British Superman infused with the power of a fighting nation.
The adventure novel “Treasure Island”, first published in 1883, was written by Scottish writer Robert Louis Stevenson. It tells the story of Jim, a British teenager who accidentally obtained a treasure map, and his team of pirates who fought wits and bravery, and finally obtained the treasure. .
“Treasure Island” has created a group of impressive characters. Like early teen Jim Hawkins, fearless and sometimes impulsive; and Trelawney, a rich country squire who is often talkative and gullible, who accidentally recruited pirates as serious sailors , has the ups and downs of the adventure story behind.
There is also the most important Dr. David Livesey (Dr.Livesey, also translated as Livesey, Livesey). He served in the army, lived in the War of the Austrian Succession, and was a doctor and magistrate at the time of the story. In the novel, Stevenson did not describe his character as straightforward as introducing other characters, but let him use actions to prove his excellence.
When the pirates on the ship planned a mutiny, Li Fuxi made a plan in time to lead the protagonist team out of danger. Even if he fought against pirates several times his size, Li Fuxi still did not lose. Li Fuxi strictly practiced the doctor’s Hippocratic oath, and treated the wounded or sick enemies equally and carefully.
Li Fuxi is the core factor for the success of this adventure. It seems to be a supporting role, but it occupies a well-deserved C position.
In the 20th century, the influence of “Treasure Island” spread to the world along the air route. Based on different eras and regional backgrounds, the adaptations of “Treasure Island” emerged one after another, and the character images also changed again and again.
In 1986, television stations across the Soviet Union began showing a “Treasure Island” cartoon; in 1988 there was a second one. The two parts are collectively called “Treasure Island”, after which the TV station will put them together and show them together, which is still the case after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The film was made in the form of a movie, but it never landed in any theaters, and was only broadcast on TV stations.
This “Treasure Island” has a witty humor comparable to “Tom and Jerry”, and has won many fans in various countries and regions of the former Soviet Union. More than 30 years later, this animation has been reborn. The exaggerated characters in the film, especially the image of Dr. Li Fuxi, have become popular in Russian circles and become a popular Internet meme worldwide.
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Whether it is the protagonist team or the pirate side, in the Soviet animation “Treasure Island”, it has become the same funny style, all with small eyes, big nose and wide chin, like a cult animation.
The character settings have also been changed a lot. Dr. Li Fuxi is still a reliable “hexagon warrior” in the team, but he has shown a cynical and overly optimistic attitude. He laughs out loud in any situation, and the audience will always see his shining rows of white teeth.
The Ukrainian Russian-language media Vesti reported in 2018 that this series of settings was personally set by Li Fuxi’s voice actor Yevgeny Paperny, and the prototype was the script writer in the crew, Tall and burly, with a “horse-like smile”.
In the original plot, Jim was the son of a hotel owner, and Dr. Li Fuxi was able to get acquainted with Jim to see a doctor for the owner. In the hotel, Li Fuxi met Bill Burns, a pirate who suffered a stroke due to too much rum intake, and helped him by the way.
This episode in the anime is much more hilarious. Bill would sneeze wildly after drinking, and his sneeze knocked down the beams of the roof as he descended the stairs. The beam hit Bill on the head, knocking him unconscious.
Seeing this, Jim called out “doctor” in a panic, and Li Fuxi opened the door to make his appearance, and made a diagnosis in a tone like mocking a pirate: “He just likes drinking rum too much and has a stroke.”
He lifted the pirate onto the bed with one hand, lifted the pirate’s shirt, and took out a stethoscope to give him medical treatment. During this period, he kept laughing like schadenfreude: “The liver is swollen, it’s fine. The spleen is swollen, fine. Fantastic. Arrhythmia, which is fantastic.”
In the end, Li Fuxi took out a bottle of rum and a skull from nowhere, smiled and said, “‘rum’ and ‘death’ are synonyms for you!” Stop drinking, no one will drink anymore.
Bill didn’t listen and really drank to death. Jim found the treasure map of Treasure Island in the box he left behind. After contacting the squire and the doctor, the three decided to go on a treasure hunt together. First, they went to the British port of Bristol to purchase ships and recruit sailors.
The animation inserted an extra plot here. The pubs in Bristol were smoky and full of sailors who were smoking, drinking and gambling.
But Jim, the doctor, and the squire, the three of them strutted into the tavern, ignoring the oppression brought on by the sailors. In particular, Dr. Li Fuxi, who was walking in the middle, twitched his biceps frantically. In the words of netizens, he “went out of the step of disrespecting six relatives.”
When the pirates on the ship revolted and took away the ship, Jim and the captain Smollett took refuge in a stockade on Treasure Island. The pirates attacked the stockade, only to be repelled by the united protagonist. There are still a few loyal followers in the protagonist group in the original work; only these four people are left in the animation, but their combat effectiveness is far better than the original work.
Li Fuxi’s fighting performance was very elegant. Holding the sword in his left hand, he could parry the simultaneous attacks of the three pirates, while in his right hand he took off a small flower on the ground without haste, and sniffed the fragrance of the flower to himself, without even looking at the pirates.
The tall and straight body and hearty laughter may make audiences who have not read the original to mistake Li Fuxi as the villain, but in the eyes of fans who are familiar with the story, it is a plus point, which highlights Li Fuxi’s “six sides” The character charisma of “Shadow Warrior” and “Incarnation of Justice” are the characteristics of a perfect macho.
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On December 10, 2018, Maxim Anokhin, a 19-year-old college student in Krasnodar, Russia, opened a group chat on the social networking site VK as usual, and then saw a lot of animation related to “Treasure Island”. Emojis and memes. Maxime sent the following sentence as a joke: “Give me a like and I’ll open an account for the “Treasure Island” meme”.
The next day, Maxim started the VK channel “Treasure Island” stalks every day. The channel claims to be the “biggest funny picture archive” of the “Treasure Island” cartoon, which acts like a Bot (robot) on Weibo and uploads meme pictures every day.
The first meme picture released by the channel is related to the game “Team Fortress 2”, using the characters in the “Treasure Island” animation to refer to nine different professions in the game. This picture is also believed to be the origin of the “Treasure Island” meme on public social media.
According to an interview with Russian media TJournal in 2020, at the moment of sending the message, Maxim seriously thought about establishing a channel. Although this animation is much older than Maxim, and several of the channel’s later administrators are younger, they all admit that the movie “Treasure Island” is very good, and Maxim even praised “Treasure Island”, It is said that it is the funniest of Soviet animation, enough to compete with foreign works.
“Because Treasure Island is of great cultural significance, it was loved then and it is remembered now. The older generation told the younger generation about the existence of this animation, and in modern times, you can even put it on Youtube Watch it.”
“The Treasure Island animation itself is a source of incredible memes. There are so many interesting scenes, unusual shots and action. Seriously, keep hitting the pause button while watching Treasure Island, You can create new memes from the freeze frame.”
In more than a year, Maxim’s VK channel has attracted tens of thousands of Russian-speaking users, and has uploaded more than a thousand pieces of news about Treasure Island. Most of the pictures in the feed are original by the administrator, and the administrator will also actively forward the results of the community. At this time, Li Fuxi’s smile has become a frequent visitor to Jigtu and Erchuang’s works, and he also has a certain influence on Twitter and other social media with a wider audience.
Due to the dwindling number of memes contributed to the channel, he predicted in that interview that “Treasure Island” would sooner or later become popular in China. As for audiences abroad, they “probably won’t understand its charm at all”.
This is not the case. It was just an accidental opportunity for the animation of “Treasure Island” to become popular outside the Russian circle.
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On July 2, 2022, TikTok user @weirdyunus uploaded a mixed-cut video, combining the plot of Li Fuxi reprimanding alcoholic pirates with the “steps of the three protagonists who did not recognize six relatives” together, supplemented by a song Drift Phonk-style soundtrack “Why Not”. Drift Phonk is a Russian underground music genre, full of punch and rhythm, just right with Li Fuxi’s stride.
The video got a whopping 150,000 views in a month. On August 2, two tweets retweeting the video appeared on Twitter, one of which garnered 350,000 views in less than two weeks.
In the following month, the video author, who was moved by Li Fuxi’s fierce man design, began to “adapt” this mixed video. They cut more highlight moments of Li Fuxi’s animation into the video, and also used AI enhancement technology to increase the resolution of the original animation material, thereby improving the look and feel of the video. Currently recognized as the most complete mix cut, the video uploaded by Youtube video blogger Maxises on August 26 has accumulated more than 4.5 million views.
So far, the main media carrier for delivering the animation stalk of “Treasure Island” has changed from pictures to videos, and the trend of secondary creation has also spread to the outside of the Russian-speaking area, and the fire has become out of control. The second creative works that were derived after that basically revolved around the material provided by this mixed-cut video, especially the picture of Li Fuxi’s arrogant strides, making a big fuss.
The technical content of some works is relatively low, just removing the background of the video, or using ready-made green screen materials and editors is enough to make people laugh.
However, there are also authors who have proved by practice that a creative form that does not seem to be difficult to operate can still make flowers. Although the green screen material is limited, it does not prevent them from being creative and shooting a coherent plot.
Li Fuxi’s macho image has something in common with the macho characters in other works. Fans of these works responded in a timely and positive manner, replacing the protagonist and his party in the original video, and made a highly technical second-generation video.
“Team Fortress 2” and “JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure”, which were the first to intersect with the animation of “Treasure Island”, are the works of men gathered together, and the corresponding “linkage” videos are already numerous.
Action games have never lacked charismatic male characters; there are countless sturdy men in shooting games. Games of these two themes are very suitable “linkage” objects.
Of course, there is no law in the world that prohibits anyone other than muscular men from being self-confident and graceful. And there is no rule that says that any creature other than human can’t laugh like Dr. Li Fuxi.
There are also a number of videos that should not be counted as secondary creations. The author himself will appear in these videos, imitating the pace and arrogance of Dr. Li Fuxi, intending to become the perfect man of the new generation. They did spend far more time than the two creators to develop a strong body. As for whether their imitations can achieve transcendence, it can only be left to the audience to judge.
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“Treasure Island” animation is popular all over the world, of course, it is gratifying. It’s just that the director of this animation, David Cherkassky, couldn’t wait for this day. On October 30, 2018, David died in a hospital in Ukraine at the age of 86.
David was one of the veterans of the Kyiv scientific film studio (Kievnauchfilm). Founded in 1943, the studio has released 342 animated films and won numerous awards at major film festivals in the Soviet Union and internationally.
Shooting an animated version of “Treasure Island” was a death order from the Soviet state television and radio company. Time is tight and the task is heavy. David has only two years to complete the film, which is expected to be 2 hours long, but according to the standards at the time, it took 8-9 months to make a 10-minute cartoon.
Fortunately, David’s many years of work experience have earned him a certain reputation, and he has also won a certain amount of creative freedom for his work in the next two years. Add to that the fact that it was the 1980s, and Soviet policy had turned open and censorship had loosened.
As a result, the “Treasure Island” animation was able to use a variety of rush strategies. The animation drastically modified the original plot, deleted some supporting roles, and used stereotypes to strengthen the main characters’ personalities. The same animation material appears many times in the film, and the pirates always appear in the picture with the same actions, which not only saves time and cost, but also creates laughs through repeated methods.
David hired a group of actors and singers to shoot live-action performances that took less time, and made several episodes for the cartoon to supplement the plot. Live-action performances are mostly improvised songs, and the lyrics will impose the correct value orientation on the underage audience in front of the screen, explain why smoking or drinking is harmful to the health of pirates, and repeatedly emphasize that the positive characters do not have these vices, and they are healthier and also. Always overcome all difficulties.
In 1992, the “Treasure Island” animation launched an English dubbed version, renamed “Return to Treasure Island”. “Return to Treasure Island” has cut 34 minutes of content, including all of David’s carefully choreographed live-action clips, as well as some battle scenes (the US has stricter censorship policies for violent scenes than the Soviet Union/Russia).
That same year, David intends to combine the studio’s technology with his own experience to direct a new film called Crazy Macaroni or Professor Burgensburg’s Mistakes. However, the Soviet Union disintegrated a year ago, and the Kyiv studio was renamed the National Film Archive of Ukraine. As the Ukrainian government reduced the budget of the animation industry, the studio began to decline. It was officially closed in 1998, and David’s film was completely aborted.
In 2008, it was reported that David had written the script for the sequel to Treasure Island. Due to the economic crisis that year, the plan to put the script into actual shooting was also frozen. Until his death, David never made a complete movie or cartoon.
We can naturally assume a later disintegration of the Soviet Union. It’s not wishful thinking for a practitioner like David, who has a lot of ideas, to make an animated film that surpasses “Treasure Island” and can be popular all over the world without Internet memes.
But the real history, after all, has no room for assumptions, and everything will not be as we want it to be. Compared with illusory fantasy, we undoubtedly need the animation of “Treasure Island” more, we need the strong physique and optimistic spirit of Dr. Li Fuxi, and we need the strength of a macho who can let out his voice and laugh under any adversity.
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