Animation Grand Prix 2001

From another one of my video tapes almost a whole evening of short programmes on animation.

[These programmes are] from a four part late night series called 'Animation Grand Prix' from 2001. Shown on Channel 4 (UK) each weeks segment would be dedicated to a particular country showing short films and features along with non-country specific programmes. Regrettably I only taped the Japanese night, most of which I'm uploading here. Programmes shown on the night that I won't be uploading included a specially commissioned series by Adam and Joe (which has already been uploaded) and the premiere of anime Blood: The Last Vampire (2000).

The evening began with part one of Adam and Joes series on animation and then the first in a series of programmes where 5 animators had 3 days to make a one minute film (which I may upload later).



Actress Jessica Stevenson (Spaced) talks about some of her favourite animations including Top Cat (1961), Ralph Bakshi's Coonskin (aka Street Fight) (1975) and Mamoru Oshii's Ghost in the Shell (1995).



A short film on artist Mumble Boy.



A short CG animation by Satoshi Tomioka.



A short film on making 'anime music videos' (AMV) from back in the day when everything was sourced from good ol' VHS.



Another short from Satoshi Tomioka.



A short film looking at lesbian characters in anime.

After this came the premiere of Blood: The Last Vampire and a few more shorts which I didn't keep in the end. One of which I remember being a short that cut footage from Ninja Scroll with a group of monks having an orgy, very odd.

Film: Tie shan gong zhu (1941)

Aka Princess Iron Fan this is an early Chinese animated feature, I've heard to be one of the first even. Based on the book Journey to the West I watched this without subtitles but managed to barely follow the story. Three disciples of a traveling monk, a monkey king, a pig and water spirit attempt to steal a power fan from a princess in order to defeat an angry fire demon who is causing a massive heat wave. That about makes up the first half, the second I wasn't too sure about but it involved the fan again and also some singing along the way.

Having previously only watched the English dub of the Japanese Monkey series it was nice to see another adaption of Journey To the West, especially such an early one. The animation is crude as can be and the shots seem to make more movement then necessary (there are shots where the camera appears to dart back and forth for little reason), the former however being acceptable.

As i say it was nice seeing such a rare piece but would of been nice with subtitles. The animation is available to download from archive.org

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