Magic Brush

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.

Realizing in anger that the pictures would become real when Ma Liang paints, the mandarin orders his men to send for Ma Liang. He offers Ma Liang his freedom if he paints a mountain of gold. Discovering the mandarin's deception, Ma Liang devises a plan to trick the greedy mandarin and agrees by telling the mandarin to have patience and obey his words. He paints a sea much to the mandarin's dismay but Ma Liang assures him that he is trying to make his work impressive. After the boy paints a golden mountain in the distance, the mandarin happily appreciates his work and asks him to paint a ship for him and his men to gather the gold.

The mandarin and his men hurry aboard the ship. When they are at the middle of the sea, the mandarin tells Ma Liang to give him wind to increase the ship's speed. Ma Liang paints a wind cloud and then continues to paint storm clouds. A horrified mandarin calls out to Ma Liang to ease the weather saying that he and his men and friends would die. But Ma Liang defies orders and continued to paint more storm clouds. Giant waves crash against the ship and the vessel breaks then sinks, drowning the mandarin and his friends.

Ma Liang goes back to his simple life and lives happily with his family. He always becomes ready to help everyone in need. Although he continues to do more artworks, he occasionally uses his magic paintbrush. Not a single person dared Ma Liang to use his magic brush for evil purposes and greedy wishes. So the magic paintbrush was known by everyone.

The story has been readapted a number of times by Chinese authors, common versions include the story of the same name from author Han Xing as well as Hong Xuntao. The American adaptation titled as "Tye May and the Magic Brush" by Molly Bang features a female protagonist as the title character.

• The Magic Paintbrush, written by Liz Miles, illustrated by Meilo So (Oxford University Press, 2011).
• The Magic Paintbrush, written by Jillian Powell (Wayland, 2011).
• The Magic Paintbrush, written by Julia Donaldson, illustrated by Joel Stewart (Igloo, Macmillan, 2004).
• The Magic Paintbrush, written by Laurence Yep, illustrated by Suling Wang (Harper Collins, 2000).
• The Magic Paintbrush, written by Robin Muller (Viking Kestrel, 1990).
• Tye May and the Magic Brush, by Molly Bang (HarperCollins, 1980).
• The Magic Paintbrush, adapted by Fran Hunia from the traditional tale, illustrated by Martin Aitchison (Ladybird Books, 1970s)
• Ma Lien and the Magic Brush, written by Hisako Kimishima, illustrated by Kei Wakana (Parents' Magazine Press, 1968)

• Won the outstanding film award in the 1957 Poland Warsaw International Film Festival children's competition.
• Won the children's entertainment films award at the Venice, Italy 8th International Children's Film Festival
• Won the silver award at the Damascus, Syrian 1st International Film Festival Expo
• Won the outstanding children's film award at the Belgrade Yugoslavia 1st International Children's Film Festival
• Recognized at the Canada 2nd Stratford International Film Festival awards
• In 1955 awarded for outstanding film by China's Ministry of Culture.

• List of stop-motion films

• The 1954 film at China's Movie Database
• The 1955 film at China's Movie Database