''The Cowboy's Flute'' (Chinese: 牧笛, Mu Di) is a Chinese animated

short film A short film is a film with a low running time. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) defines a short film as "an original motion picture that has a running time of not more than 40 minutes including all credits". Other film o ...

produced by

Shanghai Animation Film Studio Shanghai Animation Film Studio (), also known as SAFS (), is a Chinese animation studio based in Shanghai, China, as part of the Shanghai Film Group Corporation. Shanghai Animation Film Studio was officially established in April 1957, led by pi ...

under the master animator

Te Wei Te Wei (; 22 August 1915 in Shanghai4 February 2010 in Shanghai) was a Chinese manhua artist and animator. He is probably best known for the 1956 short animated film ''The Proud General''. From about 1960, he worked in an ink-wash animation style ...

. It is also referred to as ''The Cowherd's Flute'' and ''The Buffalo Boy and his Flute''.

Background

The film does not contain any dialogue. The animation is essentially

Chinese painting Chinese painting () is one of the oldest continuous artistic traditions in the world. Painting in the traditional style is known today in Chinese as , meaning "national painting" or "native painting", as opposed to Western styles of art which b ...

in motion, with a heavy emphasis on the

flute The flute is a member of a family of musical instruments in the woodwind group. Like all woodwinds, flutes are aerophones, producing sound with a vibrating column of air. Flutes produce sound when the player's air flows across an opening. In th ...

melody.

Plot

The story is about a young cow herding boy with an extraordinary flute playing ability, who is accompanied by his faithful

water buffalo The water buffalo (''Bubalus bubalis''), also called domestic water buffalo, Asian water buffalo and Asiatic water buffalo, is a large bovid originating in the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia. Today, it is also kept in Italy, the Balkans ...

. 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 buffalo refuses to budge from his hiding spot, leaving the cow herder to find an alternate musical solution to his problem.

Home media

''The Cowboy's Flute'' has been released on DVD as part of the ''Chinese Classic Animation Te Wei Collection'' set. It is available for streaming on

iQIYI iQIYI (, pronounced in English as ), formerly Qiyi (), is a Chinese subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service owned by Baidu. Headquartered in Beijing, iQIYI primarily produces and distributes films and television series. i ...

Accolades

More than a decade after its completion, the film would win an award at the

Odense Odense ( , , ) is the third largest city in Denmark (after Copenhagen and Aarhus) and the largest city on the island of Funen. As of 1 January 2025, the city proper had a population of 185,480 while Odense Municipality had a population of 210, ...

International Film Festival in 1979.

References

External links

*
The film at China's Movie Database
1963 films Animated films without speech Chinese animated short films Films directed by Te Wei 1963 animated short films {{1960s-China-film-stub