Every now and then a video suddenly goes viral, and becomes wildly popular on the Chinese Internet. Sometimes a video site is behind this by promoting a video on the home page, but more often it just happens all of a sudden. Something like that happened over the past days with the animation video ??????? (Translation: Hit, hit the big watermelon – official English name: See through). I think the video is excellent, and except for a few Chinese characters there is no Chinese language involved, so also non-Chinese speakers can watch it.

The creator is a guy with the nickname Jokelate, who according to ChinaHush claims to have made the video over the past 3.5 years. He quit his job and worked full-time on the clip, living with his mom on her RMB 1000/month retirement pension. Whether it’s true or not I don’t know, but if he really did this on his own it might pay off: the result is excellent and I’m sure he will get some good job offers because of this.

The result is almost too good, it looks like a professional animation. Jokelate even thought about putting a preview on Tudou in December last year already (you can find it here). The original program was put on Tudou in late June, but only 3 months later it suddenly became a big hit. It’s an anti-war story, that shows how a war starts and then tells the story of the friendship that grows between two enemy pilots that get stranded on a small island. Enjoy the show!

If you don’t see the video player below, or if the player does not work click here to watch the movie directly on Tudou. Since yesterday the video is also available on YouTube, in 2 parts. It has only been watched 7000 times so far! Part 1, Part 2