Tourists watch the parade with a musical soundtrack and colorful performers on July 16, the opening day of Shanghai Disneyland.
 

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the first full-length animated feature film produced by the Walt Disney Company, was released in Shanghai only half a year after its production and became a hit in the city.

 In the 1930s and 1940s, Chinese writer Lin Yutang paid homage to the humor of Disney’s cartoon films in his articles, which featured a Mickey Mouse theme.

To mark the recent opening of Shanghai Disneyland, an exhibition of printed materials titled “Historical Origins of Disney-Shanghai Ties” was held in Shanghai Library. Through the exhibition of nearly a hundred old newspapers, journals, books and other materials, the activity tells the story of how Disney interacted with Shanghai over the years.

 
‘Snow White’ 
On Dec. 21, 1937, the first full-length Disney animated feature film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs debuted in America. The film was released in Shanghai on June 2, 1938. It had the highest box office of any film at the time. Some commentators said that Children, no matter foreign or Chinese, have turned their attention from Shirley Temple to Snow White. The child star Shirley had been the one many kids admired, but now their affection is all given to Snow White.

According to some records, the ticket price for Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was more than half of the monthly wage for an ordinary worker in Shanghai at that time. Despite the high ticket price, the film still drew a large audience and became a major box office success even during its second release.

Pinocchio, another Disney animation, was also successful in Shanghai. For example, Shanghai’s local magazine Family used 17 pages to introduce this film in its fourth issue. The Shanghai Evening Post and Mercury, an English-language newspaper published in Shanghai, published articles detailing Disney’s filmmaking process.

 
Princess of Iron Fan 
In addition to praise, there was also criticism. One example was the article “Fantasia and the deviated path of Walt Disney” published in Wenhui Daily, a newspaper in Shanghai, on Dec. 31, 1946. The author of the article wrote that “the animated film Fantasia was well produced, but Walt Disney was expected to have made it better. The techniques employed in the film are superb, but the content left much to be desired, which is really a pity.”

Inspired by the popularity of Disney animation, filmmakers in Shanghai scrambled to produce their own animations. Two brothers named Wan Guchan and Wan Laiming were the most influential film producers in Shanghai at that time. Some media called Wan Guchan “China’s Walt Disney.” The American magazine Sports Illustrated published images of Mickey Mouse that were created by Wan brothers. In 1941, China’s first full-length animated feature film, and the world’s fourth, Princess of Iron Fan was released.