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 on December 8, 2002.

The film was funded by, , , and various corporate and private backers.

Plot
Sagwa, Dongwa, and Sheegwa get teleported to Quad City, wherein they meet the biracial Asian-American Jason Shao, who wants to find true friendship and spread it across the world. They work together to achieve this across two dimensions.

Live-action actors

 * John Wayne Sace as Jason Shao, a mixed-race Asian-American who discovers Sagwa's world
 * as Jason Shao (voice; uncredited)
 * 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.
 * as Officer David O'Harry, a police officer with the Quad City Police Department.
 * as Chief Douglas LeFrancois, the chief of police for the Quad City Police Department.
 * as Officer Smeets, David's fellow officer.
 * Austin Di Iulio and as Budge and Smudge, the school bullies who reluctantly join Jason and Felipe on their adventure. Their full names are revealed in the credits as Greg Hiaasen and Patrick Oikonomopoulos.
 * Jesse Vinet as Samantha House, Jason's love interest.
 * Mark Joy as King House, Samantha's father.

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.
 * as Baba Miao, the kittens' father
 * as Mama Miao, the kittens' mother
 * as Nai-Nai Miao
 * Sonja also plays the sleeve dog Pang and the alley cat Ling
 * Neil Shee as Yeh-Yeh Miao
 * as Lik-Lik
 * as Jet-Jet
 * as Wing-Wing
 * as Hun-Hun
 * as Fu-Fu
 * as Wong Ton, an alley cat who is revealed to be bispecies and helps with getting Sagwa, Dongwa, and Sheegwa back to China safely

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
 * Leonardo Hizon as Felipe driving double 1
 * as Felipe driving double 2
 * as Felipe driving double 3
 * as Budge diving double

Development
The film was produced as an attempt to conclude the series after cut funding.

As part of a promotion PBS was doing with at the time,  appeared in the film as police officer David O'Harry, and a Monster Jam event is part of the plot where Sagwa is shown Quad City for the first time. Fellow Monster Jam driver was hired as the stunt director, although he was credited in the final cut as "Tommy Eichelberger", using the surname of his sons Colton and Jared as part of the pseudonym, after a stuntman was killed on set performing a stunt. After the death, a Randomian crew member (who was on the camera crew) left the project before it was even complete. The tour's head announcer Scott Douglass also introduced the theatrical trailer with Sagwa creator and Sesame Workshop head.

The film's climatic fight at the mall originally included Sheegwa getting shot and killed after jumping in the way of O'Harry's gunfire, but after test audiences found the scene too violent and depressing for a Sesame Workshop project (Joan Ganz Cooney was in the test audience and according to an anecdote by Anderson, threw her popcorn down in anger at the scene), it was changed to her getting killed by an explosion that is caused by a Blue Rhino fueling station getting shot by O'Harry's gunfire (in the original cut, Felipe driving the Felipe II straight through the fueling station and nearly getting caught in the explosion was the cause of said explosion). Sheegwa getting shot was included in the UK cut (even though it was released with a U rating in theaters), the Malaysian VCD, and the dubs in Swedish, Norwegian, and Danish.

was originally considered for Felipe, however he was unavailable, so Venezuelan singer got the role.

Filming
The live-action portions were filmed in, ; some parts of , ; , , ; and in ,. Most of the filming took place in Buenos Aires, as the vibrant South American city served well as a substitute for the fictional American city of Quad City, which was described in production notes as "Harlem on steroids". 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 climatic mall scenes were filmed at the and the. The Galerías Pacífico was mostly used for most of the interior shots and the exterior, whilst the Patio Bullrich was used for some interior shots. The explosion was filmed using scale models in a tool shed behind the Lycée Franco-Argentin Jean Mermoz, which was used as one of two makeshift special effects stages during Argentinian filming (the was the other special effects "stage"). Gigantic green screens were set up around the area of the Galerías Pacífico to mask out other buildings and to make it look like the mall had a huge parking lot.

The Miao cats appeared in live-action through a mix of puppetry and cel-shaded animation. 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.

A USHRA-sanctioned event at the second stadium of the in Buenos Aires was actually done to get people to turn up during the filming of the Monster Jam event scenes, so PBS would not have to pay for the hiring of extras. The Spanish-speaking announcer was ADRed over with Scott Douglass in post. An ad aired on local Buenos Aires TV stations saying "Ven a ver el espectáculo de fuegos artificiales en La Bombonera con Sagwa, la gatita siamesa" (literally "Come see the fireworks show at the Chocolate Box (referring to ) with Sagwa, the siamese kitten") was also done to get people to turn up to the filming of the fireworks display scenes in the ending montage so extras wouldn't be hired.

The scenes in the ending montage where the Felipe II is doing donuts at a horse racing track were filmed at the in.

Animation Production
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 .

Release
The movie premiered on December 2, 2002 at, with the screening benefiting the. Sagwa's voice actress attended along with  (who was the announcer in the film's trailers),  and, with the  performing before the screening. The film premiered on 15,000 screens on December 8, 2002, growing to 20,000 the next week, and was a box office success, grossing $34.6 million against a $29.4 million budget.

The film was released on DVD on January 17, 2003 by and.

Reception
The film received mostly positive reviews from critics. gave the film 3 stars out of 4, praising Holly Gauthier-Frankel's "sweet-sounding, unusually happy" voice work for Sagwa and Joaquin Phoenix's portrayal of Kenny Gillman-Shao. Ebert however criticized the fact that John Wayne Sace had been dubbed over in his role of Jason Shao, but stated that it "didn't interfere with my enjoyment of the film." He and gave the film "Two Thumbs Up" on .

Accolades
Dennis Anderson won a in the special category of "Worst Example of Human Product Placement". Anderson accepted the award in person, stating "If you folks think I'm a bad actor, remember that none of you have acted!" to a smattering of applause from the crowd at the ceremony.

The film came in 1st place in the 2003 World Film of the Year. "My Friend/Love" was nominated for the, and the film itself was nominated for a.