Ne Zha 2 / 哪吒之魔童闹海 - Movie Review

The Movie: Ne Zha 2 / 哪吒之魔童闹海

The Director: Yu Yang

The Cast: Michelle Yeoh, Crystal Lee, Vincent Rodriguez III, Aleks Le

The Story: A rebellious young boy, Ne Zha, is feared by the gods and born to mortal parents with wild, uncontrolled powers. Now he's faced with an ancient force intent on destroying humanity, he must grow up to become the hero the world needs.

The Rating: 8 / 10

The Review:

I'm going to just say this right now. Ne Zha 2 is one of the most brilliantly beautiful big screen experiences I have ever seen. This is a true big screen experience. Go see it on the biggest screen you can find. Seriously, there's no way I could possibly describe the visual feast tjhat was injected into my brain during the IMAX preview screening I attended. Every few minutes, there was another jaw dropping moment which would have me thinking there's no way the filmmakers could top it and then they did.

Between this movie and KPop Demon Hunters, it's going to be a fun ride towards seeing who will take home all the animated feature awards for this year. Both are certainly deserving and yet, I'm still slightly leaning towards team Demon Hunters because the story is more emotionally impactful which has led it to becoming a cultural phenomenon. That being said, Ne Zha 2 is an action packed powerhouse that is the type of edge of your seat spectacle that you don't often see in today's cinematic landscape.

The story is solid and I think the achievement here is more how the writing team of Xixing Lu, Zhonglin Xu, and Yu Yang, who is also the director, manage to maintain a cohesive narrative with so much lore to keep track of, so much mythology to explore, and so many characters to give time to. I know that makes the movie sound a little confusing but it's really not, it's all handled really well and every minute of the two hours and 23 minutes run time is put to good use.

Before watching this movie, I knew nothing about the first installment of the series nor did I know anything about the history of the character or the significance the story has had within Chinese culture. After seeing that the movie already is the fifth highest grossing movie of all time, yes you read that right, I figured I better check it out. Keep in mind, that box office achievement is mostly within China itself as, other than some limited releases, it is now finally getting a proper release here in the US and a few other countries.

Could it sink Titanic? Could it snap its way past Avengers: Endgame? Could it open a Pandora's box and take down one or both of the Avatar movies? The first two are certainly possible. I mean, it already awakened something when it forced it's way past Star Wars.

Setting aside all the comparison and expectation, this is just a really fun movie. It's packed full of characters and action and story and, even with all the history and mythology that I mentioned, I never felt lost or overwhelmed by everything that was going on. I think the richness and depth of the story is due to the fact that there was so much information to draw from and it made me want to learn more about these characters and how they fit into Chinese culture which is one of the really cool things about crossing cinematic borders. The more you learn, the more you understand.

I should probably mention that, while this is originally a Chinese language film, this US release version from A24 has a new English voice cast which includes the one and only Michelle Yeoh as Ne Zha's mother Lady Yin, who is of course just as badass of a character as Ms. Yeoh herself is. Also on board is Grace Lu, who was also in Inside Out 2, as Crana and Crystal Lee, who you might recognize as the voice of Jean Grey if you play the Marvel Rivals video game, as the young Ne Zha.

You know I usually prefer to watch movies with subtitles versus Engish dubs but in this case, I think it was better to be able to keep my eyes focused on the fast paced action and animation rather than trying to read while keeping up with everything else going on. The important thing here is that you go see this movie in a theater to get the full, mind blowing experience. I'm hoping to be able to see it again if I can either in an IMAX or Dolby theater. Oh, and some theaters will be showing it in Mandarin with English subtitles if you do want to go that route.