Three monk – Chinese animation

The film is based on the ancient Chinese proverb "One monk will shoulder two buckets of water, two monks will share the load, but add a third and no one will want to fetch water."

There was a small temple on a mountain and a little monk in the temple. His daily routine was shouldering water, chanting sutras, knocking the wooden fish, adding water to the holy water bottle on the table honoring the Goddess of Mercy, and watching over the mice from stealing food at night. His life was smooth and comfortable. Soon after, a tall monk came. He drank half of the jar’s water as soon as he arrived at the temple, so the little monk asked him to fetch water. The tall one thought it was unfair for him to fetch water alone, so he asked the young one to do it together. They could only carry one bucket a time, and they would only feel content when the bucket was placed in the middle of the shoulder pole. Anyway, they still had water to drink in this way. Then, a fat monk came. He wanted to drink, but there was no water in the jar. The short monk and the tall one asked him to fetch water by himself. He carried a bucket of water, and drank it up immediately. From then on, nobody would fetch water, so they had no water. Everyone chanted his own sutras and knocked his own wooden fish. As nobody would add water to the holy water bottle, the plant in the bottle withered soon. At night, a mouse came out stealing, but everyone pretended not to see it.

Different situation in the temple

 1 Monk in temple

 The first devotee arrives at the temple at the hilltop and sees a vase with dried flowers.

He quickly brings 2 buckets of water from the sea nearby. He fills the vase and the remaining water is poured in a container.

2 Monks in Temple

The second devotee arrives and feels thirsty, the first devotee provides him water from the stored container. But his thirst was still not quenched. The second devotee fetches 2 bucket of water from the sea.

Fig : Two bucket carried by one person using support

Next time when water in the container finished, both the devotees go to collect the water in one bucket. While bringing the filled bucket with a support each one of them tries to push the bucket toward the other person. So to avoid the conflict they mutually decided to keep the filled bucket mid way the support using a scale.

Fig : One bucket carried by 2 person using support

3 Monks in temple

 The third devotee arrives. He comes and immediately consumes water in the stored container. The remaining two devotees were shocked to see him alone emptying the container.

Although he goes to fill 2 buckets of water but consumes the same immediately.

LESSON - TEAMWORK

As a result, the mouse was so rampant that it knocked over the candleholder and caused a fire During accident they realised the importance of team work where they positioned themselves at different locations in the path to bring quick water to put off the fire. 

Fig : Use of rope-pulley to lift water

Only thus did the three monks make a concerted effort to put out the fire, and finally awaken. After that, they started hanging together and the temple never lacked water again.   

The film tells a simplest story with simplest lines and a simplest form. There is no dubbed voice. Even the background music is reduced to the occasional sound of wooden fish. But it is this simplicity that makes people unwilling to miss a single scene. When we review the Three Monks after seeing numerous Japanese, Korean, European and American cartoons, we will be shocked. We will even smugly say, look at our Chinese “silent movie”. Maybe, only Chinese water-and-ink painting has such a magic to depict a figure with distinct personality with just a few strokes. The film is based on a folk proverb. It has national features, a complete scene of mountain, water and temple drawn with traditional painting skills, and figures with strong characters. Although it is meant to reason things out, the film is humorous and void of rigid sermon.