Mickey Mouse beware. Step aside Donald Duck. A magic vegetable is the latest character in Walt Disney’s pantheon of charmers with ambitions to enchant audiences across China.

The Secret of the Magic Gourd will be the first Disney branded movie to be made outside Hollywood. It has its premiere in Beijing this week and the US group is hoping it will be the first of many Disney films to show there.

It was not by chance that Disney chose the tale of a boy who discovers an enchanted gourd that grants his every wish for its first showing in China.

The story has been close to the heart of every Chinese child since it was written in 1958 by Zhang Tianyi, one of China’s most celebrated children’s authors.

Made in Hong Kong with Chinese animators, The Secret of the Magic Gourd is a feel-good tale that sits well beside Disney’s traditonal animated characters.

Stanley Cheung, Disney’s top China executive, said: “Good stories are not dominated by American creators. We are not fixed on the idea that we have to lift stuff from the US and drop it into China and if that doesn’t work, we don’t have a business.”

Mickey and Minnie Mouse are hugely popular in China. Hong Kong Disneyland, the first Disney park on Chinese soil, is a near replica of the original theme park in California and is a magnet for the millions of Chinese tourists who visit Hong Kong each year.

More than 4,200 “Disney Corner” outlets exist in stores across China and a television show launched in 1994 promotes Disney cartoons on more than 40 channels.

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