In a year that\u2019s proven a bit soft at the box office, the biggest story (and just plain biggest film, period) is the monstrous power of \u201cNe Zha 2,\u201d a Chinese CGI animated feature that, during its theatrical release in January, utterly annihilated<\/a> the likes of \u201cFantastic Four,\u201d \u201cSuperman,\u201d and even \u201cA Minecraft Movie\u201d to become the highest global earning film this year. The competition isn\u2019t tight, either: with $2.2 billion grossed so far, it has an absurd $1.2 billion lead over \u201cLilo & Stitch\u201d<\/a> and is the fifth highest-earning movie ever, no qualifications needed.<\/p>\n \u201cNe Zha 2\u201d isn\u2019t the first Chinese film to challenge Hollywood productions in terms of success, with the country having established itself as a highly important market for global productions. But its sheer impact still heavily outpaces any other Chinese film ever made. By comparison, the second-highest-grossing Chinese film of all-time is 2021\u2019s \u201cThe Battle at Lake Changjin,\u201d which \u201conly\u201d grossed a lowly $913 million. Even more impressive is \u201cNe Zha 2\u201d managed to make all that money with barely any help from North American markets: the movie received a limited eight-week U.S. release by CMC Pictures in February, where \u2014 per Box Office Mojo<\/a> \u2014 it managed around $20 million.<\/p>\n More from IndieWire<\/strong><\/p>\n Which is where A24 comes in<\/a>. With U.S. audiences still largely ignorant of what exactly \u201cNe Zha\u201d is, the indie distributor acquired the rights to the film and gave it a glossy English dub for a second introduction to the market, complete with an IMAX rollout to better appreciate the film\u2019s stunningly detailed backdrops and fight scenes.<\/p>\n What unsuspecting viewers will find at the theater is a film that\u2019s not really anything like the animated films Hollywood produces: glossy and operatic in its scale, \u201cNe Zha 2\u201d has a mammoth 150-minute running time that\u2019s longer than expected for the average kids\u2019 attention span (or the average attention span of a TikTok-rotted adult brain, to be frank). But in its emotional viewpoint and its streak of gleeful potty humor, \u201cNe Zha 2\u201d is also quite blatantly a movie for children. The closest comparison to make isn\u2019t Pixar\u2019s \u201cElio\u201d or Disney\u2019s \u201cZootopia,\u201d but the world of battle Shonen anime like \u201cDragon Ball Z\u201d or \u201cNaruto,\u201d long shows characterized by excitable teen boys engaging in nonstop, over-the-top brawls with their own specialized power sets.<\/p>\n Like many products of this genre, \u201cNe Zha 2\u201d can occasionally veer on the numbing, its barrage of setpieces blending in together into one amorphous blob. But at the same time, you can\u2019t help but admire the sheer scale of the canvas director Yang Yu (alternatively credited as Jiaozi) uses to paint, and the often jaw-dropping artistry and detail of the animation speaks for itself.<\/p>\n \u2018Ne Zha 2\u2019Courtesy Everett Collection<\/p>\n As its title makes clear, \u201cNe Zha 2\u201d is a sequel, and anyone who hasn\u2019t taken the time to study up on the original 2019 \u201cNe Zha\u201d is going to inevitably be a bit confused by this one, which starts with a very brief recap of the first movie, but nonetheless plunges the audience directly into this fantasy version of China with little context or effort to handhold. For American audiences this will inevitably jar, given how much the characters and story takes inspiration from the 16th-century novel \u201cInvestiture of the Gods\u201d and various mythological and folk figures from Chinese history. After an opening that starts immediately after the first film introducing the titular Ne Zha and his best friend Ao Bing as spirits whose bodies need to be rebirthed, followed by a massive war sequence between characters just introduced, you would not be forgiven for getting a headache trying to keep up.<\/p>\n Once the movie slows down, the uninformed are able to ease more readily into the plot of the film. The first movie covered the story of how Ne Zha \u2014 a foul-mouthed, raccoon-eyed, rebellious youth who was born to demon hunters as the feared reincarnation of a demon orb \u2014 befriended the serene, properly mannered Ao Bing. In \u201cNe Zha 2,\u201d master Taiyi Zhenren recreates their bodies, only for Ao Bing to lose his body in an attack from the dragons \u2014 led by the main villain, the sniveling but sympathetic Shen Gongbao \u2014 who mistakenly attack their hometown under the belief he is dead. With Ao Bing\u2019s spirit now in Ne Zha\u2019s body, the two manage a truce with dragons to venture to the land of the heavenly Chan sect and complete three tasks that will grant them immortality and restore Ao Bing\u2019s body.<\/p>\n That journey to and through the divine world is long, and a plot synopsis in a review can\u2019t really capture all of the characters and moving parts to this tale. There\u2019s just too much of it. At 2 hours and 24 minutes, the movie sags in pacing, with a protracted first act to get to the real meat of things that could use a serious edit, jokes that linger a second too long, and fight scenes that drag to the point that you sometimes lose the emotional stakes of the story. The sheer amount of toilet humor \u2014 there\u2019s a lot of mucus, snot, and jokes about people drinking piss stuffed into one film \u2014 often proves more annoying than fun.<\/p>\n Luckily, things click into place when Ne Zha begins his trials, and the tension between using Ao Bing\u2019s greater power to win and remaining true to his own misfit self begins to wear at him. It\u2019s also the point in which the often bratty, off-putting character clicks into place, and his simple desire to be accepted and prove his worth emerges as the real emotional heart of the story. The other characters emerge as complex figures rather than stock archtypes, as the Chan sect holds obvious secrets and biases towards demons while Shen Gongbao\u2019s hidden soft side comes to light.<\/p>\n Most importantly, the trials gives \u201cNe Zha 2\u201d a framework to showcase some of the most impressive and vibrant 3D animation that has been seen on film in quite some time. The product of roughly 138 Chinese companies and around 4,000 individual animators, \u201cNe Zha 2\u201d looks vibrant and alive in every frame, striking an unusual balance between anime-inspired exaggeration and realism that works shockingly well in practice. The environments \u2014 from the white jade walls of the Chan sect palace to the dusty town of talking bandit moles that Ne Zha begins his trials in to the rushing waterfall where he fights a shapeshifting water demon \u2014 are astonishingly ornate and detailed, while the characters that inhabit them are creatively imagined and varied, from cartoonish old fat men to dragons with scales that shine like they\u2019re truly alive.<\/p>\n Then there\u2019s the action, which melds influences from anime, wuxia, and good old-fashioned \u201cLooney Tune\u201d pratfalls to create some jaw-dropping setpieces that zig and zag in new directions; you never know how a brawl will resolve or what a character will do next, and that unpredictability allows for real exhilaration. The climax, an operatic conflict that manages to successfully merge emotion with spectacle in a way the rest of the film sometimes struggles with, is a particular feat. In one stunning shot, two hordes of warriors on rival sides of a conflict are seen from afar, like two waves crashing into each other. And yet, the detail, attention, and artistry of every pixel in frame is very evidently displayed. In many respects, watching \u201cNe Zha 2\u201d feels akin to viewing the \u201cAvatar\u201d films, as the film provides a visual experience that\u2019s the absolute peak of what its medium is capable of.<\/p>\n It also benefits from a solid dubbing effort that gratifyingly features a mostly Asian cast and a absence of stunty A-list gets. The sole exception is Michelle Yeoh, who\u2019s appropriately warm and heartbreaking as the title character\u2019s mother Lady Yin. The rest of the cast is mostly unknowns or professional voice actors, including Crystal Lee and Aleks Le, a winning double act as Ne Zha and Ao Bing. Occasionally, the dialogue doesn\u2019t quite match up with the character\u2019s mouth flaps, but it\u2019s a minor distraction in a mostly seamless experience.<\/p>\n All dubbing inevitably invites a debate over whether or not it\u2019s necessary or if English speakers should learn to appreciate subtitles, but \u201cNe Zha 2\u201d has a good case for why it\u2019s necessary. When a movie is as stuffed with detail and action as this, better to make sure the audience has their eyes on the whole screen rather than just a tiny third of it.<\/p>\n A24\u2019s \u201cNe Zha 2\u201d is currently playing in theaters. <\/p>\n Want to stay up to date on IndieWire\u2019s film\u00a0reviews<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0and critical thoughts?\u00a0Subscribe here<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0to our newly launched newsletter, In Review by David Ehrlich, in which our Chief Film Critic and Head Reviews Editor rounds up the best new reviews and streaming picks along with some exclusive musings \u2014\u00a0all only available to subscribers.\u00a0<\/p>\n Best of IndieWire<\/strong><\/p>\n Sign up for Indiewire’s Newsletter<\/a>. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook<\/a>, Twitter<\/a>, and Instagram<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source ca.news.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In a year that\u2019s proven a bit soft at the box office, the biggest story (and just plain biggest film, period) is the monstrous power of \u201cNe Zha 2,\u201d a Chinese CGI animated feature that, during its theatrical release in January, utterly annihilated the likes of \u201cFantastic Four,\u201d \u201cSuperman,\u201d and even \u201cA Minecraft Movie\u201d to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1974515,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25173],"tags":[352337,352336,350034],"class_list":["post-1974514","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artists","tag-ao-bing","tag-chinese-film","tag-ne-zha"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/The-Chinese-Animated-Phenomenon-Is-a-Gorgeously-Animated-Epic.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1974514","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1974514"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1974514\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1974515"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1974514"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1974514"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1974514"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/span><\/div>\n
Grade: B<\/h2>\n