Saturday July 4, 01:22 PM

Animated "Aster" lacking in magic

SHANGHAI (Hollywood Reporter) - A battle between good and evil is waged for the sake of a wee petal in "The Magic Aster," an animated Chinese fairy tale that's devoid of fun or personality.

Shanghai Animation Film Studio, which jointly produced this with other Chinese partners, will find it tough to foist the $2.19 million project onto foreign shores except for the odd children's channel. For Chinese-speaking viewers, the animation's star-loaded vocal lineup that includes Houston Rockets center Yao Ming, pop star Leon Lai ("Forever Enthralled") and supermodel-turned-actress Lin Chi-ling ("Red Cliff") may be its biggest bonus. The film screened recently at the Shanghai International Film Festival.

The story is set in some indistinct ancient time in China. On an idyllic mountain blossoming with exotic flora and fauna lives Malang (Leon Lai), a kind of Chinese Tarzan. He is keeper of the magic aster, a lilac-like flower with legendary powers of bestowing happiness upon its owner.

Malang rescues an old man (Yao Ming) who strayed into the mountain and promptly falls in love with his daughter, Xiaolan (Chen Hao). He goes courting her with presents of melons and a choir of singing frogs. Dalan (Lin Chi-ling), Xiaolan's materialistic twin sister, opens the door, and is unimpressed. Lin, who speaks with an insouciant sex-kitten drawl, imbues the improbable mistaken-identity farce with unexpected feminine allure.

Meanwhile, a witch threatens to destroy the wildlife balance by overrunning the area with vines and creepers. She uses trinkets to bribe Dalan into stealing the magic aster. Malang and his animal pals fight against the witch's hydra-like killer vines in a drawn-out finale.

Although some 3-D technology has been integrated into the movements, the figures generally look flat. The art direction favors a pastel color palette and draws on Chinese ink-brush painting to create pretty, dreamy natural scenery. Overall the Asian aesthetic is not distinctive, and makes one nostalgic for the stylishly abstract early classics made by Shanghai Animation Film Studio, like "Uproar in Heaven."

This fairy tale is an adaptation of a vintage children's play from China's revolutionary '50s. The original's socialist doctrinal indictment of materialistic greed is downplayed, and overshadowed by an environmentalist stance. But because the villainess is not invested with any allegorical attributes that represent concrete endangerment to the ecosystem, be it industrialization or deforestation, the message is ill defined.