Free Planet Press

Disney goes for Asian tale

WALT DISNEY is being Asianified. The US movie maker has moved on from its normal diet of Western fairy tales such as Snow White and looked east for inspiration.

            The newest film is The Secret of the Magic Gourd, a mix of live action and 3D computer-generated characters, based on a novel written by children’s author Zhang Tianyi in China in 1958. It will spread to cinemas in various countries after its summer launch on the mainland.

            A boy has a sentient, wish-granting magic gourd (hey, that’s no more far-fetched than a talking mirror with a beauty fixation).

            Hong Kong songstress Gigi Leung fills the role of the child’s teacher, and provides star power eye-candy on the way.

            Disney is using local partners (the China Film Group Corp. and Centro Digital Pictures) to give it a genuine Eastern flavour.

            You can buy Disney-themed cookies and snacks these days, but I doubt if movie-tie-in gourds will be on sale. Gourds may be related to melons, but kids are unlikely to want to chow down on the latest cute Disney character.

Pop idol to be "ethical"

The producers of hot new Chinese television series Happy Boy are being super-careful with their Mandarin version of American Idol, itself a copy of UK show Pop Idol. Happy Boy is an all-guys version of Super Girl, a competition for Chinese female singers said to have attracted 400 million mainland viewers: that’s more than the entire population of the United States.
            The producers of Happy Boy know they have a winning format. But the broadcasting authorities issued an edict telling them that songs must be healthy and ethically inspiring, judges are banned from humiliating the contestants (which proved to be the big sales point in other versions of the show), and stars must display “no weirdness”. That last point would instantly put the vast majority of Western pop stars out of the running. This isn’t going to be Pop Idol as seen elsewhere on the planet.

Dessert wars break out

Asian dessert wars have broken out in Los Angeles. The latest food fad in West Hollywood is Korean frozen yogurt. People have been queuing for up to an hour to buy the stuff, available in plain or green tea flavours, from a store called Pinkberry. 
            But Korean company Red Mango has cried foul, claiming that they started a chain of yogurt stores in Seoul in 2003. The name, the menu and even the design of the two chains are very similar. They sell the same products in cafes with similar Asian pop aesthetic: plastic seating in bright colours with menus written on glass walls. Now Red Mango is opening stores in the United States so consumers have a choice of outlets.
           Why such a fuss about this east-west dessert? Unlike American “froyo” (the heavy ice-cream-like frozen yogurt of the past), the Korean stuff is light, retains an addictive, yogurt-y sourness, is served with chunks of fresh fruit, and is relatively low in calories. Who would have thought that a dairy dessert sensation would come from Asia, a place where people were until recently intolerant to lactose?