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China Secretly Made A New CG Tom & Jerry Feature: ‘Tom & Jerry: Forbidden Compass’
This week in China, a quite mysterious and previously-unannounced cg-animated Tom & Jerry feature is world premiering and it appears to be made primarily for Chinese audiences.
The film is called Tom & Jerry: Forbidden Compass and it is a co-production between Chinese studios and Warner Bros. in the United States, with a Chinese director, Zhang Gang (co-director, Kuiba 3; animation director, No.7 Cherry Lane).
While it’s certainly surprising that WB made an entire animated feature using classic IP for a specific market outside of the United States, it’s not surprising that the characters they used are Tom & Jerry. The company has been aggressively adapting the iconic cat-and-mouse duo for various Asian markets, having already produced a series of T&J shorts for Singaporean audiences and a second series of shorts for Japanese audiences.
It’s not clear yet when the film will be released theatrically in China, but its world premiere is happening at the 27th Shanghai Int’l Film Festival as part of its animation competition. Here’s a clip from the festival’s trailer:
The festival website describes Forbidden Compass as follows (translated from Chinese): “This time, Tom and Jerry accidentally traveled through the museum, they met a group of interesting new partners, started a wonderful adventure, and even got involved in a final showdown of mysterious forces.”
We’ve reached out to Warner Bros. for more information about the film and distribution plans outside of China. Some toys have already been created to accompany the film:
The new T&J pic is competing for the Shanghai Fest’s Golden Goblet against four other animated titles: Edge of Time (dirs. Li Wei, Weng Ming, Shinichiro Watanabe, Shuhei Morita; China), Magic Beach (Robert Connolly, Australia), Make A Girl (Gensho Yasuda, Japan), and The Songbird’s Secret (Antoine Lanciaux, France/Switzerland/Belgium). The festival jury is comprised of Nora Twomey (The Breadwinner), Koji Yamamura (Mt. Head), and Zhao Ji (White Snake).
