The Smurfs: a nostalgic feast for China's young generation

The Smurfs, those tiny blue-skinned forest dwellers valiantly fighting a wicked wizard, ignited a "blue fever" nationwide when the cartoon came to China in 1986 on black and white TV sets. Today, that generation is reviving its childhood memories via 3D movie screens -- only this time, many are introducing the Smurfs to their children. "The Smurfs," created by the Belgian cartoonist Peyo and then made into an animated TV series by the United States' National Broadcasting Company (NBC), opened in theaters last Wednesday and sparked nostalgia among many viewers. "I first watched it when I was 5 or 6, and I can barely remember the plot, but I felt compelled to come see it today," said a 31-year-old surnamed Zhao. "It's like reviving an old dream." A box office clerk at downtown Beijing's Capital Cinema, where the movie is being shown 15 times a day, six in English and nine dubbed in Chinese, said that since the film premiered almost all viewers have been young. The English version is typically the first choice for many viewers, but if they have children, they choose the Chinese version, said the 22-year-old clerk, who has already seen the movie. "It was better than I remembered," he said. Produced by Sony Pictures Animation and Columbia Pictures, the movie features a small group of Smurfs who travel through a magical portal into modern New York City with the evil wizard Gargmel, their archenemy, and his cat, Azrael, in pursuit. "When I was little, I used to watch the Smurfs on a black-and-white TV, so this is the first time I've seen it in color," said the Weibo user "Lin Yu" in a post, adding that Benben, or Clumsy Smurf, is especially cute. A twenty-year old college girl surnamed Li said she found Azrael most impressive and loved the new theme song. But not everyone who hoped to recapture their childhood memories came away satisfied. "Compared with the TV series, the movie is oversimplified," said a 24-year-old viewer surnamed Zhang, who believes the characters in the movie deviate from their original personalities. And the quality of the storytelling may be more important than the quality of the technology used to tell the story. "Despite the benefit of the latest technology in the movie, I didn't feel the sense of awe and delight I had while watching as a kid," said Weibo user "Dreamer in Reality" in a post. "It's just that many things are best left to our memories, because there's no way to bring them back." SHARED MEMORY FOR TWO GENERATIONS For people born in the 1970s and 1980s, the Smurfs that were their childhood companions are now accessible to their kids, and perhaps the new film can provide a shared bond between them. "The movie has brought me back to the good old days of watching the animated series," said a viewer surnamed Wang who was born in the late 1970s. Wang watched the film together with his wife and ten-year-old son. "I wanted my son to watch it, hoping the love between Papa Smurf and his Smurfs, and the motif of punishing the evil and rewarding good, will have a positive effect on him," he said. Satisfied with the family-friendly movie, Wang said his son burst into laughter or cheers throughout the movie, especially when seeing Gargmel beaten up and Papa Smurf rescued. MULTI-FACET MEMORIES OF CHINESE YOUNGSTERS The recently-released "The Smurfs" and the Harry Potter finale have been blockbusters in China as many young people have flooded theaters to reunite with or bid farewell to those movie characters who have been accompanying them for years, if not as long as two decades. "The popularity of both Harry Potter and "The Smurfs" indicates that the magical world originated in Western countries has become a wonderland for children worldwide," said a woman who was born in the 1980s and is a huge fan of both the boy wizard and the charming blue creatures. "Today, the childhood memories of teenagers can be multi-faceted, consisting of images from both traditional Chinese tales and legendary figures from other cultures," said Gao Yuan, born in 1960s and father to a 20-year-old girl.