Havoc in Heaven, shot from 1961 to 1964, tells the story of the Monkey King, the fairytale character who mainly appeared in the Chinese novel Journey to the West, as the main hero with invulnerable and irrepressible personality. The film is China's first colorfeature animation, and is widely considered to be the nation's best masterpiece. It perfectly combined the unique charm of ancient Chinese painting, temple art and New Year's painting folk art with make up, and it integrated the performing art of traditional Chinese drama. Overseas critics offered the following comments about the film: "Havoc in Heaven boasts the aesthetic feelings of Disney's works, while its make-up technique outdoes its counterparts. It expresses the national flavor of traditional Chinese art in an utmost way. It is truly a masterpiece of animated films."
The Wan Brothers founded China's artistic and animated film industries. In 1960, they resumed preparations to produce the feature
animation Havoc in Heaven, which had been postponed before the founding of New China(in 1949).Within four years,they finished drawing about 70,000 images, which were used to compose the two-hour animated film. At that time, they did all the drawings with paintbrushes, as modern equipment, such as computers, were not available. For a 10-minute clip, they had to draw 7,000 to 10,000
original images. Their success justified their efforts. The animation was well acclaimed, at home and abroad. It was named best film at the 22nd London Film Festival in 1978, and won first prize at various international film festivals, over several consecutive years. The film
has been shown in dozens of countries, which proves China's artistic films are among the world's top films
