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Pandering to every whim - a real panda movie!
By Liu Wei (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-05-05 10:22 Stand aside, Winnie the Pooh. In Disney's latest movie, pandas steal the show. Trail of the Panda (Xiongmao Huijialu), which features real pandas and a 10-year-old boy star, will open on the Chinese mainland this Friday.
Set against the spectacular scenery of Siguniang Mountain, Balang Mountain and Wolong Giant Panda Nature Reserve in Sichuan province, the film's central character is an orphan named Lu, who finds a lost panda cub, carries his new friend on his back and starts a thrilling trip to return it to its mother. "There were lots of documentaries about pandas but they were very factual," says co-producer Jean Chalopin. "We wanted to introduce pandas emotionally to people, to touch their hearts." The film was conceived three years ago, when Chalopin read that one of the founders of the Wolong reserve had saved a panda during his childhood, forming a life-long bond between him and the animals. He and Jennifer Liu, the scriptwriter and CEO of Beijing-based Ying Dong Media, developed a story based on it, took it to Disney and quickly got a thumbs-up.
Filming started in Wolong, a three-hour drive from Chengdu, in February 2008 and took about three months. The pandas featured in nearly every scene of the 90-minute film but the production crew found that once the cameras were rolling, they were not always that cute. They came from China's foremost panda research and preservation center, Wolong reserve, which allowed them to be used for a maximum 90 minutes a day in line with their strict routine of work and rest but insisted they were all accompanied by their exclusive raisers, who took care of feeding them and monitoring their moods. |
