Famous film composer shares stories behind his creations with children

Famous composer Jin Fuzai shared with local children stories behind his creation of well-known scores for classic Chinese animated movies on Saturday.

At the Shanghai Film Museum, the 82-year-old Jin, who wrote many scores for Shanghai Animation Film Studio's productions, gave a lecture themed on music and life.

After graduating from the Shanghai Conservatory of Music, Jin entered the field of animation and film music. His music career is regarded as a "melody of the times" as the composer has witnessed the rapid development of Chinese cinema and musicals.

His representative scores for the drama film "Red River Valley," animated films "Nezha Conquers the Dragon King," "Three Monks," and "Snow Kid" have impressed generations of audiences.

Jin said that animated films rarely make children cry, but "Nezha Conquers the Dragon King" was an exception. A lot of children were moved to tears when they saw Nezha, for the sake of peace, decide to commit suicide as a sacrifice to the Dragon King.

"There are no lines to support this movie scene and it relies solely on music," Jin said. "This is definitely the charm of film music."

Jin added that when creating animations or children's films, composers need to change their thinking and understand what children really like.

To get more inspiration for his music, he used to travel across the country. He even climbed Mount Qomolangma and finally reached the height of about 6,000 meters with a documentary crew for the project "Glaciers in China."

Oil painting artist He Shouchang painted a portrait of Jin and included it in a recent exhibition. The artist spent more than two years to complete 80 portraits of Shanghai's most representative figures in the music field.

The next workshop will be held at the Zikawei Library by artist He. He will talk about his stories with the 80 Shanghai musicians.