Lunar New Year 2025.04: Ne Zha 2

Caught this one at an early show which, at the time, looked like one of just two chances to see the movie in 3D, which I remembered being a highlight of the first. AMC has decided to do more, though, and I'm not sure to what extent it's a matter of someone finally seeing it and realizing that it looks amazing or just noticing that the film is an absolute box office monster in China - $448M opening five-day weekend, $1.3 billion pulled in before it got to the United States and decided to give it a bigger release here and put a few more of those shows where the hundred people in the theater give you an extra five bucks.

One thing I'm kind of curious about is whether it got a wider release than most Chinese films get or just a "deeper" one, so to speak. It's playing at four locations I can reach relatively easily, and the AMCS in Burlington, Braintree, and Framington, but that's still pretty close to a major city; my folks in and around Portland, ME, aren't seeing it easily. And while I know these Chinese studios don't really care much about what these movies make in the USA - it's a non-trivial amount of money for stuff that isn't this sort of blockbuster but I suspect it's more about students and other expats not getting used to piracy - I kind of wonder what Well Go would have done if they got gotten the distribution rights for this one. This movie had a bunch of PG-rated trailers before it and there's school vacation next week; some English-dubbed matinees might have sold some tickets and had it break containment here. There's probably an audience for this sort of anime-adjacent fantasy that's not being served this week.

Not that the Chinese producers necessarily are, nor should they. But it's a fun movie, and like with Creation of the Gods a couple weeks ago, I feel like there's an audience here that could really go for this sort of big fantasy that can go anywhere compared to how bland the Western version of it has become.


Nezha: Mo tong nao hai (Ne Zha 2)

* * * ½ (out of four)
Seen 13 February 2025 in AMC Causeway #2 (first-run, RealD 3D laser DCP)
Where to stream it (when available)
Where to stream the first (Prime link), or buy the disc at Amazon

The lagtime that can exist between a movie and its sequel can be interesting, especially for stuff originally aimed at children. The first Ne Zha in 2019 bounced between nifty visuals, childish humor, good action, and a straightforward sort of story despite the elaborate mythology. Re-watching it before the new film, it felt like well-produced kid stuff. Whether intentionally or not, though, filmmaker Yu Yang (aka Xiaozi) made this second film in the series for the teenagers who would have been ten when it came out, and that adjustment lets him build something bigger and more epic (even if there are still plenty of bits with snot and pee).

For those who missed the first film, Ne Zha (voice of Lu Tanting), third son of the guardians a crucial pass (voices of Chen Hao & Lu Qi), and Ao Bing (voice of Han Mo), third son of Dragon of the East Sea, were able to stop an apocalyptic lightning strike but in the process, their bodies were destroyed. Immortal Taiyi (voice of Zhang Jiaming) was able to use the Holy Lotus to create new vessels, but they are initially weak, and an attack by the dragons and demon Shen Gongbao (Yang Wei) leaves Ao Bing forced to share Ne Zha's body and an uneasy truce as Ne Zha and Taiyi travel to the Yu Xu Palace in Kunlun to pass the trials of the Immortals to obtain an elixir that can restore the Lotus. Elder Immortal Wuliang Xianwong (voice of Wang Deshun) assigns Nezha to assist Demon Hunter Wutong (voice of Zhang Yunqi) in vanquishing three demons, but a tragedy midway through the trials threatens to unleash Ne Zha's demonic rage.

Ne Zha 2 is not purely a movie of two halves, but despite the calamitous battle that sends Ne Zha, Taiyi, and Ao Bing on their quest, the first half is really a cleverly built sort of comic fantasy adventure. The whole premise is amusingly rickety - Ne Zha cannot use his powers or the immortals will realize he is a demon, so Ao Bing must take control of his body to fight, but that involves knocking him unconscious, and he comes to at inconvenient times - and the instability of his new body also explains why his abilities are sort of nerfed compared to what he did at the end of the previous movie. This part of the movie is full of whimsical designs, goofy slapstick, and, yes, a bit built around Ne Zha having entirely the wrong idea about where it's acceptable to relieve himself, though it's still a tick more mature than the first film and built to move forward rather than just wander from joke to joke. Indeed, when the tone of the movie changes, some of the characters don't seem to get the memo, like the third demon who is almost like "wait, I'm a funny demon, why so intense?"

It launches into a second half that is full of big, melodramatic action, like playtime is over and now it's time to confront the horrors of what the adult world that Ne Zha's parents have tried to shield him from entails, with betrayals, apocalyptic battles, and discoveries that rock the characters' understanding of the word. The goofiness of the first leg isn't completely lost - the marine-life demons discover that they are actually delicious when pan-seared by hellfire in a particularly bizarre sequence - but the stakes are higher and the villains more monstrous. Xiaozi does an impressive job of keeping up a frantic action pace while also occasionally pulling back to demonstrate the scale of the battle and letting the audience breathe a bit. It's not perfect - the sheer amount going on can make it feel like a video game or a Marvel finale where heroes get lost in a ton of stuff flying around - but it works as well as this sort of battle can, and Xiaozi occasionally does the trick where something terrible is presented in a beautiful image, rattling the audience in a good way when it might get detached.

The whole movie is beautiful, though, evolving the cartoon nature of the first film such that it can shift to stark wastelands without a hitch, and when Ne Zha takes on a more evolved, mature form, it's like the film shifts from Akira Toriyama influence to Tetsuo Hara, still exaggerated in a different way. The color palette shifts too, and the filmmakers make the action three-dimensional in ways that many struggle with, as the sinuous dragon shapes, high-flying heroes, and solidity of the Tian Yu cauldron all get the audience to visualize where things are in space. It works especially well in 3D, although I suspect it will be fine just filling up a large screen.

Given the extent to which the first was great-looking but probably not for me, I'm not shocked by how the visuals and action are terrific, but it's a very pleasant surprise to see that the story has been tweaked to appeal to an older audience on top of kids. The post-credit scenes cheekily admit that it may be a while before we see a third entry (amid an anachronistic gag that made me howl), but with all the hints about the dragons holding back some sort of darkness and a "Deification War", I'm sold on seeing what Xiaozi and company come up with next.