{"id":10136,"date":"2025-08-19T20:49:08","date_gmt":"2025-08-19T20:49:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/10136\/"},"modified":"2025-08-19T20:49:08","modified_gmt":"2025-08-19T20:49:08","slug":"shanghai-animations-nobody-surges-to-no-1-as-chinas-biggest-2d-release","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/10136\/","title":{"rendered":"Shanghai Animation’s ‘Nobody’ Surges to No. 1 as China’s Biggest 2D Release"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Nobody<\/a><\/p>\n

A dark horse entry onto the summer movie season has become China\u2019s top-grossing 2D animated film at the box office. In its third weekend (released August 2), Shanghai Animation Film Studio\u2019s Nobody has climbed from the No. 2 to the No. 1 spot, overtaking Shen Ao\u2019s Nanjing Massacre drama\u00a0Dead to Rights with $32.9 million (RMB 237.1M) from Aug. 15-17.<\/p>\n

Moreover,\u00a0Nobody\u2018s cumulative box office of $138.5M (RMB 997M)\u00a0 secured its place as the highest-grossing 2D-animated theatrical release of all time in China; as of Monday, the film had surpassed RMB 1 billion. Nobody has earned an impressive audience review score of 8.5 on Douban. Despite a year-on-year decrease of 17.865% in China\u2019s summer box office as reported by Maoyan on Saturday, the country\u2019s film industry has reached RMB 10 billion in box office and pre-sales from June to August.<\/p>\n

Nobody\u2018s surprise success puts it ahead of three internationally acclaimed Japanese animated features: Makoto Shinkai\u2019s Suzume, (RMB 807M \/ $112.2M) and Hayao Miyazaki\u2019s Oscar winner The Boy and the Heron (RMB 791M) and Your Name. (RMB 713M), also by Shinkai. The plucky little piggy tale is not quite on the level of explosive success as Chengdu Coco Cartoon\/Beijing Enlight Media\u2019s 3D CG super hit\u00a0Ne Zha 2 \u2014 which set a new record by reaching RMB 4 billion in just six days of release and went on to become the world\u2019s highest-grossing animated feature of all time with more than $2.2B. But, it is a stirring reminder that 2D is far from out of the global cinema game and another indicator of Chinese animation\u2019s rapidly growing profile<\/a> on the international scene.<\/p>\n

Based on the popular anthology series Yao \u2013 Chinese Folktales (a.k.a. Chinese Bizarreries), which hit huge viewership numbers<\/a> on Bilibili when it launched in 2023 and has since accumulated 360 million views, the mythic comedy-adventure follows a little pig demon who sets out from the Langlang mountains, teaming up with a toad demon, weasel demon and gorilla demon for an epic \u201cJourney to the West\u201d in an imitation of the classic novel\u2019s monk hero Tang Sanzang and his three disciples. A consumer products campaign is already underway in China tied to the film.<\/p>\n

Nobody\u2018s distinctive visuals honed by Shanghai Animation incorporate extensive use of traditional ink-wash painting techniques for a true-to-tradition Chinese style. As film supervisor Liaoyu Chen explained in a pre-release interview with Shanghai Observer, the animation team used real ink to build each frame, rather than merely recreating the look of ink. \u201cFor example,\u201d Chen elaborated, \u201cthe two tusks of the little pig demon retain the hand-drawn arc lines, and these details are the most challenging aspects.\u201d The film was written and directed by\u00a0Yao \u2013 Chinese Folktales writer-director Shui Yu.<\/p>\n

No North American theatrical or streaming partner has been announced in these early days, but interest is sure to be piqued by\u00a0Nobody\u2018s rapidly forged status as a box office Somebody.<\/p>\n

[Source: South China Morning Post, ScreenDaily]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A dark horse entry onto the summer movie season has become China\u2019s top-grossing 2D animated film at the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10137,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[263],"tags":[9867,9868,18,117,19,17,9869,327,9870,9871,9872,9873],"class_list":{"0":"post-10136","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-box-office","9":"tag-chinese-animation","10":"tag-eire","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-ie","13":"tag-ireland","14":"tag-liaoyu-chen","15":"tag-movies","16":"tag-nobody","17":"tag-shanghai-animation-film-studio","18":"tag-shui-yu","19":"tag-yao-chinese-folktales"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10136","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10136"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10136\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10137"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}