As usual, it’s fancy-looking and a seamless combination of animation and puppetry. Unlike the previous opening themes (see here, here and here), this one does not have as much of a story. Instead it’s a showcase of all the primary character of the series. While it looked nice overall, two things caught my attention, in particular.

First, there’s the dancing girl with long wavy sleeves, first seen at 0:48-0:54. The camera shooting from the top while the character spins is something rarely seen in these things, since these puppets are manipulated from below. The spinning motion is really fluid, natural, and human-like. They did a really good job with it. She can been seen dancing again from 2:48 to 2:58. The wrist movement is the most smooth and delicate I’ve seen for this type of puppet, so they definitely improved on the technique (and maybe mechanism) some more.

And then there’s the shot with the monk at the end (4:29-4:33) in which he turned twice in the air, and hit the ground with his weapon while landing. This was also beautifully done. Normally how they would film this was, they would first show the character spinning in the air from waist up, because it would be difficult to control the legs at the same time. Then they would cut to a shot with just the legs and feet touching the ground, and finally his weapon swinging downward. Of course, these shots would each be very short and cut together smoothly to represent the movement, but this time they did the whole thing in one straight shot. I could imagine that it took several puppeteers to get this exactly right, and with post-production crew cleaning up the images afterwards, but the end result looked really good. Beautifully done.

The rest of the video were nicely done too, using transitional effects representing brush motions in traditional calligraphy or painting. However, those two shots stood out as I went back to re-watch those portions multiple times.

Not that you don’t know that already, unless you are completely disconnected from the rest of the world (in which case you probably have nothing to worry about anyway).

What was really different about this series is the distribution. Decades ago, these puppetry series were half-hour episodes shown on network TV. About 20 years ago, the government decided to limit the hours of Taiwanese language programs in favor of Mandarin programs and the producers of these shows decided to go off air and go into the VHS rental market. Back in the days, there were only three networks, all owned and tightly controlled by the government. Cable television neither was allowed nor had the infrastructure to make it possible. So the VHS rental market was an important one, as it offered a variety of programs like music/sketch variety shows, American movies and Japanese drama. The puppet series went there too and was popular. This established the one-hour format that we still use to this day. When VHS was phased out, they switched to VCDs, and eventually DVDs.

Now, the company, Pili, had decided to make a really big change. They decided to stop using the DVD rental chains (like Blockbuster) for distribution and sign with FamilyMart instead. FamilyMart is a convenient store chain from Japan, and they also have franchises in Thailand, South Korea, Taiwan, mainland China (Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Suzhou), and the United States. (The North American version is branded Famima!! and all locations are in the Greater Los Angeles area.) The official reason was to make it more convenient for viewers because there are way more convenient stores than DVD rental stores, but of course, it was probably related to a fallout between the series producers and the distributors. It was more of a business decision to cut out the middle man. Whichever reason it was, it was a major experiment to change up the model that was in place for 20 years.

The other implication was also interesting. To rent these episodes, you put down a NT$10 deposit, and then pay the NT$120 rental fee. You can keep the DVDs for as long as you want. But how is this different from just paying NT$130 to purchase it? The difference is, if it were a purchase, you are now the owner of the disk and you can freely distribute it. You can sell it and you can rent it out. If it’s a rental, you do not actually own it. The company still owns them. You can watch them, but you can not, say, get the disks and open your own rental store.

And the decision seems to have been finalized very close to the actual release date. If you look at the end credit video, you can see that most text has transparent background, except for the distributor text. As someone that edits videos, it was obvious to me that the black background was used to cover up text that was originally there. That means this switch was finalized quite last minute.

How would this new distribution model work? Not much can be said yet, since it’s only been two weeks. We’ll see how it goes.

This new series is called 黑白龍狼傳, which translates literally to The Chronicles of Black-White, Dragon, and Wolf. (The literal translation sounds weird and somewhat meaningless but let me assure you that it sounded much better and more meaningful before translation. ) The series is produced by Li-Gang Huang (黃立綱), the youngest son of Chuan-Hsiung Huang (黃俊雄). To give a little bit of background information, Chuan-Hsiung Huang is the puppet master whose series dominate the TV screen decades ago, and Pili, a series created by his two oldest sons still dominate the TV puppetry DVD rental market to this day. So now, the old puppet master is helping his youngest son with the new series to get a portion of the market share.

Objectively speaking, this video combined puppetry, computer animation, and special effects, so maybe I should have been more impressed by it. However, quite a few of the shots from the opening theme imitate what Pili has already done (and done better) so I wasn’t particularly impressed with it. (You can see the videos on Youtube here and here, and I’ve already blogged about them a few months ago here and here.) It wasn’t bad. I’ve just seen better, that’s all. I will write another post comparing the videos later.

But you know they say not to judge a book by its cover. I don’t think you should judge a series by its opening theme either. I watched the first six episodes and I like it so far. The story line is a lot simpler than Pili’s, which is actually quite chaotic and not very good at this point because they did not coordinate the stories between different writers very well. This new series, on the other hand, has a simple story line, while the characters’ own stories are woven into it. I like it this way, but also, they need to make the story more complicated soon, or it will go stale in a few more episodes. As you can see, it’s a fine balance.

But I am also not going to judge it by the first six episodes. They actually had problems (funding, distribution, etc.), so these six episodes were actually filmed a while ago. And then the production was halted and finall resumed this year. Between then and this year, the voiceover person went through a lot more training (rumor says) and they hired a new writer. They also fixed up the puppets and sets so I really don’t know what episode seven would be like. I am interested in finding out.

So far, I like it.

This year’s World Games is held in Kaohsiung, Taiwan. And as we know about these kind of events, the opening ceremony is often a big performance put on by the host country showcasing their culture. And of course, one of the most Taiwanese thing is its puppetry. The opening ceremony features two of the most popular singers for today’s TV puppet shows, five people dressed as puppet show characters, over 200 puppets and the puppet master who provides the voice for each speaking character. To summarize the premise: basically it’s a good vs. evil story and they are fighting it out. Hence all the dry ice and fireworks for special effects. It’s really cool for me to see puppets performed in an occasion like this. Unfortunately, the lighting is not good, and really, the puppets are hard to see from such a distance. But it was cool nevertheless, especially the huge video projection in the very beginning.

Here’s another clip from a rehearsal. You can see the puppets and how the puppeteers are manipulating them so much better.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDUBjYxpzDA
(Remember to click on the HQ option for best quality.)

To give a little bit of background information: The video is the opening theme for the new series by Pili, Taiwan’s biggest and longest running TV puppetry production. It was also used as an advertisement, first premiered at their own store (yes, they have their own stores selling Pili puppet related merchandise) for fans to come and take a peek at the newest episodes. The video is designed by Zheng Bao-Pin (鄭保品) whose amazing work integrating puppetry and animation has been featured on this site before. One of them was the opening theme to the previous Pili series, and the other is the Fearless video that’s been viral on the internet.

Word is that Pili had hired him to do these opening themes after being impressed by the Fearless video. I don’t know if he will end up being one of the directors for the series, but this guy certainly has a lot of talent with videos like these.

The documentary is actually on Huang Hai-dai (黃海岱), who is the godfather of Taiwanese puppetry, pretty much. The man lived to be 107, and it’s no exaggeration to say the story of his life is the story of the evolution of Taiwanese puppetry. He was an innovative story teller who came up with Taiwan’s most well-known puppet character, Shih Yian-Wen (史艷文), who was an intellectual and scholar who became a martial arts hero after being oppressed by the corrupt government. The character became very popular at his stage performances, and then when TV came around, the puppet master’s son Huang Jun-Xiong (黃俊雄) brought it to TV. The show received a 97% rating at its peak (granted, there were only three channels at the time, but it was still pretty amazing). And then Huang Hai-Dai’s grand children (Huang Jun-Xiong’s sons) got into the VHS (now DVD) rental market with their popular series, Pili (霹靂) and even have their own TV channel. So the story of this family is a good chunk of Taiwanese puppetry.

Anyway, enough of that. Take a look of what Taiwanese puppetry look like. I hope it’s not too confusing to look at, because Taiwanese puppetry is constantly evolving with time. The traditional puppets are the size of the palm, and each puppet can be manipulated with one hand, while the new TV puppets are much taller and require two hands to perform. And then there’s a bunch of different sizes in between too. So in the video, you will see different varieties of Taiwanese puppets, though they all derive from the same tradition.

Okay, I talked too much. I am going to write about these things later anyway, so why do it now? Here are the videos. They cut it into four segments but really, it’s only about 18 minutes. Enjoy! (I know you’ll enjoy this, Naomi. By the way, the chunk that has the most details about mechanism and manipulation is in the last video.)

World City

World City is a program at the Music Center (officially The Performing Arts Center of Los Angeles County, better known for Walt Disney Concert Hall and Ahmanson Theater) where they invite a performing arts group from around the world to put on a free show each month for family audiences. There were many loving parents enjoying quality family time with their kids at these shows. It was well-advertised and we were on the waiting list by the time we got there. When we were outside chatting with the staff, they told us that puppet shows are particularly popular because parents take their children to see these shows. I am glad to hear that, because good puppet shows are simply magical.

The Music

They did two shows this time: one at 11:00am and one at 12:30pm. We were there to see the 12:30 one, so when we arrived, the 11:00am show was in progress. As we walked towards the theater, I got more and more excited because I could hear the music becoming louder and clearer. I was very happy to hear live music, because some of the theater troupes started using stereo systems to play recorded music to save money. But really, live music with traditional instruments is just so much more exciting. In Taiwan, before a show starts, the band will play their music really loud. This is a signal for all the kids to hurry up and get the best seat. You know, we were on the waiting list at the time and we weren’t even sure if we would actually get in, but I was thinking, even if I only got to listen to the music from outside, it was already worth the trip for me.

The Venue

We eventually got in (yay!) and saw the set-up. They sure brought everything. The puppeteers, the musicians, the puppets, the beautifully decorated puppet stage that’s hand-carved out of wood, everything. This was outdoors (hm, should’ve brought sunblock) in the amphitheatre where people sit on steps instead of individual seats, and there were many children too. No wonder that they had a hard time figuring out how many people would actually fit in the place.

The Group

Chen Kuai Le (真快樂, literally, really happy) Puppetry Company is directed by Taiwan’s leading female puppeteer, Ms. Sih-mei Chiang (江賜美). Her son Chia-tsai Ko (柯加財) and grandsons Shih-hong Ko (柯世宏) and Shih-hua Ko (柯世華) serve as puppeteers as well. The company is one of the most famous traditional puppet troupe in Taiwan. Shih-hong Ko and Shih-hua Ko also received The Most Popular Puppeteer Award in the Golden Dolphin International Puppet, Bulgaria in 2002 for the Carnival of Taiwanese Hand Puppetry.

The Program

The program was broken up into two halves. The first part is Wu-Song, the Tiger Hero. It was about Wu-Song defeating a tiger that eats people. The second part is Carnival of Taiwanese Hand Puppetry. This portion shows the many intricate movements of the puppets. There were very few lines spoken. This is typical for a show that’s presented to people that don’t understand Taiwanese (the language these shows are traditionally in). When they are performed in settings where not everyone is expected to understand the dialect, such as in schools as a cultural program, or performed in other countries, the version with less talk and a whole lot more action is often presented. Otherwise, in a setting where everyone understands Taiwanese, the shows are usually performed in front of a temple during festivals and have stories based on folklores and classic literature (or just random things made up by the troupes).

In the Wu-Song story, before Wu-Song went to fight the tiger, there were four brothers who also went to fight the tiger using different martial art skills (sword, knife, fists, etc.) and of course, they all failed before the hero arrived. And of course, this was just a convenient way to show off puppets fighting in different styles. And watching this kind of stuff growing up is why I love puppets doing martial arts so much, and even did my own version in Think, Outside the Box.

In the Carnival of Taiwanese Hand Puppetry, a series of archetypal characters are presented. The ones presented this time (and most of the time) are the man, the woman, the old, and the clown (生、旦、末、丑). They often show the (intellectual) man reciting poetry, using a fan in one hand, and picking up a pen to write. Since I watched quite a few of these, I’ve seen those things done many times. However, I was impressed when the puppet lit a candle. That I did not see coming. The woman typically came out and played with her hair and such. The old man showed his special way of walking, because he’s old and slouching. He also lit a pipe and blew smoke. The clown came out and clowned around. These things are a little hard to describe unless you saw it with your own eyes, I guess. Oh yeah, and these things are usually done as seperate segments, but in this particular performance they came up with a simple story to have these four characters interact and have a conflict and resolution. It was clever. And then they also showed puppets spinning plates and handkerchieves. What I haven’t seen before were a man chopping down a tree, and a woman ribbon dancing. I’ve seen ribbon dancing done with Chinese rod puppets, but I haven’t seen them done with Taiwanese puppets. They are definitely very skillful and are pushing the envelope coming up with innovations too.

The Explanations

Between the Wu-song story and the Carnival half, someone came in front of the stage and gave a little bit of an introduction of Taiwanese puppetry in English. It was short, and also they had a little bit of a workshop thing explaining the mechanisms of these puppets. Oh yeah, during the show I was also explaining / translating stuff for a Chinese friend sitting next to me, and a dad with his kid we just met while in line. Those information wasn’t entirely necessary, but hey, I’m there, might as well. I am talking about information like, a puppet come out one side of the stage, and then quickly swings by and exits another side of the stage, and then he proceeds to do this a few times… what does that mean? It means he is travelling a long distance in a hurry. Is that essential to know? No. But it’s a convention that you pick up when you watch it growing up.

These shows don’t need to teach you everything about the art form. These shows are entertainment, and an exposure to another kind of art. If anyone is interested in the details and more background information, they can always look it up afterwards. Oh yeah, guess where you can get that info? Subscribe to this blog (wink, wink). One of my major goal this year with this blog is to write more about Taiwanese puppetry, since I don’t really see a lot of information about it on the internet. When I see introductions to Taiwanese puppetry on the internet in the English-speaking (uh, typing) world, it’s often just what they are… introductions. There are not enough details for people that actually want to know more about it. And I think that’s what I should be doing this year… writing more about this art.

Oh yeah, did I mention that the show was totally awesome and I was so glad that I went?

To give a little bit of background information, this is the opening theme for the new series by Pili, the biggest puppet show production company in Taiwan. The new series will start in a few weeks and this is released as a promo. I was so excited when I saw the video. Of course, those watching the above video wouldn’t get the same degree of excitement I got, because I saw it in higher video quality and I am familiar with the characters. In the higher quality video, I got to see a lot more details. For example, when there are explosions, I can see the small particles flying out, but in the Youtube version it’s just all blurry. And in terms of characters, many of these are very popular characters from different era. They brought these characters back all at the same time so it was an all-star cast! Certainly made me look forward to seeing the story unfold. And the feeling I got after seeing the characters and animations was “IT’S SO EPIC!!!”

In terms of puppeteering, it’s not that impressive, since they are mostly just posing for close-up shots. But in terms of editing and production, it’s something that we’ve never seen before with these TV series. It’s so much animation that makes you wonder if it’s a puppet show or a cool-looking computer game or animated movie, but either way, the thing looks so damn good! Compared to the opening theme of the current series, it definitely has a very different feel. While it’s impossible to crank out two episodes, each 60 minutes long, every week with such detailed animation, it’s great to see them pushing their boundary. And there was a rumor that some of the people that made the Huo Yuan Jia video that I previous blogged about have later joined Pili. I think that rumor just might be true. I see some resemblances in terms of style.

Yeah, I was originally going to post something else, but this video made me so excited that I kept watching it over and over. Must have watched it somewhere around 20 times now… I’ve got to stop finding cool videos so I can actually finish what I was going to post instead of keep on pushing it back!

PS. If you’d like to see a copy of the higher quality video I saw, leave a comment or email me to let me know.

EDIT: Updated with a higher quality one. (Sept 27, 2008)

(If you can’t see the embedded video, watch it at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEWsYUbrZfk)

The video is simply amazing in terms of puppeteering and editing. All the shots are meticulously planned out and the attention to details is superb. They must’ve spent a lot of time on this. The way the characters handled the instruments and weapons are very human-like, and it’s just one of those videos that I’d watch again and again to soak in all the details.

That said, although the puppeteering is very good, it cannot look that good without really heavy editing. I watch this kind of puppets growing up, and I know the mechanisms of these puppets. So, I know that they did really heavy editing with the left arm. Normally, the puppet’s left arm is controlled by a rod from below. The left arm rod is usually hidden from the audience by the character’s really wide sleeves, but it is not possible to hide the rod when the sleeves are so narrow like the main character’s. They are so careful with this stuff that this is the only frame in the whole video where I can show you the rod. This is from around time code 1:46.

You can only see a really short section of the rod, and it just goes to show you what I said about the rod being normally covered by the sleeves. For the main character, since there’s not enough sleeve to cover up the rod, they must’ve really carefully edited it out. And since the character is constantly moving, it must have been a lot of work to edit out. Again, what they’ve done amazed me.

Who made such a video? People had different guesses and the group of people that made it used a pseudo-name and didn’t released much official information about it. When it first became viral on the internet, there were a lot of discussions about who made this video. Some said it was made by Chinese people, and some said it was made by Taiwanese people. Some said it was made by professionals that work in the industry, and some said these were made by people that were just passionate about the art. But I think, you can buy puppets, but you are not likely to have access to a studio with set pieces that are to the scale of the puppets if you are not in the industry. And these people obviously have really good skills, and most likely a lot of experiences as well. I believe it’s done by professionals as a side project.

Anyway, this really shows that with a vision, good skills, and a lot of time, you can make all kinds of crazy and amazing videos come true.