The new animated film Sing, set in a world of animals, features contestants Rosita, an exhausted housewife, and Ash, a punk-rock porcupine, and the competition organizer Buster Moon, a koala.[Photo provided to China Daily]

The animated film Sing features more than 65 hit songs from recent years, but there is a message, too. Wang Kaihao reports.

If you take Walt Disney's Zootopia and American musical La La Land and put them together to make a film, it may look like Sing, which hit cinemas on the Chinese mainland on Feb 17.

The animated film, set in a world inhabited by animals, is about a singing competition to save a once-grand theater.

The film was made by Illumination Entertainment, which is owned by Universal Studios. Its production team was also responsible for creating the Minions, the main characters in the Despicable Me franchise.

The film, which premiered on Dec 21 in the United States, earned over $500 million there before hitting the Chinese mainland.

It had earned about 100 million yuan ($14.5 million) in the country as of Tuesday.