October Media, the Beijing studio of director Tian Xiaopeng, dates its founding to 1999, making it one of China's earliest 3D animation companies. After years of commercial CG work it produced Monkey King: Hero Is Back (2015), whose 956 million yuan gross reset expectations for domestic animated features and pulled new investment into the sector, including a stake in October taken by Enlight Media's Coloroom. Its second feature, Deep Sea (2023), spent around seven years developing a particle ink technique that brings ink-wash color into 3DCG; former Coloroom president Yi Qiao joined the company and produced the film.
