A homemade rocket, an old legend about a goddess who lives on the moon, and a girl stubborn enough to connect the two: Over the Moon is a 2020 animated musical directed by Glen Keane, a China and United States co-production that runs 100 minutes and plays on K-Time with a Persian dub.
What is Over the Moon about?
The heroine is a girl who has grown up on the story of a mythical moon goddess and refuses to file it under make-believe. Rather than argue the point, she decides to prove it. She designs and builds her own rocket ship, launches it, and blasts off towards the moon in the hope of meeting the goddess in person. From there the story becomes part science-fiction voyage and part fairy tale, with songs carrying it from the workbench on Earth to whatever is waiting at the other end of the flight.
About the cast
Cathy Ang heads the voice cast, and she is joined by Phillipa Soo, Robert G. Chiu, Ken Jeong, John Cho, Sandra Oh, Ruthie Ann Miles and Margaret Cho. Since this is a musical, the performers have to carry songs as well as dialogue, which shapes the casting as much as the script does.
Context & significance
Over the Moon sits across five genres at once: adventure, animation, family, musical and science fiction. The rocket and the launch belong to science fiction, the moon goddess belongs to myth, and the songs tie the two halves together in the way family musicals traditionally do. As a co-production between China and the United States, it draws on a legend rather than an invented fantasy world, and it treats that legend as something a child might take seriously enough to build a spacecraft for. At 100 minutes it is a full-length feature, long enough for a real journey but still manageable for younger viewers in one sitting.
Watching Over the Moon on Ktime
Over the Moon is available on K-Time with a Persian dub, so children and grandparents can follow the story and the dialogue in Farsi together. Reading this page is free; to press play you need to sign in with a K-Time account. The service is built for Persian speakers abroad, with menus and browsing in Farsi.