Wang Bao (Zhu Qilong) is a lazy little boy who would rather daydream than study. He is always late for school much to the annoyance of his hard-working friends. When teacher Miss Liu (Hong Kong singer and actress Gigi Leung) assigns them a group project the others try to make sure Wang Bao pulls his weight. Yet he can't help but wonder whether there is a way to make his dreams come true without having to work so hard. Sure enough, Wang Bao finds such a way when he discovers Bailey the magical talking gourd (voiced by Lau Ching-Wan in the original Chinese cut and High School Musical (2005) star Corbin Bleu in the English dub) with the power to grant his every wish. Eager to please, Bailey goes all-out to make Wang Bao the smartest, most successful, most popular kid in school. Unfortunately Bailey's wish-granting powers have a habit of backfiring to the point where Wang Bao starts to think magic might not be the answer.
For their first film made primarily for a Chinese audience the Disney studio chose to adapt Bao hu lu de mi mi or The Secret of the Magic Gourd, a book well-known in China and widely acclaimed as a children's classic. Its writer, the prolific Zhang Tianyi penned novels and short stories for both adults and children and was a celebrated satirist. Yet whatever satirical qualities the original book possessed are muted at best in the film whose moral message comes across as staunchly traditional. The film is not without a few modest charms which include some eye-catching effects set-pieces, e.g. Bailey makes an entire store's worth of toys march over to Wang Bao's house, builds him a cool robot dog and later accidentally transports him into a movie where he ends up escaping a hungry T-Rex. These are well handled by Frankie Chung, a seasoned visual effects artist on films like Storm Riders (1998), The Eye (2002) and Kung Fu Hustle (2004), co-directing here with Asian-American Jon M. Chu who went on to make his name with the Step Up franchise and more recently Jem and the Holograms (2015). However, the heavy-handed moralizing dampens the fun. In fact the film is more interesting for what it says about differing values in East and West when it comes to children's literature and childhood in general.
The film beats its target audience over the head with very traditional messages of the "you reap what you sow" variety, stressing the importance of suppressing individual desires for the good of the group and good grades above all else. Which is not to suggest such ideals are without merit merely that the film rams them home with little subtlety and only a modicum of compassion. In the West academic over-achievers are often sadly ostracized by their peers in school, whereas here the other kids want Wang Bao to study harder. Every other child is drawn as studious and well-behaved except for the hero. To be honest, Wang Bao does not come across as particularly likeable for the most part. Even so the viewer does grow to feel some sympathy for him in the face of relentless pressure from the chess club, study groups, swim team, and ambitious parents to straighten up, fly right, support the team, love his country, etc. After all that who wouldn't want a little animated anarchy in their life? And yet Bailey's calamitous magic leaves poor Wang Bao looking like a cheat, a thief and a liar in the eyes of his friends until an eventual group intervention lends an unintentionally sinister Stepford Children vibe. Compare this to Stephen Chow Sing-Chi's children's fantasy CJ7 (2008) which, while no masterpiece, explores similar themes with far more heart and honest empathy for the downtrodden.
Opening with an impressive fantasy sequence wherein Wang Bao daydreams he is an astronaut flying to rescue a runaway space station before it crashes to Earth, The Secret of the Magic Gourd is undeniably eye-catching. Its flights of fancy are vividly realized yet lack a certain lyrical flavour. Bailey the magic gourd, voiced with pleasing exuberance by Corbin Bleu, is engagingly oddball character who might appeal to very small children though the attempts at pathos late in the film fall flat. The English dubbed version released on DVD is quite accomplished as these things go but one laments the absence of the original Mandarin cut for comparison's sake.
