake. Shadow puppets couldn’t scare away any beasts. That was the point: to remind viewers that this is a story being told.”
The narration was added later. During test screenings, audiences didn’t follow the story, so he introduced a narrator — simulating the way Qiang elders tell stories to their people. An adult telling a tale, with embellishment, with exaggeration, perhaps even with things that aren’t quite true.
“If you had one more chance, which version would you choose?”
Someone asked him: If you had one more shot, with no input from anyone else — which version would you pick?
He paused for a moment, then said: I think the current version is good. It’s what I wanted.
From somewhere in the room came a quiet remark: God. This is art.
The screening was co-organized by Dongkoh & Backwall with Beijing Cinemas. Over the next hour, the conversation had already moved past “is this a good film?” to “why was this film made this way?”
Director Li Wenyu said his original goal was to make a true animated film — one that tells its story through the language of animation itself — so that general audiences in theaters could encounter what usually only appears at film festivals.
He said he’d already taken the first step.
Film: Ranbiwa (燃比娃) | Director: Li Wenyu (李文愉) | Produced by: Shanghai Animation Film Studio (上海美术电影制片厂)
Organized by: Dongkoh × Backwall × PALACE(百丽宫影城)
Supported by: Shenfan & Qiying (神番&奇影) | Co-organized by: Baiyoujie Film Therapy (百优解电影疗愈) | Ticketing Partner: Zaichang (在场)*
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