Animation / Ne Zha

"If fate is unfair, then fight it to the very end."

"Looking back on it, three years isn't that long."

— Ne Zha

Ne Zha (Chinese: 哪吒之魔童降世, Pinyin: Nézhā zhī Mótóng Jiàngshì) is a 2019 Chinese feature-length animated fantasy film. Featuring the popular Chinese mythological character Ne Zha, the plot is loosely based on the classic novel Investiture of the Gods, attributed to Xu Zhonglin.

When a powerful creature of chaos was split into two parts, the Spirit Pearl and the Demon Pill, the Spirit Pearl was set to be merged with the third son of the hero Li Jing, while the Demon Pill was set to be destroyed by a massive lightning bolt in three years time.

Machinations by the Dragons resulted in the Demon Pill being placed in the belly of Li Jing's wife, resulting in the birth of Ne Zha, a boy with great power and violent personality. Meanwhile, the Dragons merged the Spirit Pearl with one of their eggs, resulting in the birth of Ao Bing.

Compare and contrast Na Cha, a duology from Shaw Brothers, and Nezha Conquers the Dragon King, earlier adaptations made in the 70s.

The film was released in China exclusively in IMAX and China Film Giant Screen theatres on 13 July 2019, followed by other theatres on 26 July, distributed by Beijing Enlight Pictures. The first Chinese-produced animated feature released in IMAX format, it began a North American release on 29 August 2019 in select IMAX 3D theatres, before a nationwide rollout on 6 September. An English dub was released on 31 January 2020.

A sequel, Jiang Ziya (also known as Legend of Deification), was scheduled for release on 25 January 2020 but was cancelled after the COVID-19 outbreak. The film was released globally on 1 October 2020. A dub was issued alongside the digital release on 9 February 2021.

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This animated film provides examples of:

• Adaptational Heroism:
  • Unlike the version of him from the original myth, where they became bitter enemies, Li Jing remains a loving father to Ne Zha throughout.
  • Unlike the original myth, where they were purely foes and he was slain by Ne Zha, Ao Bing is also given a more heroic role where he opposes his father's ways and befriends Ne Zha.
  • Played with for the Dragon King. In Investiture of the Gods, he is an antagonist who puts revenge for his son over the greater need of people and the Will of Heaven. In here, he didn't cause as much misery as he along with the other dragons are too busy being trapped as wardens of a prison which contains demons and other dragons. When he hears of Ao Bing's death in The Stinger, he swears revenge.
• Adaptation Origin Connection: In this story, Ne Zha and Ao Bing were technically Split at Birth, as they both have their powers originating from splitting the Chaos Pearl. In the original myth, they had no particular connection.
• Adaptation Relationship Overhaul: In the original myth, Ne Zha and Ao Bing were mortal foes that fought each other without remorse. In this adaptation, they start off as friends until they discover their destiny of fighting each other and only become temporary enemies. In the end, their spirits come at peace where they are friends once again.
• Always Someone Better: Between the two of them, Gongbao is initially presented as more serious and competent than Taiyi, but it's his supposedly oafish counterpart who manages to do better against the Chaos Orb during the prologue.
• Ass Shove: During their climactic battle, Ne Zha attempts to stab Ao Bing in the posterior. Twice. The first time is done in earnest but fails because of his foe's dragon scale armor. The second time is done because he wants to annoy him.
• Bittersweet Ending: Both Ao Bing and Ne Zha's mortal bodies are destroyed but their souls are saved in the device Taiyi used to contain the Chaos Pearl. Taiyi survives but loses his immortality after getting hit by divine lightning. Gongbao and the Dragon King are still alive and plotting to revolt against the gods with the help of the demons the dragons previously imprisoned.
• Brick Joke: During the birthday party and the ensuing battle, the heavenly guardians and their sea demon prisoner are shown twice to be waiting in a hidden chamber, waiting for Li Jing's signal to come out. In a post-credit scene, they're still waiting in the half-collapsed chamber and realizing that they don't know what the signal actually is.
• Celestial Bureaucracy: The film's backdrop is Yuanshi Tianzun — one of the three supreme deities of Taoism — going about the process of establishing the Celestial Bureaucracy of Chinese mythology by choosing twelve Immortals to become gods, and compiling a document called the Investiture of the Gods. Taiyi Zhenren is given a shot to prove himself worthy of apotheosis, but Shen Gongbao desires it for himself and sabotages Taiyi.
• Character Tic:
  • As a child, Ne Zha stuffing his hands into his pockets is a fairly clear indication that he's nervous in spite of what he might want others to think.
  • Shen Gongbao has a rather bad stutter.
• Create Your Own Villain: Both Ne Zha and Ao Bing genuinely want to be heroes and help people, but the fear, scorn and hatred they receive from humanity drives them both into resentment and anger and eventually into destructively lashing out against it.
• Dragons Are Demonic: Played with. Originally, the dragons were servants of Heaven and battled and imprisoned monsters on its account. Now, while they're still technically considered to hold a Heaven-granted position, they're glorified jailors and effectively prisoners who have come to be considered to be just as bad as demons by humanity.
• Eldritch Ocean Abyss: The Dragon Palace is a volcanic crater where the dragons have sealed away all sorts of Eldritch Abominations and primordial monsters on behalf of the gods... but are themselves prisoners, since if they leave the monsters will escape. Similarly, almost all demons seen in the movie — in fact, all demons seen outside of simulations — are sea monsters.
• Elemental Personalities: Ne Zha, whose magic mostly manifests in the form of fire and flames, is aggressive, short-tempered, and impulsive. Ao Bing, who instead creates and manipulates ice, is focused, deliberate, and restrained in his actions.
• Empathic Weapon: Taiyi's flying pig mount is actually an amorphous vehicle that changes forms depending on who's using it.
• Fire and Brimstone Hell: The magma of the Dragon Palace contains all the barely imprisoned and still very much alive demons the Dragon Kings managed to defeat over the eons. It's revealed that in The Stinger that some of the prisoners are dragons as well, which explains even more as to why the Dragon King wants his kind to be free of their burden by ascending Ao Bing as a deity.
• Fire/Ice Duo: The aggressive and impulsive Ne Zha's magic mostly manifests in the form of fire and flames, while the focused and deliberate Ao Bing's focuses on creating and manipulating ice.
• Gilded Cage:
  • Ne Zha is raised in the well-appointed home of a high-ranking army commander, wanting for nothing except for the ability to leave freely. Later, the pocket dimension held within the scroll becomes a much more elaborate version of this — it's a beautiful place when he can train as a powerful warrior, but he cannot leave of his own volition and his parents and Taiyi will not let him leave. This is brought up when Ne Zha describes the pocket world as a cage his mother tries to dissuade him from thinking like this by pointing out that surely a cage wouldn't look this nice.
  • The dragons are officially considered to be servants of Heaven in good standing, and were awarded lofty titles and the important task of watching over the imprisoned demons on the sea floor. In practice, since they cannot leave without releasing their prisoners, they're just as imprisoned as the monsters that they guard.
• Go-Karting with Bowser: Before they formally become rivals/enemies, Ne Zha (avatar of the Demon Pill) and Ao Bing (incarnation of the Spirit Pearl) bond over a game of jianzi.
• Grievous Harm with a Body: Ne Zha defeats the Sea Yaksha by beating it up with the (mostly) petrified Ao Bing.
• Let Them Die Happy: The core conflict of Ne Zha's parents as the divine curse that will strike down Ne Zha is inevitable. They struggle to determine whether it is better to be honest with him or to fabricate well-meaning lies to make his short existence a happy one.
• Lonely Rich Kid: Both Ne Zha and Ao Bing. Ne Zha has loving parents but spends most of his time cooped up in the family estate (and eventually, Taiyi's painting). Ao Bing is allowed to travel the world, but it's all in service of training his powers, he's forbidden from interacting with other people too much to hide how he's a dragon in disguise, and his father is very distant and cold to him.
• Mystical Lotus:
  • The Celestial Pearl and Demon Pill are initially kept within a magical container shaped like a lotus made out of pearl.
  • The world inside the painting mainly consists of large chunks of landscape held aloft on giant lotus leaves.
  • Towards the end, Ne Zhao destroys the mass of ice threatening to crush the town by enveloping it in a giant, lotus-shaped fireball.
• Only Friend: Ne Zha and Ao Bing view each other as this after their first meeting. It's even lampshaded days before they temporarily become enemies.
• Our Dragons Are Different: They're classical Chinese dragons, with serpentine bodies, thick manes, catfish-like whiskers and short antlers engraved with complex patterns. They once battled and imprisoned demons and monsters in the service of Heaven, but have since become trapped in their domain as eternal jailers of their charges and have come to be seen as themselves being demons and monsters, something they're profoundly bitter about.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Ne Zha is the hotheaded and impulsive red while Ao Bing is the calmer and thoughtful blue.
• Screw Destiny: Zigzagged with Ne Zha's ultimate fate. After Li Jing learned that Ne Zha's curse was indeed unbreakable, he decided to circumvent it with a fate-swapping talisman so his son could live on. Ne Zha, after learning both his real identity and of his father's sacrifice, opts to accept his own death until Ao Bing joins him to reunite the Chaos Orb's powers and absorb the force of the lightning that would have killed the both of them.
  Ne Zha: If fate comes at you swinging, then you hit back!
• Sea Monster: The majority of the demons seen in the movie are marine terrors of various stripes, including colossal krakens and leviathans seen in the underwater prison and a variety of monstrous Fish People.
• Shout-Out: To Terminator 2: Judgment Day, when the musicians of Chentang Pass, having just witnessed the Demon Orb incarnate into the body of Li Jing's and Lady Jin's child, begin playing something remarkably similar to the musical theme to that movie. (A glare from Taiyi and Li Jing makes them cut it short.) There's even a small burned-out crater beneath Ne Zha like the one that forms when a Terminator-franchise time traveler arrives.
• The Stinger: Three of them. One involves a brick joke, the second shows the dragons swearing revenge on the world above, and the third introduces Jiang Ziya, the protagonist of the sequel.
• The Stoic:
  • The initially emotional Li Jing adopts this as his primary persona after Ne Zha is born to act as a warm and assuring figure of strength and wisdom for his son, even as Ne Zha's impending death weighs heavily on his soul. He breaks character when Ne Zha tears up the secret fate-swapping talisman that would have caused the curse to hit him instead.
  • Ao Bing is both stoic and gentle, but learning that he was born as a pawn for Shen Gongbao and the dragons sends him into rage and hurt.
• Vocal Dissonance: A burly male villager has a ridiculously high-pitched voice.
• Yin-Yang Bomb: Ne Zha and Ao Bing can temporarily replicate the Chaos Orb's powers if they work together.
• Younger Than They Look: Ne Zha spends much of the film moving, speaking and thinking at a much higher level than the average one-to-three year old. Ao Bing, who is a day younger than Ne Zha at least, looks and acts like a young adult. In contrast, Yaya, who met Ne Zha when he was a few months old, consistently acts like a regular toddler.

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