Music with meaning

The new animated film Sing, set in a world of animals, features contestants Rosita, an exhausted housewife, and Ash, a punk-rock porcupine, and the competition organizer Buster Moon, a koala.[Photo provided to China Daily]

"The songs gave me goose pimples. I recommend the film and give it 10 stars."

The English voices in the film are done by Matthew McConaughey, Reese Witherspoon and Scarlett Johansson, all household names for Chinese filmgoers.

In the Chinese version, the stars who lend their voices to the film are Dong Chengpeng, a popular comedian, and Wu Mochou, a pop-singer known overseas as Momo Wu.

Speaking about his work at a promotional event for the film in Beijing, Dong says: "It made me feel schizophrenic. It took me a long time to recover after returning home.

"It (working on the film) was not as simple as lending your voice. You have to get immersed in the performance. That is why I danced when working."

For the director, it was critical to find performers who could sing as brilliantly as they vocalized their lines.

"Everyone found their own little way of making the character their own," says Jennings.

"In our cast, they are not only present in the voices but also in the animation."

But while singing may not have been a problem for Wu, who did the voice of Ash, the porcupine, the lines did prove a challenge.

Her dubbing work was informed by her experience in the first season of The Voice of China, a Chinese singing reality talent show.