NeZha 2, traditional Chinese folktale movie, is taking the world by storm

In this year’s Lunar New Year, NeZha 2 is released. Nezha rebuilt his body with his family and friends. However, there’s a war starting up that NeZha had to overcome.

 Nezha is a traditional Chinese character from a traditional folktale, originating from Shang dynasty in a military fortress at Chentang Pass. After his mother gestated for three years and six months, a ball was born. His father Li Jing, a military commander, first thought that the kid was a devil. However, it was actually the incarnation of LingZhu Zi, or NeZha, who is destined to assist the upcoming war. As the ball split into half, NeZha was borned. He was able to walk immediately after birth and later became the student of Taiyi Zhenren, an immortal that was assigned to protect and teach NeZha how to control or use his ability. There’s a lot of cartoons and movies about Nezha that you can find online. For example, Nezha Conquers the Dragon King, The Legend of Nezha, and New Gods: Nezha Reborn. His justice and optimism in the folktales  has gained him a lot of fans from a wide variety of ages.

In the modern adaptation of  NeZha, created by director Jiaozi and his team, NeZha was created as a naive, outgoing, determined character, who believes that his destiny is ruled only by himself, not by the god, and that no one can define who he is. In the first movie, released in 2019, many people were surprised and looking forward to  the new characters and plots.

In my opinion, Nezha, born as an incarnation of evil, is very optimistic. He cared for his parents and was eager to fight over these injustices and even eager to protect people who prejudiced him. If “Fate might treat you unfairly, but fight it until the very end.” It showed everyone has their opportunity to be themselves, and make changes. “My fate is not fixed, and depends on me.” This persistence in fighting both prejudices from the people and the final conflict—the lighting bolt had highly engaged me. This makes me feel no one can define who you are except for yourself. Furthermore, since it originated from a traditional Chinese folktale, the movie is also a great way to learn about Chinese culture.

When the director announced the sequel to the previous movie, fans were excited for the return, looking forward to the new adventures NeZha will face. With its detailed animation, and interestingly crafted storyline, the trailer also hooked a huge number of people, even those that never watched the previous movie. This movie took the team 5 years to do, with a budget of 80 millions dollars. All of these funds were meant for the movie to be precise and accurate. There are several scenes that took weeks and even months to create. In one part, Nezha was pricked by numerous needles, since Nezha’s new body was originally made of lotus root starch, a typical chinese dish. The team showed the liquid flowing in his body as he felt the pain. In order to be more precise, you can spot the blood vessel inside his body and the team actually created an anatomy of human blood vessels. Because the team felt that the old models for Nezha weren’t outstanding enough, they remodeled it. All background characters had their own unique weapon. Each has different characteristics, appearance, emotions when fighting the war.

NeZha 2 first released in China on Lunar New Year, and the audiences had been stunned by the product. By its first month of release,  NeZha 2 has become the highest grossing film in China, as well as the highest grossing non-English film ever, grossing at 1.2 billion dollars.

The movie was released on Valentine’s Day in North America. In some nearby theaters in Queens, tickets for the week after its release only have the first three rows left.  So if you want to watch and know more about NeZha and his new adventure, better start ordering tickets!