Over the Moon review – Netflix family animation is more Disney than Disney

The voices of Cathy Ang, John Cho and Sandra Oh star in this K-poppy, trippy fantasy about a girl who builds a rocket and flies to the moon

Watch your back, Disney; here comes Netflix in Hollywood studio mode, flexing its ambition with an animated family fantasy adventure about a sunny, 13-year-old girl called Fei Fei who flies to the moon in a homemade rocket. It's a film for the globalised 21st century (and presumably Netflix's global audience): a Chinese story directed by an American - the veteran Disney animator Glen Keane - and voiced in English by actors of (mostly) east Asian heritage.

Cathy Ang is Fei Fei, who is horrified when her dad (John Cho) brings home a new girlfriend (Sandra Oh) four years after her mum's death. Fei Fei is a true believer in the mythical goddess Chang'e, who is said to languish on the moon, pining for her mortal lover. Our heroine reasons that if she can prove Chang'e and eternal love really do exist, her dad will have to chuck his girlfriend and devote himself to the memory of her mumThus, as a science whizz, she builds a spaceship. It's a contrived plot but Keane's character design is beautifully expressive, adding real emotional force - Fei Fei's face scrunched in anguish when she realises her dad plans to remarry is very touching.