Added another $16 to Ne Zha 2's over $2b gross earnings to date. It's pretty bold to make the titular character look adorably un-cute. Ne Zha's design is that of a short, pug-nosed, gap-toothed troll, but his charm is more in his heart to stand against adversity while overcoming prejudice over his disadvantages acquired from birth. It's not easy for a person of demonic heritage to live among and be accepted by human beings.
In this episode, Ne Zha's demon self has to be hidden from the gatekeepers of immortality, or his quest to save the life of his best bud, Ao Bing, will fail, resulting in the destruction of his hometown by Ao Bing's pissed-off dad, the Dragon King. That is a summation of the main plot, while the sub-plots involve other factions pursuing their own selfish agenda and pissing each other off both by grand design and more often by a blind sense of self-righteousness seeking to do good, but causing an intricate mess of chaos instead. It's a case of everybody being a hero of their own tale, while being the villain in someone else's.
It's a complex, ambitious piece of storytelling accompanied with spectacular animation, which is what people are mostly paying to see. The scenes are stunningly rendered and beautifully composed, inspired from classical Chinese-Taoist themes. There is an epic sense of scale as the camera moves from individual character detail to a zoom out shot taking in the murmuration of entire armies swarming in formation, colliding in battle in a way that we can almost see each individual combatant within the swarm at the same time. It's breathtaking to behold.
While technically impressive, the storytelling could have been more economical. Perhaps some references to mythology are lost in translation, given my woeful lack of context. Some scenes felt draggy, and I felt myself dozing off at one point. My poor brain was having to keep track of which faction was doing what to whom for what motivation, and I probably needed that micro break. Also, the process of attaining immortality was confusing as Ne Zha had to succeed at beating up a series of random critters that are minding their own business -- but without much sense of progression of difficulty level -- in order for him to be granted immortality. Yet, the same deity who granted him immortality was busy making thousands of immortality pills for... not sure whom exactly. So is immortality gained by beat-em-up, or by swallowing magic pills? Unclear.
Which leads me to the observation that magic in this universe has no rules. Magic is wielded as a convenient deus ex machina. Want something to happen, just name a mystical device/spell and there you go. How powerful a character is depends on what things they can name at the time they need it. If that's the only rule, it's a bit cheap, sorry to say.
Ultimately, what carries the story is Ne Zha himself and his small but loyal group of supporters, namely his parents, his mentor, and his counterpart, Ao Bing. They are all pure of heart, sincere in their intentions, and courageously brave the turmoil they are thrown into. These qualities are what an audience can get behind, especially when balanced by the main character who is also an obnoxious stinker who learns and grows throughout the movie.
Stay for the mid-credits scene. I enjoyed it as whichever studio got to animate this part had the most fun with it. We could have used that type of humour sprinkled more liberally through the rest of the movie as the fart and toilet jokes weren't doing it for me.
Overall, I enjoyed the experience, though I also feel that the movie suffered from too much of a muchness. When Chinese cinema learns the value of 'less is more', that's when I think it will be unstoppable.
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