Animated ambitions

A string of Academy Awards is helping to put an Irish animation studio on the map. Xu Fan looks at how its films may be received by Chinese audiences.

Irish director Nora Twomey believes her new animated movie may resonate with Chinese because of its similarities with the story of Hua Mulan, the brave daughter who disguises herself as a young man to take her father's place in the emperor's army.

Indeed, her new film, The Breadwinner, which is set in Afghanistan, resembles the Chinese ballad first transcribed 1,500 years ago, she explains during the 14th China International Cartoon & Animation Festival in Zhejiang's provincial capital, Hangzhou.