User Reviews

The Chinese cinema scene has had many gems, but historically these gems could only be found in relatively small budget independent productions. Diamonds in the rough, if you will. The Chinese blockbuster scene has long been... bleak, to say the least. But here we are, and it is in this context that I find the quality of this film to be kind of unbelievably good. The narrative structure, characters, writing, and animation are all astonishingly well done, and I was left particularly impressed by the very original interpretation of a classic folklore tale. The story of Ne Zha has been portrayed numerous times in the history of Chinese storytelling, yet this one did not obviously rehash them, which is a remarkable decision for a Chinese production. This film is a towering achievement for Chinese cinema.

The following is not necessarily a review of the film, but a recount of my own viewing experience of this film.

After months of rolling my eyes at the social media buzz about this supposedly "great Chinese animation", I finally found the one Regal theater in town that actually shows this movie. And I'm glad I did.

Initially, I was turned off by this movie's trailer, since it had all the worst stereotypes of a Chinese-made film, with all the cheesy expositions, cringey dialogues, and awkward voice acting. I was so sure that "Nezha" was just another piece of garbage coming out of the money-grabbing film industry that had become so shamelessly greedy in recent years. But my low expectations were pleasantly subverted.

After some struggling of finding a parking spot, I found myself in a relatively small-sized IMAX theater packed with young Chinese people, and a handful of white Americans, and one nice black lady who very much stood out in this crowd. And I'm almost certain that all of us enjoyed the two hours of fun and entertainment this film offered us, albeit on different levels.

Almost immediately after the movie started playing, I found myself already irritated by the unnecessarily long opening credits of all the production companies associated with "Nezha". This is one of the many shady industry practices in China, where all the entities involved in the film's production process shamelessly tried to promote their brands, regardless of how much actual contribution they've made. But shortly after the actual film began to show on the screen, I was easily won over by the opening scene where the famous Daoist immortal "Taiyi Zhenren" was revealed to be an obese and seemingly incompetent idiot. It was a subversion of the genre trope. When it comes to the genre of Chinese mythology films, Daoist immortals were almost always portrayed as wise old men whose wisdom and authority are not to be questioned. And here in "Nezha", one of the most powerful and respected Daoist deities was portrayed as a buffoon who actually had real human personality.

And at the same time, I was surprised to find myself actually enjoying the jokes and humors of the film, which I think is very rare in Chinese films. Even though I haven't watched any Chinese film for many years, I'm aware of the awfulness and cringiness of the typical attempts at comedy by trying to crack an awkward joke between scenes in Chinese films. But here in "Nezha", I enjoyed most of the comedy in it, even though I can see how goofy it is. Goofiness in film can be a good thing if it is done in the right tone.

There are more turns and twists than I expected throughout the film, and I enjoyed the whole ride. However, I have to point out, there are one or two very brief moments in the film, which I didn't appreciate as much. I know the filmmakers were being serious in those brief moments, trying to evoke a certain emotion from audience. But it didn't work on me because of the voice acting in those scenes which took me right out of the film. Don't get me wrong, the voice acting was great in "Nezha", much better than most films. But in certain brief moments, it just didn't work for me.

Now comes another possible issue of "Nezha", which might be an impediment to the general audience's enjoyment of this film. That is the English subtitles. I have to acknowledge that I myself could not do a better job than they did, at translating the Ancient Chinese mythological concepts into modern-day English while trying to make sense to an audience unfamiliar with Chinese culture at large. But I'd like to argue perhaps transliteration might be a better approach than imprecise translation. Also I have to point out, as with almost all foreign language films, the humors and multi-layered emotions of most dialogues in "Nezha" were inevitably lost in translation.

Overall, "Nezha" was one of the best Chinese entertainment I've experienced in recent years, even though I haven't really watched that many real Chinese films. I'm glad that "Nezha" got a huge box office success in China which it so very much deserves. I'm not so sure "Nezha" would be a hit elsewhere. It might get popular to a certain degree on some streaming platforms. But I doubt it will get mainstream popularity in US, since most American media's portrayal of everything remotely related to China has been so negative lately ever since the Trade War.

Anyway, for me, I thoroughly enjoyed "Nezha". But I don't know the experience would be the same for everyone, since you have to have a certain willingness to put up with imprecise translation while at the same time trying to be culturally open-minded.

P.S. Sorry about my rambling in this long-ass review. But I can't believe I actually enjoyed a Chinese animation film so I have to take the time to write my genuine feelings about it.



(Additional comments: CHINA was the nation that had once gave the world the absolutely worst garbage film series ever produced by mankind. I'm talking about, of course, the infamous "Tiny Times" series by the famed gay novelist Guo Jingming. Ever since my great suffering by Guo Jingming's garbage films, I had never ever given any Chinese-made films any sort of serious interest until the year 2019. At the beginning of this year, there was the surprise box office success, the "Wandering Earth", which I also enjoyed. And now I'm thoroughly won over by "Nezha". I think it's been a good year for the Chinese film-making and we shall see if it will last.)

I did not originally want to watch this film as I do not like the story it is based on but I am glad I did.

I am a huge fan of myths and legends of different countries and cultures and I liked the old Chinese animations. 4 years ago, they made a Monkey King animation which I loved and finding out that that team helped on the Nezha movie was one of the reasons why I chose to watch it.

The core concept is about fighting fate and against how others see you. Another point I loved about it is as it is a Chinese movie it is told from a Chinese perspective and from Chinese culture. This is great way for people to learn more Chinese people and culture. The down side is it is different to movies that we are used to and a lot will not be understood if we are not Chinese or know much about Chinese mythology. Also some of the jokes reference Stephen Chow's work.

The English title "I am the destiny" makes sense to Chinese viewers, it is meant to be artistic with deep meanings (I spent a day discussing the title with my wife who is Chinese, she was explaining why she understood this title while it would not have been her first choice). Think of it as "I make my own fate" or if they just chose "Nezha: Fate"

The animation is amazing, the difference between the characters (humans, animals, clouds) and the scenery is marvellous. I wished to look at more of the buildings but that's just me being weird.

The music is great. Very exciting and also a lot using traditional Chinese instruments (one part is a tribute to the Terminator movies with traditional Chinese instruments) also the credits music is a great song they made for the moive with a lot of great lyrics (in Chinese)

The action scenes are beautifully made and flow very well. Also the pacing of the movie is perfect, at no point did I feel they dragged a joke or a scene on for too long.

The story is a retelling so some people may be annoyed that it deviating from the original but Disney does it all the time so leave them alone. The story is interesting and the changes makes it more relatable.

There are some bugs with the animation but they almost didn't finish in time for the summer holidays so I'm willing to overlook that.

What's more is the director's backstory. He studied medicine in University. His animation background, all self taught. Made a 3d animation by himself and won a lot of awards. The company he works for now collected a lot of animation companies together to make this movie. They risked a lot but this movie is the director's dream which he had been thinking about for years.

This can be seen in his attention to details. One of the charecters has a different accent because of where this character is from. And the director spent a lot of time to find the perfect voice actors for his characters (which I find to be a major failing of the Chinese animation industry in general, some beautiful animations ruined by frustratingly annoying voice actors)

Background information you should know. The old guy is the most powerful in heaven. In China, a master takes disciples for training. He is like a parent, teacher and master at the same time. Choosing a master or a disciple is not entered into lightly. At that time, monster attacks are common and many people have lost family to them. Might need to find a Chinese friend to help explain other points you may find confusing

I've seen it 7 times and I advice you to watch it on IMAX, looks better.

I hope they get a good subtitles team, a lot of jokes will be hard to translate. I also hope that they don't dub it. The dubbed version of "Hero is Back" the Monkey King animation was terrible and ruined it Also hope that they will release it in China with the English subtitles so that I have an excuse to watch it again

It's such a spectacular movie I was totally blown away while watching it in theater. The director is a genius with extraordinary imagination and a fully grasp of animation movie making. The story is rooted from Chinese ancient myths Nezha. The fantastic adaptation couldn't have been better. It has gained mountains of positive comments in China. Desperately expect it will be watched by more and more people.

I speak very little Chinese, but I saw this film with my girlfriend (native speaker) at the cinema. She helped me understand plot points and certain dialogue that I was struggling with. This film is a great step in the right direction for the Chinese 3D animation industry, but in no way is it worthy of a 10/10. This film falls drastically short of the high bar set by films like those from Pixar.

The good:

-The landscapes and effects are bright and beautiful

-The voice acting is solid

-Some of the humor works even despite the language barrier

The bad:

-Most of the characters look like they're from different movies. The juxtaposition between young/transformed Nezha, his parents, the bad guy and the villagers just feels off. This film would benefit from more consistent character design.

-Some of the jokes are based more on Chinese meme culture, and as all of us know in the west, using memes in films is lazy pandering and sure to age very poorly.

-There are some emotional cliches regarding sacrifice and character reactions to events in the film. These things have been done a million times before and they are not exceptional here at the least.

All in all, I thought the film was decent. It was fun and looked a lot better than most 3D animation in China. But oh man are people riding the hype train on this one! It's really not a perfect or even great movie, but it is a step in the right direction. Hopefully Chinese films in the future will build off of this and produce films that are worthy of being called true classics, Chinese or worldwide.

There have been over 10 years since I go to the theater watching the Chinese garbage movies. This one really really changed my mind. I see a glimpse of light of the Chinese animation movies, and a fire for the whole Chinese movie industry.

What a beautifully and impressively animated movie! Camera work, design, colors and animations.. You can easily compare it to the level of quality of a Disney movie.

Yet.. I'm torn between disappointment on the unnecessary dumbing-down and childish presentation of most characters and developments prior to the 1-hour mark of the movie VS the excitement and content after Ao Bing first appeared. It feels like the tone of the movie is completely different after that point (still hsa it's moments, though).

Much like "Jiang Ziya" or "Legend of Deification" (the prequel that came after it), it acquires a more straightforward-structure with cleaner/focused dialogue and a story with no nonsense just for the sake of it. I can see a great movie underneath the disappointing foundation (there's farts, eating boggers and the likes), with an otherwise fulfilling middle(?) & final act. It's a shame to see the first half to be kind of wasted opportunity to give the viewer a memorable and concise introduction to this world. For a believable friendship between rivals, a better exploration of the relationship with the townsfolk, and with ample opportunity for some "more" in that space that was squandered.

I guess it was made with children in mind.. but still. If they really want to make a cinematic universe, they should make something smart that appeals to everyone.. and "Jiang Ziya" feels like a step in the right direction.

Very exotic while the aesthetic definitely wouldn't turn western audience off. Great animation, you can tell the budget is substantial, I would say that the production value is at least on par with Pixar. Surprisingly good film.

Tianzun sends his disciples chubby Taoist Taiyi Zhenren, and Shen Gongbao to corral the Chaos Pearl. Tianzun splits the Chaos Pearl in two; the Spirit Pearl and the Demon Orb. The Demon Orb is birthed to be the demonic boy Ne Zha destine to be destroyed in three years. Meanwhile, Shen Gonbao steals the Spirit Pearl to the Dragon King who births his son Ao Bing to eventually release the dragons.

This is Chinese animation getting better and better. It looks good and it looks fun. The story starts with an epic exposition dump. It's too complicated. It needs some simplification. It really only needs to get to Hellboy and Iceman. The characters are the more important aspect. The most compelling part is the demonic nature of Ne Zha and the fear that he instills upon the villagers. It's a personal interior battle that plays out to the end with him and Ao Bing. The movie needs to streamline the story as much as possible to that aspect. The more complicated it gets, the more de-emphasized is that personal struggle.

It's so great to see this movie on show in NYC theaters! The story line one the best of its kind. I didn't like the look of Nezha at first glance, but I love it very much after seeing the movie. The story is very touching and completed. Love it and strongly recommended!

Reviews that give this a 10 are delusional or paid shills, because this is no masterpiece by any stretch of the imagination.

Many parts of the film are just foolishness, as though thought up by a 5 year old. They seem to be there for the sole purpose of keeping the audience awake.

Overall it's just a sloppy film, in my opinion, of course. I did watch it twice, first in English then again in Chinese with English subtitles. It didn't clear up too much the second time around. Perhaps some exposition was left on the cutting room floor?

I also noticed some framing issues here and there, not sure what that is about.

Due to the film's high ratings I was really looking forward to it. Unfortunately - despite every effort - I was disappointed.

Let's face it, the animation is awesome! The slow motion scenes are fantastic, as if watching a big budget superhero movie. The premise itself is interesting, as well. However, the execution left me shaking my head in disappointment. There's so much silliness that I just wasn't interested. Even dramatic scenes were suddenly ruined by the ever-present slapstick humor - similar to a kiddies cartoon.

With a mature theme like good versus evil - and demons - its interesting that they opted to go the slapstick route, which would appeal more to a younger demographic. Young children also won't really understand the concept of good and evil as portrayed here. Also, I'm certain the Chinese will find this more relatable than we ever can, due to their myths, gods and beliefs. Christians will most certainly view this as blasphemous. As for me, I just found it uninteresting and silly. Ne Zha - supposedly the film's anti-hero hero - is one of the most unlikable characters seen in a while in an animated film. I didn't root for him at all.

The creators really allowed their imaginations to run away with them on this one...maybe too much...

Fantastic animation, the storyline is a little diverted from the original ancient story but just as good. I almost burst into tears several times.

After seeing the posters and trailers, my first reaction was: nezha is so ugly. Feel ugly on the right, because this film is about to break the prejudice. As a lot of people look at this is diffuse, do not see; Or to see, see feel good also want to automatically deduct 20 points. In the movie, calling nezha a monster is politically correct. In addition to the film, scold domestic films, diffuse also become political correctness, as long as you scold it, someone will give you thumb up. In fact nezha is not a monster, he also wants to fall demon in addition to the devil wash name; Not all films are bad, but some people want to make a good film to prove themselves. Like nezha. The landscape of mountains and rivers is truly unrestrained and shocking. It embodies the objects that once existed only in the imagination and shows the infinite imagination of Chinese mythology incisively and vividly. Those familiar stories are no longer just stories, but can be seen, heard and enjoyed visually. With nezha this year and jiang ziya next year, the god movie universe is about to open. It's time to introduce Chinese culture to the world.

Reluctantly give 7 stars and encourage the country. The special effects are basically up to standard, but the script will go back and polish for 10 years. "Mother-in-law is more and more defeated", unprincipled indulgence of bear children destroying property; trying to reflect the prejudice in people's minds, but adding a lot of regional elements to the characters from the entertainment.

Please watch the movie before you jump into any assumption, because this animation movie was born to challenge the concept of prejudice. With original materials from the ancient Chinese sagas, the story voiced the modern values of the Z generation instead of any of those cliches we've seen over and over again in recent movies. If you look closely, you could even find that the movie also tackled nowaday issues such as modern parenting, cyber bullying, etc. Also for example, some people even view the hero as a typical patient with bipolar disorder in terms of mental health. In conclusion, not only did the movie make great progress in animation design, but it also achieved great success in play writing, and has therefore set a great example for the Chinese animation industry.

One element of criticism of the film is its background, the myth on which the film is based is very familiar to the Chinese, because of cultural differences, I believe it is difficult for foreign audiences to understand the film. For me, as a normal audience, I admit that the film is a step forward for Chinese animation, but its flaws are also obvious, it's certainly not perfect to point of 10.

This movie has broken record, so my expectation is quite high. And in the end it really meets my expectation. The story is well told, and it made people laugh every other minutes, but at some point it made you think about family and love, and you just cant stop crying. I enjoyed every minute of it.

Gorgeous and expressive characters, lush animation, dynamic action sequences, hilarious humour (some may argue it's juvenile but I enjoy Asian humour) and many touching scenes... I'll confess that at one point I was brought to tears. The highlight of the film for me was the pinball sequence. This is probably one of the best films I've ever seen.

I've read reviews on here that criticize the English subtitles. On Netflix they seem fine.

Although a good movie, being rated PG on Netflix probably isn't appropriate. A higher rating or atleast a warning would have been preferred. We made it 35 mins in before we shut it down. If my kids were a tad older we could've continued. Otherwise it was a funny movie for what we saw of it.

We have seen a lot of Chinese films that are very attracting to the audience recently years. It's quite a big improvement to the Chinese film industry. But that's not enough if they want to go much further. Cause what most audience wants is not just higher quality productions but also more reasonable story plots. In fact, an absurd or even preposterous story will ruin an outstanding film production, just like The Wandering Earth. As the same, this film does have such an exceptional fine animation but the storylines are just kinda poor. What they should really do are putting more time to conceive an acceptable story for the audience. That would not just only be going to help themselves but also to the whole film industry. Cause in this huge competition, there will always be a better feature film instead of being worse.

...from my initial impressions. Thought it would be a bomb knowing nothing about the film judging by the trailer and poster, only interested in the mythology of Ne Zha. And damn, it was entertaining, fast paced full of slapstick humor and action, although the first few minutes had some slight cringe you might expect from a Chinese animation, but that quickly goes away.

The visuals and 3d were spectacular. I'd say on the level of Dreamworks, somewhat near Pixar at times, although there were moments especially the dragons that were pretty bad, and 1 or 2 scenes that made my eyes spasm a bit from weird 3d movement. I first thought the initial character designs were like some weird Naruto-esk spinoff with the child NeZha looking a bit ugly, plus tropey action scenes. But it's one of those cases where watching it is much better than the lower quality trailers I came across, and none of the action was corny with emo characters trying too hard to act cool.

The subtitles can pass by VERY fast and/or get lost against the background, so get ready to read fast. I'm left with some questions on the origin story which deviates a little from what I read, but there's enough to stay true to the mythos. There are even some moving, touching scenes with NeZha and his parents. Can't wait for the sequel which multiple end credits scenes point to.