One huge success may not reflect the state of health of an entire industry, and Chinese animation has a long way to go to compete on equal footing with imported cartoon icons.

In a free-market situation, the target audience is an exacting and critical one which is notoriously hard to please. Children tend to speak their minds with fearful honesty.

Ma Chuan, father of a 3-year-old boy, told China Daily his son's favorite cartoons are the US-produced Dora the Explorer, and In the Night Garden created by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC).

He bought a dozen Dora The Explorer DVDs for his child.

"Sometimes I switch channels to a locally-made animated series for my son, but he loses interest in four to five minutes," he says.

"Dora The Explorer is in English, and I bet my son doesn't understand many words there, but he can sit for hours watching the series. I think it is more the story and colorful images which make a difference," Ma says.

"People think the lack of the latest technology is the primary reason why China's animation industry is lagging behind," says Zheng Hu, vice-president of the Shanghai Animation Film Studio. "But in fact, we are already equipped with advanced technology, and many Hollywood film studios outsource post-production work to Chinese companies."

Zheng believes that what China lacks is the ability to tell stories with humor, pace and good timing. The current approach is too rigid and "preachy". Also there is a shortage of people who can brand and market a cartoon successfully.

"Kungfu Panda had a team of a dozen people to research and evaluate the value of the movie, but we don't have the talent or the mechanism," he says.

As experts in the mainland are so fond of saying in recent years, we just need the software to catch up with the hardware.

Editor: Xu Xinlei