Cartoon Deng Xiaoping debuts on China’s silver screens in new historical documentary

The late Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping is set to come to life again – as an animated figure – in a new documentary that will hit the nation’s big screens on Friday.

The cartoon Deng, created by a Beijing Film Academy student and vetted by Deng’s family, will appear in about a dozen animated scenes re-enacting Chinese historical events in the documentary , which centres on his landmark tour to the United States.

The tour was widely seen as marking the rekindling of ties between the countries after a three-decade freeze.

The documentary also features rare archive footage and interviews.

Deng, known for leading communist China’s opening up and for breaking a chill in relations with America during the meeting with then-US president Jimmy Carter in 1979, is said to be making history as the first Chinese leader to land on the silver screen in cartoon form.

China’s Communist Party leaders are rarely rendered in animations or cartoons, as it is deemed politically sensitive or unseemly for powerful leaders to be made into caricatures.