J.K. Rowling's world of wizardry returns to domestic screens with magical creatures steeped in Chinese legend, Xu Fan reports.

It's a new adventure for Eddie Redmayne's Newt Scamander (right). (PHOTO PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)

It's a magical time for Harry Potter fans in China, as British novelist J.K. Rowling's wizards conjure up fascinating adventures once more, maybe even at a screen near you.

Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore－the latest installment of the series, a spinoff of the Harry Potter franchise－has seized the top slot of China's box office since its domestic release on April 8, one week earlier than in North America

So, despite the fact that more than half of the country's cinemas are closed due to the pandemic, Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore－the latest installment of the series, a spinoff of the Harry Potter franchise－has seized the top slot of China's box office since its domestic release on April 8, one week earlier than in North America.

ALSO READ: A bigger picture

With English actor Jude Law reprising his role as the young Albus Dumbledore, one of the greatest wizards in Rowling's magical world, the movie returns to the 1930s, six decades before Harry Potter and his friends start their famous adventures. It follows the famed zoologist and wizard Newt Scamander as he carries out a dangerous mission for Dumbledore.

Played by Oscar-winning English actor Eddie Redmayne, Scamander establishes an intrepid team of wizards, witches and his brave friend Jacob Kowalski, a "muggle" baker, to stop the powerful dark wizard Gellert Grindelwald, now played by Danish actor Mads Mikkelsen, and his accomplices.

Just as the franchise's title shows, one of the new movie's top draws is the fantastic creatures, both new and familiar, that appear－from the tiny branch-like Bowtruckle and the rodent-like Niffler, to new beasts, such as the avian-like Wyvern.

Providing some cultural affinity for domestic audiences, several of the fantastic beasts in director David Yates' new outing have their roots in ancient China's myths and legends.

One such creature that is pivotal to the tale is qilin, which is depicted in China's ancient books as an auspicious sign to bring good luck to rulers and their regimes.

Resembling a dragon-like, scaled hybrid, blending biological characteristics of multiple animals like the lion and ox, qilin looks mighty and fierce in most ancient paintings or historical files, with its statues mostly placed in temples or outside the doors of rich people's houses to ward off evil.

Mads Mikkelsen plays the villain Gellert Grindelwald in the latest offering from J.K. Rowling's wizarding world franchise, Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore. (PHOTO PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)

But in the movie, for which Rowling wrote the original screenplay and gives a detailed description of the new creatures, qilin appears as something that most Chinese audiences would find unconventional.

In the opening scenes, Scamander ventures into a bamboo jungle, discovering a female qilin, with its iridescent scales giving off an almost divine glow, delivering twins that look like elegant, cute fawns.

These images were inspired from dik-dik, small antelopes inhabiting the bushlands of eastern and southern Africa, according to Christian Manz, the film's visual effects supervisor.

Manz recalls: "It (dik-dik) has an unusual snout, like a shorter version of an anteater snout, and the way it sniffs is really cute. As soon as we showed it to David Yates, he loved it. Mother Nature is often more fantastical than what we can imagine, so why not borrow a bit from her when you can?"

ALSO READ: The eye of the storm

In the movie, qilin has a supernatural ability to see into a person's soul and know if they are pure of heart, making them integral to Grindelwald's machinations to seize power of the magical world, as well as Dumbledore's effort to stop him.

Making its debut in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, the first novel in the Harry Potter franchise published in 1997, the phoenix－also a mythological creature widely used in traditional Chinese culture to symbolize peace and prosperity－returns to soar in the new Fantastic Beasts movie.

With the popularity of a household poem written by Guo Moruo in 1920, the phoenix is said to be capable of rising from the ashes. This hints to a supporting character, who struggles with his childhood trauma.

Jude Law (center) reprises his role as the young Albus Dumbledore. (PHOTO PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)

With the movie set in six countries from China to the United Kingdom, a creative team of artists was sent to China's Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, selecting two iconic attractions－Detian Waterfall and Lijiang River－as the inspiration for one of the movie's pivotal settings.

While the movie has, so far, received mixed reviews online, some domestic fans believe the Chinese elements featured are a success in making it more relatable.

Ren Zhongxi, a communications manager in Beijing, says that the cinematic adaptations of these Chinese creatures have kept their main characteristics as depicted in ancient China. This was exemplified by zouwu－featured in the second Fantastic Beasts film. It could travel 1,000 miles in a day, while qilin is an auspicious creature and the phoenix is immortal.

ALSO READ: A step in the right direction

"It shows that Rowling has a profound knowledge of the mythical creatures from China," she says.

"With twists developing, the new film features the complex social contradictions of the wizarding world, which is also a reflection of the real world, making it a more intriguing tale," she adds.

Chu Xinyu, a fan based in Chengdu, Sichuan province, echoes that Rowling's rewriting of these mythical Chinese creatures has pleased the domestic audience, but he believes that the relationship between Dumbledore and Grindelwald, the most powerful wizards of their time, as well as the casting of new spells, will be more appealing to fans.