The Magic Gourd 宝葫芦的秘密 (Film)
Published Tuesday, September 04, 2007 by The Movie Club | E-mail this post
Director: John Chu & Frankie Chung
Cast : Zhu Qilong, Gigi Leung
RunTime: 85 mins
Genre: Children
Rating: G
Big brother China is the next big movie market to look out for, as they venture into their first partnering film between Chinese Film Group with Walt Disney Studios. And as most of the other Chinese cartoons we watch, this is based on a children literature, by the late Zhang Tianyi.
The story may remind you of the other Japanese cartoon, Doraemon. Like its protagonist Da Xiong, this film revolves around the lazy Wang Bao, who always gets the lowest grades in school, who fortunately has supportive friends. He finds a Magic Gourd, a talking brown gourd which grants him every thing that he wishes for. Yes, no restriction to three wishes.
Wang Bao makes you of his gourd to get out of troubles including pleasing his Mathematics teacher amusingly and too decently played by Gigi Leung, completing his mechanical robot school project, swimming for the school team, and even getting his nails cut.
The story is typically predictable with the moral of “All children will learn from their mistakes”. I suspect that the children nowadays (especially Singaporean kids spoilt by Hollywood movies) are too sophisticated to buy into this story literally. With these differences in culture, the moral may be too preachy for their liking.
Although Disney has a hand in the animation, do not expect Pixar quality stuff. Though you do emphasize and adore with the Magic Gourd at certain parts, you may not care less about the lazy kid, and his perfect bespectacled teacher.
For this report card, it scores high on effort, but lower on delivery. For children seven and below. For those above, they are too spoilt for choices.
The Magic Gourd - Suitable for children seven and below
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