Sagwa: The Movie

Sagwa: The Movie (released as La légende de Sagwa in Francophone regions) is a 2002 animated family film. A co-production between the United States, Canada, Taiwan, Argentina, China, and Hong Kong, it was released by RKO Pictures on December 8, 2002.

Live-action actors

 * John Wayne Sace as Jason Shao, a mixed-race Asian-American who discovers Sagwa's world
 * An uncredited Tom Kenny overdubbed John's voice in post-production due to his thick Filipino accent.
 * Joaquin Phoenix as Kenny Gillman-Shao, Jason's father and an accomplished musician.
 * Eugenia Yuan as Mei Shao, Jason's mother and a native of China who is a world explorer.
 * Ming-Na Wen as Janice Shao, Jason's older sister.
 * Mako as the human form of Master Oogway, a old Chinese man who is secretly a dimension-hopping tortoise.
 * Paul Gillman as Felipe Ortega, Jason's Latino friend and one of Kenny's old college buddies.

Animation/puppetry voice actors

 * Holly G. Frankel as Sagwa Miao, a curious Siamese cat who acts like a normal 8-year-old human girl and lives with her parents, older brother and younger sister in the court of the Foolish Magistrate.
 * Oliver Grainger as Dongwa Miao, Sagwa's older brother.
 * Jesse Vinet as Sheegwa Miao, Sagwa's younger sister.

Puppeteers

 * Heather Asch as Sagwa Miao
 * Martin P. Robinson as Dongwa Miao
 * Eka Vogelnik as Sheegwa Miao

Stunt doubles

 * Neil Taylor as Jason stunt double 1
 * Ho-Pin Tung as Jason stunt double 2
 * Elbrus Ourtaev as Felipe stunt double

Filming
The live-action portions were filmed in Lake Charles, Louisiana, United States; Montreal, Quebec, Canada; Kowloon Bay, Hong Kong; and in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The National Library of the Argentine Republic formed the outside of Jason's house (the interior shots were filmed on a soundstage in Montreal) while the Palace of Flowing Waters served as Master Oogway's workshop. Jason's neighborhood was mostly Barrio Chino, whilst his school was the Lycée Franco-Argentin Jean Mermoz. The go-kart track scenes were filmed on the runway of the closed Kai Tak International Airport in Hong Kong.

The animated scenes were created using a combination of digital ink-and-paint, CGI, and model animation by Cuckoo's Nest in Taiwan. Wang Film's CGI unit CGCG was heavily involved with the CGI production. For the model animation, Wang animators worked in a small garage near Wang's Taipei studio using models built by British studio MacKinnon & Saunders, working on rooftop and mountain shots over the course of five weeks. Most of the backgrounds for the model animation used movement tracking to help the CGI or digital I&P animation sync up well to the models. The complex CGI issues were solved by Frank Ford Little, PhD, who did the same work for .

The Miao cats appeared in live-action through puppetry. Eka Vogelnik, Sheegwa's puppeteer for the live-action scenes, relied on an English interpreter to communicate with the production crew given that she only spoke Slovenian.