A still image of The Legend of Hei features the protagonist Luo Xiaohei, a cat demon. [Photo provided to China Daily]

On the heels of runaway hit Ne Zha, a new domestic animation is performing well in the Chinese box office.

The movie, The Legend of Hei, a 2D animation, has grossed around 230 million yuan ($32.50 million) since it opened across China on Sept 7. It was simultaneously released in Japan.

The first feature-length film derived from a flash cartoon series, which was released online in March 2011, the movie is a prequel of the series, which has just 28 episodes, each spanning five minutes.

Speaking about the film, the director, who calls himself MTJJ and is a graduate of art design, said that the film took a long time to make because of the huge amount of drawing involved.

Every second of the 101-minute movie required 12 drawings, so the entire production took five years and involved more than 70,000 high-quality paintings.

Luo Xiaohei (right) and his master Wu Xian, a scene shown in The Legend of Hei. [Photo provided to China Daily]