This is the film that proves animation didn't start in America. Made in 1941 while China was at war, it moves with a fluidity that rivals Snow White, rooted entirely in Chinese folklore and aesthetics that Disney could never touch. The Iron Fan Princess isn't borrowing anyone's language. She speaks her own, and the whole thing survives because the Wan brothers built it to last.

The Monkey King and his companions face an impossible obstacle: a mountain consumed by endless flames blocks their path westward. No ordinary method can extinguish these fires. Their only hope lies with Princess Iron Fan, who possesses a legendary artifact capable of stopping the inferno. She has little wish to lend it, since the Monkey King once angered her husband, the Bull Demon King. Refusing to abandon their journey, the companions turn to their shape-shifting powers and devise a scheme to take the fan from her, leading to a clash between the Monkey King and the vengeful princess. Based loosely on an episode from Journey to the West and made by the Wan brothers during World War II, the film is the first feature-length animated movie produced in China, and it mixes action, adventure and fantasy.