Chinese animator Lei Lei reflects on sadness

Date
19 May 2015

In Chinese animator Lei Lei’s newest piece of work the words Missing One Player hint at something devastating – a world in which an incomplete group of Mahjong players, are waiting to find the missing person needed to play their tile-based board game as the earth hurtles towards an unnamed planet.

While this is all profound and wonderful, the animator’s intention was far less precise. “In this animation I didn’t so much tell a story as express a general feeling of melancholy,” he told NOWNESS, which premiered the animation last week. In his characteristic kaleidoscopic collage style, the work is a saddening reflection on the absence of empathy in the world… Until the last 30 seconds, when your persistence will be fully and completely rewarded. Trust us.

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Lei Lei: Missing One Player (still)

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Lei Lei: Missing One Player (still)

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Lei Lei: Missing One Player (still)

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Lei Lei: Missing One Player (still)

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Lei Lei: Missing One Player (still)

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Lei Lei: Missing One Player (still)

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Lei Lei: Missing One Player (still)

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About the Author

Maisie Skidmore

Maisie joined It’s Nice That fresh out of university in the summer of 2013 as an intern before joining full time as an Assistant Editor. Maisie left It’s Nice That in July 2015.

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