I didn’t see the first Ne Zha, but now I want to. Ne Zha 2 uses Chinese mythology to create a jam packed adventure fantasy for the tween and teen kids who secretly love animation but don’t want to admit it to their cool older friends. I also can’t wait to check out the inevitable video game that we can make out of this. There’s so much cool stuff in here we could be on the verge of a Chinese Final Fantasy rival of the country plays its cards right with this one.
I’ll do my best to distill millennia of Chinese storytelling, but here we go. A Chaos Pearl splits into two halves: the Spirit Pearl and the Demon Orb, which are in process back to human form from the events of the first Ne Zha. Ao Bing (Mo Han) is the Spirit Pearl, son of the Dragon King of the East Ao Guang (Yuze Han), a more content, teenage meditative spirit. The Demon Orb human is the hot tempered Ne Zha (Lu Yanting) in basically 5-6 year old child form. Their spirits are being weaved into human form by Taoist god Taiyi Zhenren (Jiaming Zhang). Unfortunately, Taiyi’s revenge fueled brother Shen Gongbao (Yang Wei) decides now is the time to attack, causing Ao Bing to lose his body to stop it, forcing spirit Ao Bing to share Ne Zha’s body as they plead for help to Taiyi’s master and God, Wuliang Xianwong (Wang Deshun).
Yes, Ne Zha 2 is dense, and frankly, at times, hard to keep up with as someone not seeped in Chinese history. But that’s because Jiaozi’s movie has the collective support of 5 gigantic movie studios and the Chinese government, who want it to succeed. That much money means Ne Zha’s sequel is bigger and badder than anything animated that has come out in recent memory. The movie has all these perspective shots showing how gigantic certain beings/objects look next to one another, from the size of a little ant to near planetary proportions. But that’s just one trick. We also see these characters in constant motion, as a group of yellow weapon wielding soldiers combine forces to make the “rustling leaves” of a gold tree in midair, incredibly breathtaking. And that’s not all, when we get back to normal scale, Jiaozi uses Taoist religious texts to bring imagination to reality: dragons shapeshifting into people and back, epic martial arts battles, or on the darker side, portals ooozing out lava surrounding a city, or, horrifyingly, spells that make acupuncture look like feathers. There’s something new and inventive every 5-10 minutes in Ne Zha 2, that is guaranteed to overload everyone’s sensors at almost 2.5 hours.
It’s a catch-22 for the movie honestly: it needs the runtime for its complex interesting folklore…that also wants to appeal to everyone. As such, we get puzzle pieces that don’t quite fit. All the humor is aimed at 2-5 year olds…who are going to infuriate their parents asking a zillion questions about who that is or what is that thing. But when the \stakes of the tale start to take hold, we’re back in tween/teenland, as some truly scary stuff happens to many characters. And those tweens/teens might struggle with say, understanding the intertwined philosophy and familial dynamics of some of the older characters. That’s there for the parents, who then have to watch a pig fart a few times on a character, cause once wasn’t funny enough. I wish Ne Zha 2 had picked the teen/tween lane to service, essentially splitting the difference: that would have made the movie pretty close to a Miyazaki film and less like a Dreamworks late August release. Instead we get teased with flashes of brilliance only to be undermined in some way, depending on what age you are when you see Ne Zha 2.
There’s no denying Jiaozi’s imagination though. I saw Ne Zha 2 with a packed Chinese crowd, excited and ready to cheer the movie on. That excitement continued out of the theater, as everyone was energized and overwhelmed by the force of awesomeness on display on the big screen, the proper way to see the movie. If you’re gonna go see this one, see it on as big and loud a screen as you can, and let the yuan and fantasy wash over you…just don’t drink the “sacred” tea.