Three Monks

Three Monks (1981)

三个和尚

Adaptation of the Chinese folk tale that gave rise to the proverb “One monk will shoulder two buckets of water, two monks will share the load, but add a third and no one will want to fetch water”.

Date of release
1981-01-01
TMDB
7.8 / 10 (34)
Runtime
20m
Genres
Animation
Director
A Da

Casting

Interesting facts

Three Monks, also translated as The Three Buddhist Priests, is a Chinese animated short film produced by the Shanghai Animation Film Studio (SAFS). After the end of the Cultural Revolution in 1976, the film was one of the first animations created as part of the rebirth period. It won the Silver Bear for Best Short Film at the 32nd Berlin International Film Festival.

Production

SAFS director A Da first came up with the idea for Three Monks in 1978 after overhearing a conversation at a party which involved the ancient Chinese proverb, "One monk will shoulder two buckets of water, two monks will share the load, but add a third and no one will want to fetch water." He was reminded that this phenomenon continued to be prevalent in modern times, and would be an interesting subject for animation.

The film does not contain any dialogue, allowing it to be watched by any culture, and a different music instrument was used to signify each monk.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

Recommended