A single film changed the life of a boy - and that boy went on to redraw the map of Japanese animation. Completed by Toei Animation in 1958, The White Snake Enchantress was Japan’s first feature-length color animated film. The impossible love between Bai Niang, the incarnation of the white snake from Chinese legend, and the young man Xu Xian was brought to life by director Yabushita Taiji and his staff, who produced tens of thousands of hand-painted cels in pursuit of Toei’s ambition to become the ‘Disney of the East.’ Years later, in his autobiographical book Starting Point, Miyazaki Hayao recalled the night he saw the film in a theater as a high school senior preparing for college entrance exams. Captivated by the heroine, he staggered home through the snowy streets and wept all night. His confession that he felt ashamed of himself in the face of such a pure and unwavering world reveals a sincerity that belies the film’s reputation at the time as a ‘cheap, third-rate melodrama.’ Even now, more than half a century later, the painstaking craftsmanship embedded in every single cel has not aged in the slightest. It is nothing less than a point of origin - a film that moved Miyazaki to tears and helped propel Japanese animation through the century that followed.
Yabushita Taiji was born in Japan in 1903. As an animation director and planner, he led the production of early feature-length animations at Toei Animation. He directed The White Snake Enchantress (1958,) Japan′s first full-length color animated feature film, and subsequently laid the foundation for Japanese theatrical animation production by creating works such as The Adventure of the Little Samurai (1959), The Enchanted Monkey (1960), and Adventure of Sindbad (1962).
From Busan International Film Festival 2026, No. 31
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The White Snake EnchantressBusan International Film Festival 2026, No. 31Special Program in Focus: Japanese Animation Special: Masterpieces of Madness, Exhilarating Prospects 12+1
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