Join Harker Aquila’s Features Editor Mendy Mao, Assistant A&E/Lifestyle and Multimedia Editor Lindsay Li and Assistant News Editor Chelsea as they discuss the Chinese animation Ne Zha 2, which topped box office records for animated movies and reached the fifth highest box office for all movies.

Mendy: Hi everyone, I’m Mendy and I’m the features editor.

Lindsay: I’m Lindsay and I’m an assistant A&E and multimedia editor.

Chelsea: I’m Chelsea and I’m an assistant news editor.

Mendy: Today we will be reviewing the hit Chinese animation movie, Ne Zha 2.

What were your impressions of the movie before and after watching?

Chelsea: My first impression was, I guess before I went to watch it, I didn’t really have high expectations because I didn’t really enjoy the first movie that much. So I actually didn’t even want to go to the theater. But afterwards watching the movie, I was in complete shock. The movie made me cry, made me laugh, and it was just a huge experience. My expectations were completely blown out of the water.

Mendy: I would agree. I think the first movie definitely wasn’t as good, so I didn’t have high expectations. Especially, I thought that the way they kind of changed up Chinese mythology wasn’t that appealing to me. But in the second movie, they focused less on the mythology and perhaps more on character arcs and that type of thing, and that really blew me away. Also, the animation was stunning.

Lindsay: For me, I hadn’t watched the first movie at all before I went to the theaters, and so when I heard about it, of course I had no expectations and I was actually pretty disappointed that we’re going to be watching a movie in a different language with subtitles. Of course, I had the same opinions as these two after watching. I thought it was amazing. It was one of my favorite movies of all time.

What were your favorite parts of the movie?

Mendy: I would say my favorite part of the movie was the kind of subtle insulting of the Chinese government. I know not everyone interprets it that way. I thought that (no spoilers!) but the way that the main character kind of subverts societal expectations and the government or the society kind of pushes him down, is really reminiscent of the way China kind of is now. And coming out of a Chinese animation studio, it felt really powerful. I was actually surprised the film didn’t get censored because of this, but I thought the way it kind of portrayed this issue, which is really relevant to Chinese people right now, was really powerful and that was my favorite part.

Lindsay: So one point that I actually kind of disagree with, sorry Mendy, is that the movie, even though the movie can be interpreted as a pushback against the Chinese government, I actually think there are some pretty clear references to the American government and that might be kind of the reason why the movie hasn’t been censored in China. There are some points which I won’t spoil too much, but essentially, for example, the corrupt government organization is fully white as a reference to the White House, and at one point in the post-credits Easter eggs, there is a prison for political prisoners essentially with a giant dollar sign on it as well as some other references. So I believe that it’s actually trying to, it’s still playing into Chinese propaganda by emphasizing that the Chinese are, the Chinese as in Ne Zha, Ao Bing, and the protagonists are really the ones who will prevail and the evil organization or corporation which kind of symbolizes America or foreign powers, is the one that ends up being defeated and struggles in the end. Of course, the movie is up to interpretation and I believe we can definitely interpret it however we’d like, and we can definitely root for these rebels who are fighting back against a corrupt government either way.

Mendy: The action scenes were amazing because they had this type of thing where they would move the camera, because it’s animation, as if it was a real physical fight scene, and so the camera would move around and weave in between people as they fought, which felt way more dynamic and cool than just watching it. Also, I liked how they really incorporated a lot of really Chinese stylistic elements. For example, in the first scene, I think it looks like a calligraphy kind of paintbrush kind of style, and I thought that was amazing and I hadn’t seen anything like it before. Really groundbreaking.

Lindsay: For me, I really loved the animation. I know that’s been a point that’s been said many times already, but the fight scenes, the different details in the animations were truly amazing, and with the music, that was what really sealed the deal for me. I remember sitting in my seat and wanting to not move at all and had my eyes fixed on the screen the entire time because the animation and the music went together so well and it was really beautiful and it was a great watching experience in theaters.

Chelsea: I’d also like to second Lindsay on that. The animation was amazing, especially in the last fight scene. Just everything was so detailed and so dynamic. I really loved it. And also just some scenes where there’s so much raw emotion and it really touched my heart in ways that other movies hadn’t before.

Mendy: Something else I thought was really good was the use of humor in between the really heavy stuff. I think if they wanted to they could have made this movie a lot more deep but really gritty, and it kind of already is. The raw emotion was really well done. But at the same time, in between they have moments of hilarity that often felt very natural, usually very natural, and really funny and they had a lot of really nice physical comedy. So I think my family really appreciated that as we watched it together.

Lindsay: I also think that there were some really great plays on words or references to Chinese mythology and culture that made it really personal for me as a Chinese person that I and my family could really understand and resonate with.

Chelsea: I’d also like to add that I thought the plot was just really great. It wasn’t static. It was really dynamic. There were plot twists that I won’t talk about, but they really left me completely shocked, like I didn’t see it coming. And I think the people that wrote the story and the script did a really great job with that.

Lindsay: I think that the scripts kind of read like a typical movie to me. There were some parts that I could kind of predict, but the way it was delivered was really new and fresh and overall made the movie something that didn’t feel like a repeat of other action movies I’d seen before.

What was your least favorite part of the movie?

Mendy: I thought the emotion was sometimes a little bit forced, or a little bit overexaggerated. For example, in the first scene, when Ao Bing [the secondary protagonist] randomly dies, okay, well, it was part of the plot, but he died really dramatically in his father’s arms and had a final wish, even though he had a method to get saved like five seconds later. He kind of died for nothing and cried about it for nothing. It was really dramatic, took up 5 minutes. The film had a bunch of moments like that where I felt almost like, ‘ok, I don’t really know why we’re doing this anymore, and maybe I don’t really care about this character.’ So sometimes the emotion felt hollow, but in general, I think the emotion regarding family and especially the family of the main character was really strong.

Chelsea: I’d also like to say that the movie was a pretty long movie and I think I didn’t really feel it, but there were the parts with the training scenes where he had to go fight a bunch of people, and I wish like they didn’t include so many of them cause they all felt a little bit repetitive to me like Ne Zha would get angry, he would try to fight someone who would fail and then Ao Bing had to take over and it just felt really repetitive and the emotion wasn’t very dynamic either. It was just rage and I wish that some more character development would happen during that part.

What does this mean for the animation industry going forward?

Mendy: Yeah, so Ne Zha 2 definitely earned a lot of money. It was the sixth highest box office movie of all time, I think. [It has since become the fifth highest.] I think what they did really well was, they focused on keeping things simple. They weren’t worried about things perhaps being cliche or, you know, too much, which I think might be what a lot of Disney and Pixar executives are worried about these days. They weren’t worried about making things new or amazing, and through that they’ve created something new and amazing. And through that, they’ve created something that kind of takes a story that almost anyone can resonate with, that is widely appealing, and they’ve spiced it up, they’ve made it beautiful to look at, and they’ve kind of made their characters strong enough to make that story stand on its own, and I think that’s what they’ve done really well.

In what ways is this film Chinese?

Mendy: Watching this film, I definitely could tell it was a Chinese film. It felt really Chinese to me in a lot of ways. First of all, it was obviously in Chinese and they had subtitles, which I actually really appreciated. I thought it probably made the barrier of entry for watching it a little higher, but I mean it was very successful nonetheless, and also I think making it in Chinese brought a lot of nuance to the language, and to the accents that people had that it would have definitely lost if it was dubbed over in English. So I really appreciate that. In addition, I thought that the morals and values and ultimately the ending plot were all very Chinese. I thought that there was a definite focus on family and responsibility to family and even to your friends or to other relationships, like this filial duty that I think is very Chinese, that Ne Zha really focuses on despite rebelling against the society. I also thought that the ending in which, okay, well, this is a little bit of a spoiler, but people tried to kind of fight off the corrupt government was something that really resonated with me as a Chinese person, because I think in an American movie when you see people fighting a corrupt government, it doesn’t mean as much. It’s like, of course, we will fight the corrupt government, democracy! But when people stand up together against a corrupt government and it’s a Chinese movie, then it hits different. It means something else, and it kind of brings this hope that American movies don’t bring. So I thought that was really powerful.

Lindsay: I can understand some of the nuances in the language, and so like Mendy said, with the subtitles, that was really helpful for understanding the overall plot, but also listening to the actual dialogue and the dialect. For example, the master Tai Yi, he has an accent. He has a sort of dialect accent, which made the movie really fun and really vibrant. I also watched the first movie with the English dub over the Chinese dub because otherwise I couldn’t understand it, and I do think that making it in English was a good idea to let people understand what the movie was about, but they did lose some nuance in the process because Tai Yi no longer had that like accent, which made him basically the comedic relief of the movie, and everyone kind of had decent but somewhat flat deliveries. So I think that the language was really important as someone who can only understand the language.

Chelsea: I also really liked the character’s design, what they were wearing, and also just the setting overall because although it might seem secondary, especially to the language and the values, it also does really set the scene. And especially for viewers that aren’t Chinese, it kind of immerses them in ancient Chinese mythology and culture and I think the animators did a really great job of showcasing that.

Lindsay: One interesting fact about the movie is that the overall plot and the characters are based off a 16th, I believe, century tale called the Investiture of the Gods, and so it really does draw directly from mythology. Of course, the characters are changed, their relationships are changed, but I think that using that kind of Chinese myth as a basis was really helpful for that world building and writing out those characters. It really reminds me of the myth Journey to the West, in which the monkey Sun Wu Kong goes and tries to regain a scroll, I believe, on a quest and essentially a lot of media has been derived from that. There’s been spin-offs, like novels, books, TV shows, games, and etc. So I think that kind of recognizing that Chinese myth and bringing it into popular culture was really helpful and really cool to watch.

Chelsea: I think that this movie, especially because it’s been so popular in countries other than China, it’s a really great way for people to see what Chinese culture is all about. Not necessarily with the mythology, but with the setting and especially the values it presents. Like Mandy talked about, filial duty, because you don’t really see that a lot, let’s say in other cultures. And I think the fact that it’s emphasized so much just shows people, I guess, the core values of Chinese culture. And as a Chinese American myself, I think this movie is something I’m really proud of and it made me feel more connected to my own Chinese culture and I guess more in touch more than I’ve been before, and I hope that it does that for a lot of other people.

Chelsea: Thank you so much for listening to our review of Ne Zha 2. For more similar movie content, please check out harkeraquila.com. Bye!