(Chinese: 神笔马良)
is a 2014 Chinese animated fantasy film directed by Frankie Chung. It was released on 25 July 2014. Ma Liang’s brush makes whatever he paints come alive, which makes him the target of a power-hungry general.A young and kind peasant boy named Ma Liang helped a rich man to tend cattle. He liked drawing and drew pictures everywhere and had the greatest dream to be an artist.
He works very hard to achieve this dream even though he doesn’t own a paintbrush. As Ma Liang gets ready for bed one night after looking at all his drawings, an elderly wizard-magician appears to him and says that he has earned a brush. He informs Ma Liang of the brush’s great power and tells him to use it wisely.
Before Ma Liang can thank him, the magician vanished. To test the power, Ma Liang uses the brush to paint a rooster. When he paints the last feather, the rooster comes to life and flies off. Realizing the power of the brush, Ma Liang vows to use it to help others and remembers the words of the wizard. From that day on, Ma Liang used the paintbrush to help others with their needs or troubles.
He paints a river which instantly becomes real wherein people can draw water from it to take to the field and save a lot of time and energy. Ma Liang later paints cows and water buffaloes 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 mandarin, a government official, who pays a visit to Ma Liang and invites him to his home.
Unknown to Ma Liang, the mandarin was a selfish and arrogant bad man who had an idea to steal the paintbrush and make a lot of money by turning things to life and keeping them. When Ma Liang refuses to heed the mandarin’s commands to paint a pile of silver and gold coins for him due to his promise to the magician to use he brush wisely, he is imprisoned in a dungeon.
There, his fellow prisoners reveal their innocence 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 uses his magic brush to paint a door which later opens, 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 goes into hiding and continues to use his magic brush to help people. He paints toys for children, paints a river and water wheel to irrigate farms, and more useful tools to ease people’s work.
However, the mandarin finds Ma Liang and takes away his brush. After ordering that Ma Liang be imprisoned once more, he invites 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 mandarin then orders the court painter to paint a tree with leaves of gold on a wall, but when he tries to shake the tree, the mandarin only bumped his head since the tree was nothing but a painting.
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爱奇艺