AN animated video promoting the 150-day countdown to the 2022 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games in Beijing has brought back many Chinese netizens’ childhood memories as it stars a number of classic Chinese cartoon characters. The Games’ organizing committee’s Sina Weibo account released the 1.5-minute-long video Tuesday. It starts with the Monkey King, the legendary mythical figure from China’s well-known literary work “Journey to the West” and a star of a multitude of animated and live action films, as he introduces many classic cartoon characters, who appear in the video as athletes and are ready to take part in the upcoming Games. Nezha, the popular Chinese mythological character from the classic work “Investiture of the Gods,” is seen participating in the pair skating event with Ao Bing, the son of the Dragon King. Erlang Shen, a Chinese god with a third truth-seeing eye in the middle of his forehead, is seen competing with the Monkey King in many winter sports. “This time, the Chinese animated league will contribute to the promotion of China’s winter sports. We aim to get about 300 million Chinese to participate in the Beijing’s 2022 Winter Olympic Games,” says the Monkey King in the video. The cartoon characters that appear in the video are from the 1980s animation films or series produced by the Shanghai Animation Film Studio, one of the oldest animation production studios in China. The video quickly began trending on Sina Weibo as it leaned hard on the nostalgia of many Chinese. “The Shanghai Animation Film Studio is China’s Pixar,” one Chinese netizen wrote on Sina Weibo. “This is a big alliance in the Chinese animation industry! This is the path that Chinese cartoons should follow,” another netizen wrote. (Global Times) | 