The film focuses on a cloud of newly born tadpoles seeking their missing mother through an oddly predator-free world. They mistake a succession of animals for their mother, garnering a new clue about their mother’s appearance from each misunderstanding. A pleasant narrator explains the on-screen events slowly and clearly, making this film an excellent means of learning elementary Chinese.

This is the first of the four shorts to use the Chinese ink painting of artist Qi Baishi as a style guide, looking less like stereotypical animation and more like a museum painting come to life. Indeed, the visual novelty of the short is largely what recommends it, since the story is a relatively simple-minded affair.

However, the visuals of this film are nothing short of stunning. Once the novelty of the artistic style wears off, one can truly appreciate the incredible artistry that went into the film. It is challenging enough to paint a translucent shrimp using Chinese ink painting techniques. Animating two of them smoothly at 24 frames a second without varying the weight of the inks requires an astonishing level of technical virtuosity. The surface simplicity of the film masks a deceptive complexity.

The Cowboy's Flute（1963）

Produced in 1963, this film uses even more beautiful and detailed Chinese ink paintings to depict the charming relationship between a young cow herding boy with extraordinary flute playing skills and his faithful water buffalo. The boy falls asleep in a tree, and is soon dreaming that he has lost his buffalo. The dream sequence is delightfully whimsical, beginning with falling leaves that turn into butterflies and gradually lead the cow herder to a beautiful mist-filled valley. Here, the cow herder finally discovers his wayward animal, but the buffalo outright refuses to budge from his hiding spot, leaving the cow herder to find an alternate solution to his problem.