Once upon a time, there was a young man called Ma Liang. He was poor and kind and liked drawing so much that he drew pictures everywhere. One night, he dreamed that an old man gave him a magic paintbrush and asked him to use it to help poor people. When he woke up, he found the magic paintbrush on his desk. A Magic Paintbrush came alive and granted Toni a wish and transported her to the southern province in Ancient China. She became Ma Liang, the character in the story. When she was gifted a Magic Paintbrush by an Old Man, she could paint anything and it will come to life. Ma Liang (the magic Paintbrush). “The perennially popular story of Ma Liang and his magic paintbrush is here made into an attractive picture book. Demi's fine line and watercolor drawings are full of elaborate details which will entice readers to look and look again.” ― School Library Journal. The Magic Paint Brush A Chinese folk tale Once upon a time, there was a young man called Ma Liang. He was poor and kind and liked drawing so much that he drew pictures everywhere. One night, he dreamed that an old man gave him a magic paintbrush and asked him to use it to help poor people. When he woke up, he found the magic paintbrush on his desk.

• Ma Liang And The Magic Paintbrush Book
• Ma Liang And The Magic Paintbrush Movie
• Noggin Story Time Ma Lien
• Ma Liang And The Magic Paintbrush
• The Magic Paintbrush Pdf
• Ma Liang And The Magic Paintbrush English

Today we will talk about a story of the magic brush. The story was written in the 1950s and is one of the most popular children’s mythological stories in China.

A young and kind peasant boy named Ma Liang 马良 helped a rich man to tend cattle. He liked drawing and drew pictures everywhere and had the greatest dream to be an artist even though he didn’t own a paintbrush.

One night when Ma Liang got ready for bed one night, he looked at all his drawings. Just as he was about to doze of, an elderly wizard-magician appears to him and gifted him a paintbrush. He told Ma Liang to use this brush wisely because it had great power. Before Ma Liang thank him, the magician vanished.

To test the power, Ma Liang used the brush to paint a rooster. When he paint the last feather, the rooster came to life and flew off. Ma Liang realized the power of the brush. He promised to use the brush wisely and help other people.

When he saw that people had no water to use in the fields, he drew a river which instantly becomes real where they can draw water from to take to the field and save a lot of time and energy. Ma Liang drew cows and water buffalo which came to life, and farmers used these animals to till lands easily.

Many people knew about the magic paintbrush, one of which was a powerful government official, who paid a visit to Ma Liang and invited him to his home. The official was a selfish and arrogant bad man who had an idea to steal the paint brush from the boy. He knew that he could make a lot of money by turning things to life and keeping them. The mandarin commanded Ma Liang to paint a pile of silver and gold coins for him but the latter refused due to his promise to the magician to use he brush wisely. The mandarin ordered him imprisoned in a dungeon.

In the dungeon, Ma Liang discovered the innocence of his fellow prisoners and their reason of being unjustly imprisoned; the mandarin wanted to seize their lands. That night, after the prison guards and their captain were asleep, Ma Liang used his magic brush to paint a door which later opened, allowing him and the other innocent people to escape silently. The guards awaken only to fail as Ma Liang painted a horse to escape quickly.

Ma Liang continued to use his magic brush to help people. He painted toys for children, paints a river and water wheel to irrigate farms, and more useful tools to ease people’s work. However, the official found Ma Liang and took away his brush. After ordering that Ma Liang be imprisoned once more, he invited a lot of his friends to come to his home and shows them the magic paintbrush. He drew a lot of pictures, of which none became real. The official then ordered the court painter to paint a tree with leaves of gold on a wall, but when he tried to shake the tree, the official only bumped his head since the tree was nothing but a painting.

Realizing in anger that the pictures would become real when Ma Liang painted, the official ordered his men to send for Ma Liang. He offered Ma Liang his freedom if he paints a mountain of gold.

Discovering the official’s deception, Ma Liang devises a plan to trick the greedy mandarin and agrees by telling the mandarin to have patience and obey his words. He painted a sea much to the official’s dismay but Ma Liang assured him that he was trying to make his work impressive. After the boy paints a golden mountain in the distance, the official happily appreciated his work and asked him to paint a ship for him and his men to gather the gold.

The official and his men hurried aboard the ship. When they were at the middle of the sea, the official told Ma Liang to give him wind to increase the ship’s speed. Ma Liang painted a wind cloud and then continued to paint storm clouds. The horrified official called out to Ma Liang to ease the weather saying that he and his men and friends would die. But Ma Liang defied orders and continued to paint more storm clouds. Giants waves crashed the ship and the vessel breaks then sinks, drowning the official and his men.

Ma Liang went back to his simple life. He always becomes ready to help everyone in need.

The Magic Paintbrush

Ma Liang And The Magic Paintbrush Book

Ma Liang And The Magic Paintbrush Movie

THE PUPPETS ARE WHERE IT'S AT!

reviewed by James Koh

Music by Kenneth Lyen
Words by Brian Seward
Date: 1 June 2000
Venue: The Drama Centre, Singapore

Rating: *** and a half (out of 5 stars)

There are two things that made the Magic Paintbrush -- Singapore's first locally written, full scale musical puppet show -- such a wonderful piece of children's theatre. One of them is that it did not talk down to its target audience of young children. There wasn't any form of condescension on the part of the production, a lack of overt and preachy didacticism. Instead, an enchanting story of magical proportions was simply told and gently revealed, allowing the children to take a delight in the tale and make their own judgements.

The other thing about the Magic Paintbrush, Imaginarts' sophomore production, is that is was a children's musical that adults could enjoy as well. Like a good Disney cartoon, it appealed to the adults with its funny one liners and clever and knowing references to various aspects of pop culture, be it the Spice Girls, the movie 'Titanic' or the film 'Jaws'. And like all good children's theatre, it made the adults wish that they could cast off the defensive layers that form with the advent of adulthood and return to the pre-lapsarian state of childhood once again.

Well, OK, maybe there is one more thing that made this musical so enjoyable: the precocious puppets that were used in the production. These puppets were created by Frankie Yeo, the Creative Director of Visual Impact, Singapore's first professional puppet makers. They ranged from the small and cute to the large and grotesque, and were beautifully crafted as to rival the Muppets of Jim Henderson. From small cuddly flowers and chickens, to a towering spectre called The Spirit of Creation, to various Chinese villagers, these puppets filled the production with infectious fun and hilarious energy with their comic antics and lovable personas.

Noggin Story Time Ma Lien

Moreover, these puppets were used ingeniously and imaginatively. Not only were they employed as a way of commenting on the story, but also, they made various scenes truly surreal and phantasmagoric, like the ultra-violet illuminated underwater scene or the appearance of the intimidating Spirit of Creation.

Ma Liang And The Magic Paintbrush

The Magic Paintbrush tells the story of the old Chinese folk tale about a poor but talented painter -- called Ma Liang -- who receives a gift of a magic paintbrush. And with this paintbrush with its ability to paint things to life, the young boy uses it to help his fellow villagers survive under the tyrannical rule of the greedy Emperor. Framing this narrative, is the story of a young Singaporean girl called Toni, who is placed under extreme pressure from her father to excel in the sciences and to renounce all forms of creativity. This is linked to the main narrative when the Toni is transported to the world of Ma Liang with the aid of a faulty computer.

The lead role of Ma Liang was performed by Joni Tham, who was able to maintain a very good chemistry with the many puppets that she had to interact with. But the evening truly belonged to Amber Simon and Gani Abdul Karim as the two bumbling tax collectors of the Emperor. The slapstick humour and physical comedy they provided was extremely entertaining and added a note of boisterous fun. And it has to be said that Lucretia Pereira as the voice of the Phoenix was truly enchanting, and in songs like the gospel-tinged 'Spirit of Creation', she gave a rousing and energetic performance.

Director Brian Seward was highly skillful in making full use of the limited space of the Drama Centre, at the same time maintaining enough movement on stage so as to capture the short attention span of the children. Meanwhile, the music composed by Kenneth Lyen and arranged by Bang Wenfu, as what is de rigueur of a children's musical, was toe-tappingly tuneful.

There were a couple of minor gripes I had about the production. One is the fact that at 80 minutes without an interval, the play was slightly too long, such that certain scenes started to drag. The other is that at times the use of recorded music made the musical seem like a huge karaoke performance, such that certain songs lost their intensity or were forced to end without sounding climatic. Understandably financial and logistical difficulties prevented the production from using live music, but one wished that it had not been so. And the requisite happy ending, was a little too forced and contrived, making the musical end in a slightly flat note.

The Magic Paintbrush Pdf

But these were as I said, indeed minor gripes, and could not and did not spoil what was indeed a delightful and enjoyable performance.

Ma Liang And The Magic Paintbrush English

[This review first appeared in The Flying Inkpot.]