In Ne Zha 2, which follows six years after its first movie broke animation box office records, the sequel gives viewers a reason to see why the first film was so popular. Director Jiaozi (Yang Yu) makes everything big: the length of the movie is longer, the story is more exciting, the folklore is richer, the graphics look awesome. The Chinese release thus far has set the record in January, but the Chinese release in North America in February is more like a minor affair, viewed primarily in luxury theaters before it becomes available for digital streaming, presumably in the summer. This different timing poses a dilemma to Western fans, who have to choose whether to go to a cinema now or wait for the movie to be available all over the world for streaming at home.

Story and scope

The movie begins just after the 2019 movie, and so it doesn’t waste any time explaining too much.
Master Taiyi says the best way to rebuild Ne Zha is through the use of a seven-colored lotus. To obtain its petals, you’ve to travel to different worlds and pacify dragon courts and fight in a demon market that seems more boisterous than the bathhouse of Spirited Away. The script is a mixture of big fantasy and light jokes. Ne Zha goes from humongous power to teenage trouble. Ao Bing has to loosen his cold attitude when he teams up with a loud sidekick which resembles a flying carp. The movie doesn’t drag even though it is 140 minutes long. The creators organize it into chapters, each linked to a lotus petal.
This is so that new viewers can follow along, even if they watch the first film on the Internet beforehand.

Animation upgrades

The first Ne Zha elevated the level of Chinese animation, and the sequel is just a stepping-stone from there. The clothes resemble silk filmed by close-up cameras, the sparkles in the spells of demon fire appear to be from an A-class game engine. The artists render the animal spirits’ fur strand by strand and make the water look nearly lifelike, enhancing scenes set inside the water dragons’ palaces. The animation team still uses painterly scenes – ink wash pictures that feel like traditional scrolls – before switching back to sharp 3 – D scenes for the big fight scenes in the sky. The movie is intended for the theater, but they carefully color-graded the movie so that a future 4K HDR stream on local platforms would still look bright and vivid.

Mythic themes

At first the story divided fate from will, but in the second part it asks for new life and sharing the burden. Ne Zha’s new body is derived from a large community lotus and the petals are given free of charge from friends and former enemies. This illustrates that a person can be molded from the assistance of others. Ao Bing has to come to terms with the old debts that his family owes to sea monsters, a reminder of how the mistakes of our ancestors affect us now. The script does not shy away from long speeches but maintains its light tone by interspersing serious thoughts with comical interludes – Ne Zha pondering on the law of karma while running away from delicious dumplings flying out of a street
food wok.

Humor and heart

Comedy swings all the way to droll small talk to Looney – tunes rubber. One especially outstanding gag is when Ne Zha reduces himself to a size small enough to crawl inside a jade pagoda, he inflates himself again suddenly half-way through the burglary, knocking over precious statues in domino effect. However, the movie is not a threat to emotional sincerity. The mothers in the audience will know Lady Yin’s wavering smile as her child literally reforms in her arms. A late exchange of Ao Bing with his sea-god father – told in near-whispers through the crashing waves – proves that CG characters can express generational pain with the subtlety of live-actor drama.

Pros

• An incredible animation faithfulness is better even than the first movie.
• Mythic narrative enhances scope and does not leave behind character intimacy.
• There is humor that mixes wordplay with slapstick to bring real laughs.
• Themes of rebirth and communal identity are cross cultural.
• The choreography of fights intensifies, and a magnificent finale is completed in multiple stages.

Cons

• After 143 minutes, the younger viewers may get restless.
• The Western play is only in a few theaters so many of the fans have to wait for it to be available online.

How to watch Ne Zha 2 online

The movie now is available for rent or purchase in 4K on Amazon Prime Video, but it remains in a couple of theaters here and there. Major platforms such as Apple TV and Google Play are likely to release the film later this summer, but no date for streaming subscription has been announced.

Final verdict

Ne Zha 2 has become a popular fantasy movie that combines colorful visuals, old-fashioned narratives, and rapid comedy. If you get a chance to see it in theaters on its brief run here in the West, you’ll likely notice every little detail and even the beats of the music. Those who want to watch it on the internet will also get a good deal of fun with it on their home TVs when it will be available for legal streaming. Fans of both animation and mythology, as well as anyone looking for an epic movie not like typical Hollywood movies, should put this release on their watch list.