중국 장편 애니메이션 <姜子牙>(2020)에 나타난 사회적 기대와 자기실현 ― 원형(archetype)과 개성화(individuation)를 중심으로

Abstract

“Legend of Deification(姜子牙)” is considered a representative work of contemporary Chinese feature animation, which uses the Mying Dinasty novel “Feng-Shen Yanyi(封神演義)” as its source story along with “Birth of the Demon Child(哪吒之魔童降世).” “Legend of Deification” is also an animation text that has been negatively evaluated in terms of storytelling, such as poor chain of events, poor narrative composition, and esoteric topics, while successfully implementing traditional aesthetic pursuits in a new visual literary style of animation. Therefore, this paper attempted to examine the socio-cultural meaning of contemporary Chinese animation storytelling that pursues the whole world by analyzing the storytelling of the Chinese animation “Legend of Deification” based on Joseph Campbell’s original myth and Jung’s concept of personification. Based on Campbell’s original myth, Jung’s concept of archetype and personification, “Legend of Deification” shows that the conflict between the already firm social self of Jiang Zi Ya(姜子牙) and the hierarchical world order suppressing him depicts a convergent adventure into the inner world, not a divergent one. This visually embodies the process in which a socially recognized hero named Jiang Zi Ya is aware of the cosmic cycle of the world and explores a new world order through the deterioration of the conscious self and the progress of the unconscious prototype. This is a visual and artistic attempt to visualize the invisible, and it can be said to be a rare case in the animation genre. Although this attempt does not match the genre characteristics of animation that gives life through movement, on the other hand, it is evaluated as an expansion of the genre horizon reached by the contemporary Chinese feature animation strategy aimed at audiences of all ages as well as youth.