Introduction
From the heavenly object known as the Chaos Pearl, two elements are extracted: the Spirit Pearl and the Demon Orb. In an attempt to suppress their power, the Lord of Heaven sends the Spirit Pearl to Earth to reincarnate as Ne Zha, the third son of Li Jing, while the Demon Orb is scheduled to be destroyed by a lightning strike. However, because of a conspiracy by the Dragon King to steal the Spirit Pearl for his own son, Ne Zha is instead reincarnated with the Demon Orb.
With no way to remove the cursed effects of the Demon Orb, Ne Zha is raised under the belief that he will become the great demon hunter the Spirit Pearl destined for him to be. Fighting against his chaotic and mischievous nature, Ne Zha must decide whether to accept his evil fate or rebel against it to prove he is worthy of the future his parents foretold.
[Written by MAL Rewrite]
Audience reviews
9 · Sample from the first available page, separate from the total number of ratings.
Ivan_Khudoy
Chinese mythology is a deep well filled with compelling stories and colorful characters. To ensure the ancient tale finds a place in modern cinema, the studio combined all elements of popular media: top-tier Pixar-style animation, a tearjerking story about friendship and family values, over-the-top action... and fart jokes. Time spent on the latter could have been used to explore the relationship between Ne Zha and his parents, but the plot offers a decent character dynamic and emotional payoff. Additionally, colorful scenery and excellent animation of fight scenes guarantee a fun time, especially on the big screen. Ne Zha knows its audience and how to entertain, which is more than enough to make it a box office success and spawn several sequels about a demonic troublemaker.
Read at the sourceCluelessWorm
(Not a proper review, just some thoughts copied and pasted from my Letterboxd)
The scene where Ne Zha and Ao Bing play jianzi with the little girl by the sea is a truly beautiful moment, and it makes you forget, for a second, how underbaked the rest of the film feels. This little moment signals a transformation in Ne Zha that his parents had sought for years. The conventional marker of civilising a child demands that the child be rendered obedient, socially palatable, and universally endearing. Reining in the child, suppressing its primal instincts, and eradicating its inherent defiant nature are considered crucial to this process. And yet it is often through acts of defiance, or more broadly, the exercise of autonomy, that children begin to internalise norms and empathy. The moments that…
Read at the sourceMerienV
I'm not sure what I expected, but it certainly wasn't this. Haha. As a fan of historical works, the tone of this grabbed me from the start, the comedic time is on point, and the animation overall is beautiful. I especially liked the quality of the character design, at least for me, they all matched perfectly.
The film's greatest strength is the script is very well done. Don't hand anything over, all the characters are constantly surprising you. The protagonist is a child who acts like a child, sometimes spoiled, sometimes lacking love, the parents hide information from their children, the arrogant characters make selfish decisions, the good ones have doubts about the morality of their actions... For those who like morally grey characters, it's a real treat.
Overall, the Chinese Naruto is…
Read at the source1stDecame4Danime
I won't waste effort on a wall of text like some shills since this is a silly children's action movie of no depth.
Full 3d childish art style of silly caricatures doing silly things. At least 3D allows for decently fluid animation.
The characters are mostly action set-pieces, slapstick potty humor machines, cartoonishly evil, assholes, etc. It's very hard to like or care about any of them since we barely get to know any of them, and the MC is a childish gremlin interacting with a walking ha ha fat dumb person joke. The only nonsilly characters in the whole movie are MC's parents and brother.
Borderline deliberately offensive tokenism of minorities in a movie that preaches "do not be biased (against your rulers and their nephews for their incompetence and destructive acts). Prejudice (aga…
Read at the sourceMandoriax
Well the infamous chinese super hit ne zha... I know I'm late to the party but I do still like to write a little review for the first part.
I'll try to keep it short :)
What did I really like about this movie and why do I recommend it?
The biggest strenght of the movie is the story and the characters. It's not a typical good vs. evil story even though it appears to be at the very beginning. Rather it's complex with all characters having faults but also good or "just" intentions. The most noble and innocent tell lies and the seemingly most evil have been deceived and treated unfairly making their actions understandable. Wrap that in a good story structure, add phenomenal music and incredible voice acting (eng dub), top it off with great animation and fight scenes and you have movie that is…
Read at the sourceWdaCdaShdaDid
I really wanted to like this because someone I follow was just SO into it. And it made me cry a little, too, so clearly it connected with me on a deep level very few films ever do. But like... I just... don't like it all that much. And not because it made me cry. It gets a higher rating because of that very poignant moment.
This is a truly gorgeously animated film. The fight scenes are wonderfully made. The environments are breathtaking and beautifully detailed, with bright colors and fantastical landscapes and hyper-detailed towns that we really get to explore. The characters are for the most part really well designed and the humans are pretty diverse in design, too.
The biggest drawback is probably Nezha's regular human form. I just don't... find that appealing. At all. He's not cute.…
Read at the sourceThat__Guy
I stumbled upon this movie by accident and am I glad I did. For both a "G" rated movie, and a Chinese animation movie, this was an impressive film. The art style reminds me of Pixar meets Anime and I actually found it quite enjoyable.
Story - 9
Chinese mythology with a nice family approach, but still enough substance to entertain adults and children alike.
Art - 8
The characters looked very much like you'd expect from a Pixar movie, which is honestly very well done. The animation was generally very smooth and the scenery and backgrounds were very vivid and beautiful. The fight scenes were also very imaginative and fun to watch.
Sound - 7
There isn't much that stood out musically, but the music always felt like it belonged and fit the scene well.
Character - 7
The characters were al…
Read at the sourceJairus_Kersey
Finally a Chinese film that I actually enjoyed watching.
(I've already posted my review on IMDb, and I'd like to share my in-theater experience of Nezha on this site as well, if that is allowed by the policy.)
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 Chinese-made movie. And oh boy, I'm so glad I did.
Initially, I was so turned off by this movie's trailer, since it had all the worst stereotypes of a Chinese-made films, 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 my home country's money-grabbing film industry that had become so shamelessly greedy i…
Read at the sourceMnemease
As of the time of this review the movie has already reached 4.7 billion in box office, making it the second most popular film in Chinese history just after Wolf Warrior 2. Given all the problems that have plagued the animation industry in Mainland China, this is an unprecedented milestone that will hopefully bring us many more quality animations for all audiences.
Being a devout supporter of Chinese animation, I took the first opportunity I got to watch this film, if only to experience renewed pride for my home country. As someone who grew up with Chinese legends and folk tales, this film brought an overwhelming surge of nostalgia. I have to acknowledge my potentially biased standpoint on the quality of this film, as my excitement over its mere existence is enough for me to give it 10s al…
Read at the source