Red Army to get hip upgrade

HONG KONG -- Known by their red-star caps and drab uniforms, Communist China’s founding revolutionaries are getting a makeover with a hip-looking animated film based on a classic propaganda movie from the 1970s.

“Sparkling Red Star” is about a young boy who helps the Red Army fight an evil landlord who has taken over their village.

It was released Oct. 1 in China and debuts Thursday in Chinese-ruled Hong Kong.

The mainly hand-drawn 84-minute animation, whose smoothly rendered characters resemble the work of famed Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki, is a collaboration between the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s Bayi film studio and a mainland animation company.

The more than $2-million cartoon is the brainchild of Hong Kong businessman Chin Yiu-tong, chairman of Puzzle Animation Studio, based in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen, publicist Zevia Tong said.

Foreign cartoons, especially from Japan, are hugely popular with China’s 250 million children.

Tong said filmmakers watered down the “revolutionary” flavor of the film, based on a 1974 action movie, and stressed family and friendship instead. Although the characters are drawn like hip teenagers from Japanese anime, they retain the Red Army’s red-star caps and drab uniforms and the plot has heavy propaganda overtones.

The story features young Pan Dongzi, whose father joins the Red Army’s Long March -- its retreat into China’s hinterland during civil war against ruling Nationalists -- leaving his son to battle evil landowner Hu Hansan, who takes over the village and sends Pan fleeing.

Pan’s mother dies as a martyr when the Red Army tries to retake the village.