Pixar shows cartoons can have Chinese characteristics

Although Chinese elements are very much in evidence in Cars 2, the sequel to Pixar's 2006 box office hit, the animation studio says it has no immediate plans to set a story in China.

Shortly after the film begins, viewers will see a Chinese racecar named Long Ge, literally Brother Dragon. The car is a friend of Lightning McQueen, main protagonist of the franchise.

It shows up only in the film's version screened in China, while in English-speaking countries the character is a yellow US car named Jeff.

Long Ge is a red racecar decorated with a dragon totem and a yellow star.

John Lasseter, chief creative officer at Pixar and its corporate parent, Walt Disney Co, and director of the film, tells China Daily the car was inspired by the uniforms of Chinese athletes in the Beijing Olympics.

"We studied the beautiful uniforms Chinese athletes had at the Olympics," he says in a telephone interview.

"They were stunning in their design, pattern and shape. We were inspired by them and created a really cool car."

The car makes only a short cameo appearance, at the first stop of McQueen and best friend Mater's international adventure to prevent a conspiracy involving alternative fuel.

However, it is not the only Chinese element in the film, which was released on the mainland on Aug 24 in both 2D and 3D.

At the end of the story is a travelogue of McQueen and Mater's voyage around the globe. In one scene they are among the Terracotta Warriors, in Xi'an in Northwest China's Shaanxi province.

Pixar's animators transform the warriors into cars, while maintaining their original color and texture.

"We thought about some of the icons that are familiar and beautiful in China and what a car version of those (would) be," Lasseter says.

"It would be funny to think the warriors are waiting and lining up. If you imagine them as vehicles, it would look like a traffic jam."

The Chinese locations in the travelogue also include the Bund in Shanghai and the Great Wall.

Lasseter continues that Pixar has no current plans to make a story set in China, despite the success of the Kung Fu Panda series and Mulan.

"It is very much dependant on the directors," he says, "because both Pixar and Disney are filmmaker-driven studios. So if a director is interested in it in future, we are open to it. We don't have any plans right now, but that does not mean we won't do it."

While the film's English version is voiced by a stellar cast that includes Owen Wilson, Michael Caine and Lewis Hamilton, its Chinese cast is an A-list one, too.

Veteran actor Huang Lei and well-known comedian Fan Wei, part of the first installment, collaborate again to voice McQueen and Mater, while Yao Chen, who has more than 10 million followers on a Chinese micro blog service, voices a female spy car named Holley.