The Wan Brothers have long been considered as the founding fathers of Chinese animation. Among them, the most acclaimed is Wan Laiming, many researchers even omit the other brothers and call Wan Laiming “the father of Chinese animation”. However, “the Wan Brothers” was, in fact, a constantly changing concept. In the early stages of their career, it was referring to four brothers, but later it was at times three of the brothers and at times two. In cases where two of the brothers were involved, it wasn’t always the twins – Wan Laiming and Wan Guchan. As a result, the real authors behind many works by “the Wan Brothers” were misconstrued. The achievements and artistic features of each individual brothers were obscured under the encompassing term “the Wan Brothers”. Even the memoirs of each of the brothers sometimes differ from or contradict each other. This article will attempt to deconstruct the concept of “the Wan Brothers” through historical documents, memoirs of the brothers, and oral history from their contemporaries as well as family members, in order to re-evaluate each of the brothers individually. With special focus on the early period of the Wan Brother’s animation career (before 1930s), this article aims to examine the conditions of their work in that time through primary resources including a great numbers of news accounts, and establish that Wan Guchan is in fact “the Father of Chinese animation” and had made the greatest contributions to the early development of Chinese animation.
