Calabash Brothers
Legend has it that two ogres were jailed in the Calabash Mountains: one, a scorpion spirit and the other, a snake spirit. One day, a pangolin, or a scaly anteater, happens to drill a hole on the slope and the two spirits escape from the cave and cause grave harm to the nearby residents. The pangolin hurries to an old man and says that only by growing calabashes in seven colors can they annihilate the devil spirits. So the old man spares no time in growing seven calabashes in red, orange, yellow, green, cyan, blue and purple. The spirits find out about this through a fortune-teller mirror. After failing to destroy the calabashes, they seize the old man as well as the pangolin and take them away. One after another, the calabashes become ripe and fall off their stems to the ground, becoming seven boys in suits of different colors. To save the old man and the pangolin, they fight against the evil spirits one by one. Each of them has his unique ability as well as disadvantage. With concerted effort and a united mind, they exploit everyone's gifts to the full and finally defeat the scorpion and the snake.
As one of the most popular animated cartoon series in China, "Calabash Brothers," directed by Hu Jinqing, Ge Guiyun and Zhou Keqin, is a typical Chinese paper-cut animation. It won the third place award at the Cairo International Children's Film Festival in Egypt.
Author:Ivana