A Teenage Chairman Mao Gets His Own Animated Film

This December will mark the 120 anniversary of Mao Zedong’s birthday. To celebrate and honor the birth of The Chairman, China is putting out an animated feature film detailing Mao’s younger years.

This new “anime” will be the first of it’s kind to detail Mao’s youth. This project has received government approval.

Titled, Shaoshan Youths: The Story of Chairman Mao, the movie will explore young Mao and his friends’ desire for freedom and exploration. The South China Morning Post reports that the development team worked hard to push the film out in time for the anniversary of Mao’s birth. The film is supposedly going to be in 3D.

It’ll be interesting to see how they will tell the tale of Mao’s youth to a modern audience. Looking at the early images, it shows Mao wearing a braided hairstyle of a young man during the Qing Dynasty (1644 – 1911). Young Mao is also seen wearing clothes that would denote someone who didn’t have a lot of money. Mao, however, came from a wealthy family. Also, it would be interesting to see how they’ll deal with the voice of Mao. The Chairman spoke with a heavy accent in a time when Mandarin Chinese wasn’t the national language in China.

Will they wash over Mao’s history and portray an idealized teenage Mao? Don’t be surprised if they do.

Animated film about Mao Zedong in works to raise youth awareness [SCMP]

Animated film about teenage Mao Zedong to be released [ECNS via ShanghaiIst]

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Eric is a Beijing based writer and all around FAT man. You can contact him @[email protected] or follow him on Twitter @FatAsianTechie