Year of the Fish

Even animation addicts might find their eyes glazing over at this digitally rotoscoped Cinderella story set in an oh-so-magical modern-day Chinatown. The draw-over technique, better thematically utilized in Richard Linklater’s Waking Life and A Scanner Darkly, here finds its toothless expression in a cutesy fairy tale (even if one set in a “beauty parlor” offering its clients happy endings). The fairy godmother is a chatty goldfish, and plucky Ye Xian (Nguyen), defiant in her servitude, gravitates toward the rakish Johnny Pan (Leung) with few unexpected hitches.