Ice and fire are on the same stage! "Eight Immortals!" Compared with "The Three Kingdoms Part 1: Competition for Luoyang", the domestic animation track has ushered in a critical watershed

Jiuzhiwang Film News In the theater market during the summer of 2026, the different trends of the two Chinese-style animations have raised valuable questions for the entire domestic animation industry. "The First Part of the Three Kingdoms: Struggle for Luoyang" produced by Seiko has received good reputation in the professional circles, but it finally chose to temporarily withdraw and be released on an optional basis; on the other hand,"Eight Immortals!", which is based on folklore. The box office continued to decline and ranked first in the summer animation category. The cold and hot market picture intuitively shows the opportunities and shortcomings of the current national-style animation track, and also sets off widespread discussions in the industry: How to balance artistic expression, circle audiences and the mass market by deeply cultivating animation creation in traditional culture.
For a long time, domestic animation has found a clear development path: rooted in local classical culture, myth and historical themes have become recognized as safe tracks in the industry. From the successive release of the Fengshen and Journey to the West series to the continuous establishment of historical animations for national style, capital and production teams are generally optimistic about the long-term potential of traditional cultural IP. "The Three Kingdoms Part 1: Struggle for Luoyang" and "Eight Immortals!" We also stepped on this creative trend and relied on the well-known national IP to invest a lot of energy in polishing the picture and verifying the style of the times, representing the current top level of domestic animation 3D production. But the same track starting point eventually leads to a completely different ending. The core difference lies in audience positioning and narrative thinking.

"Eight Immortals!" Break out of the narrative framework of traditional myths and reshape the eight immortals into ordinary people with shortcomings and support each other, integrate comedy adventure, passionate growth and warm group portraits to create family fun content suitable for all ages. The threshold for stories is lower, which can not only meet young people's needs for visual effects and character group portraits, but also suitable for parent-child families to watch movies together and successfully open up the mass market. Relying on the continuous fermentation of audience reputation, the film achieved a negative decline in the box office, confirming that commercial animation that combines entertainment and cultural cores has broad space.
Looking back on the other hand,"The Three Kingdoms Part 1: The Struggle for Luoyang" chose to focus on the relatively unpopular historical passages in the late Han Dynasty and the early troubled times, avoided the well-known scenes such as Taoyuan Righteousness and the Battle of Chibi, and restored the historical changes from a more serious and realistic perspective. The rigorous historical adaptation is recognized by history enthusiasts and animation practitioners, but the profound narrative tone and high threshold for historical understanding make it difficult to attract parent-child audiences to enter, and ultimately they are trapped in the circle and difficult to break through audience barriers. The film's "good news but not good news" situation exposes the common problems faced by historical animations: serious creation that is loyal to historical facts, how to get rid of the limitations of niche circles; drastic innovation and adaptation, which can easily cause controversy among original book lovers.
The two works compete on the same stage, which also tears up the hidden crisis of domestic animation tracks. At present, a large number of projects are clustered in both mythological and historical directions, and the homogenization of themes has become increasingly prominent. Many creative teams habitually rely on classic IP and lack original story mining. At the same time, the industry is gradually becoming polarized: works with mature commercial narratives and can cover audiences of all ages continue to harvest the market; works that focus on artistic expression and target niche circles face huge box office pressure and continue to narrow the tolerance space. The intensification of schedule competition and the rising cost of publicity have further amplified this gap.
However, the ice and fire situation does not mean that serious historical animation has lost its soil for survival, let alone prove that family fun narrative is the only standard answer. The market needs "Eight Immortals!" This kind of mature industrial commercial animation supports the basics of theater animation; it also requires works such as "The Three Kingdoms Part 1: Struggle for Luoyang" that deeply cultivate history and boldly innovate to broaden the expression boundaries of domestic animation. A mature industrial ecology should accommodate the coexistence of works with different styles and audience positioning.
This summer market test has pointed out the direction for the industry. Traditional cultural IP is no longer a universal ticket for the box office. Relying solely on sophisticated pictures and well-known allusions is no longer enough to impress the audience. Whether you can build a story that is easy to understand and has emotional resonance and find a clear audience positioning is the core that determines the success or failure of a work. For creators, adapting classical themes must not only maintain the cultural background, but also learn to complete narrative translation in a way acceptable to contemporary audiences.
Domestic animation tracks are accelerating upgrades, bidding farewell to extensive IP mining and entering the stage of refined creation. "Eight Immortals!" The market inspiration brought by "The Three Kingdoms Part 1: Struggle for Luoyang" is worth pondering by the whole industry: The future of national animation does not depend on how many classic legends we have, but whether we can continue to tell good stories that can impress different groups of people.