Ne Zha 哪吒之魔童降世 Review: A Reasonably Entertaining Animated Feature of Ne Zha’s Origin Story
Let’s face it, animated features aren’t exactly China’s strongest suit, but writer-director Jiaozi manages to prove otherwise with Ne Zha, which made its mark as the highest-grossing movie at the China box-office in 2019, raking in over a whopping 5 billion RMB and even beat Frant Gwo’s The Wandering Earth that year.
At the time of writing, Ne Zha sits at the No. 5 spot at the all-time local box-office in China behind Hi, Mom (5.4 billion RMB), Wolf Warrior 2 (5.6 billion RMB) and The Battle of Lake Changjin (5.7 billion RMB). It even becomes the highest-grossing Chinese animated feature until the arrival of its sequel this year, breaking every record and exceeding expectations.
The latter has since topped the China box-office with over 14 billion RMB (that’s equivalent to US$2 billion achieved just in the single market alone — an unpredecented achievement that even the top-grossing movie in the US and Canada seen in Star Wars: The Force Awakens was heavily pale in comparison with US$936.6 million or US$1.2 billion adjusted for 2024 inflation) and it’s still going strong. But let’s talk about the first movie that started it all.
Based on Xu Zhonglin’s classic novel Investiture of the Gods, the movie follows the temperamental Ne Zha (voiced by Lu Yanting) who is actually a demon born to human parents (Chen Hao’s Li Jing and Lu Qi’s Madam Yin). The novel, of course, is no stranger to numerous film adaptations over the decades stretching way back to the ’70s such as 1979’s Nezha Conquers the Dragon King. Not to mention other movies like League of Gods, Jiang Ziya, New Gods: Nezha Reborn along with Wuershan’s Creation of the Gods I: Kingdom of Storms and this year’s Creation of the Gods II: Demon Force.
Going back to the story in Jiaozi’s animated feature, the villagers treat Ne Zha like an outcast due to his unusual birth as a demonic child, even though his parents remain supportive by his side. As Ne Zha struggles to accept his own destiny, he soon finds himself facing an enemy in the form of Shen Gongbao (Yang Wei).
First things first, I didn’t place any expectation upon watching Ne Zha on the big screen back then. But to my surprise, Jiaozi does a better-than-expected job in the technical department. Believe it or not, Ne Zha actually marks the first time Jiaozi directed a feature-length movie since his prior credits were two short films titled See Through and The Boss’s Woman released in 2008 and 2013 respectively. The animation may have been far from Pixar-level quality but it was good enough on its own. It was both vibrant and colourful, with stunning action setpieces and the fluidity of the characters’ movements all deserved a mention here.
It also helps that Ne Zha is blessed with an energetic pace, even though the movie tends to overstay its welcome — particularly during the lengthy third-act that it could have benefited with some trimming. As expected in a Chinese movie, there is plenty of obligatory juvenile humour, complete with fart jokes just to elicit some cheap laughs from the audiences. Still, there are worthwhile comedy golds that appear somewhere in Ne Zha, namely the unexpected parody moment that made good use of Brad Fiedel’s signature synthesiser-heavy Terminator score.
Jiaozi’s screenplay is pretty much a mixed bag, relying heavily on expository dialogues to get his point across. While most of the emotional moments tend to lean on the melodramatic side, at least the movie manages to offset its shortcomings with better-than-expected voice acting performances led by Lu Yanting’s gamely playful role as Ne Zha.
Remember to stick around for both mid-credits and post-credits scenes.
