Ne Zha 2 Review: The Hit Chinese Animated Sequel Is A Wondrous, Fascinatingly Layered Big-Screen Spectacle

Ne Zha 2 (PG13)   

Starring the voices of Lu Yanting, Han Mo, Wang Deshun, Chen Hao, Lu Qi, Zhang Jiaming, Yang Wei

Directed by Jiaozi

You know the hype.

This China-made blockbuster is the highest-grossing animation film in history.

Here's the verdict. Ne Zha 2 is a truly epic, superb, fascinatingly layered spectacle. One heckuva wondrous panoramic wower made for the big screen.

Darker, less comical and less chummy than Ne Zha, the 2019 original, you're sucked into its massive swirling, twirling climactic battle that's as mind-numbing as it is mind-boggling.

We’re talking flying dragons, floating immortals, chained monsters, burning lava pit and even a gigantic metal pot called the Tianyuan Cauldron which traps just about everyone and everything in it.

One tip — this isn't a Disney cartoon. Good thing. Chinese mythology isn’t black and white. So people are not who they seem to be here. A white swarm colliding into a black swarm may not be clearcut heroics. The villain may not be a villain. Making us intrigued and very engrossed.

Following the ending in that first pic, Nezha (Lu Yanting), the Demon Orb reincarnation and rascally third son of warrior-generals, and Ao Bing (Han Mo), his handsome sea dragon-prince pal and Spirit Pearl being, have become spirits who temporarily share the body of the former.\

Nezha must undergo the three-tiered Ascension Trials conducted by Immortals to obtain a special elixir to allow Ao Bing to go back to his own body.\

Meanwhile, Ao Bing's dragon king-dad is tricked by his own deceitful dragon siblings, seeking to break free from their imprisoned hellfire purgatory, into destroying Chentang Pass, the domain of the humans.

An unknown cunning mastermind wreaking heavenly havoc is revealed in a great twist. Nezha, misunderstood demon child with the sole aim of defeating evil and protecting his beloved parents, turns into a vengeful raging missile on flaming wheels. “I will smash your palace into pieces,” he vows to the wrongly accused dragon king.

Returning director-scriptwriter Jiaozi toys at first with Venom-style body-sharing comedy before dumping it as he upgrades the visual vista from previous ground-based action to a more aerial sky-bound plus aquatic sea-bound extravaganza.

Okay, although the animation isn't Pixar-fluid, it's still plenty fluid. But being flashier and splashier now, it loses some of the quieter creative charm of the first installment. Back then, the characters were confined inside a magical painting.

Quick aside:  Jiaozi reportedly is a self-taught animator who's trained to be a pharmacist. Man, the destinies really do go haywire here.

Compared to the first flick's smaller-scale story of Nezha discovering his demon origin and meeting Ao Bing, the director has expanded his universe right up to the celestial-spatial-palatial realm.

Meaning, while we don’t get as sweetly personal a scene as the ying-and-yang buddies kicking a shuttlecock by the sea in the first tale, we do get bigger, prolonged encounters here — this toon clocks in at 143 minutes — in which they banter, battle and bedazzle.

“So white,” Nezha is awestruck when he's dwarfed by the size of the ethereal Yu Xu Palace, home among the clouds of the Immortals. They are led by an avuncular wise-grandpa Taoist supremo, Wuliang (Wang Deshun), with a lopsidedly big forehead and two ostensibly flawless demon hunters. One of them makes the Avengers' Hawkeye look like a novice archer when he fires multiple arrows like a machine gun.

“Even immortals need to pee,” quips Nezha as he urinates into a sacred receptacle, continuing this series’ penchant for icky-nutty bodily excretions — pee, puke, fart — which seems to be its naughty way of sticking it to pristine superiors, aka revered elites in our world.

Yep, you tend to try to figure out whether there are insidious references hidden in so expansive a work from China. Political, religious, societal, parental or otherwise. Nezha, seemingly a socialist scrapper, doesn't care who's a demon, monster, immortal or human. Maybe there's also a dig at big-money pharmaceuticals in the way “immortality pills” are produced surreptitiously in the giant cauldron embossed with a dollar sign. Stay sharp here for a blink-and-miss moment.

Thing is, this is a great pic because you're absolutely transfixed by its quick tempered, spunky little rascal. Marvellously rendered by Jiaozi and terrifically voiced by Lu Yanting.

Few creations in animation have such an expressive and endearing Main Character Energy  —  it truly is demonic energy here  —  that's so superhero powerful, cutely lovable and poignantly touching at the same time.

“I am Nezha, the Third Prince bold!” the little brat, a most potent combo of Hellboy and Dennis the Menace, rhymes in an adorably raspy sing-song tone as he announces his arrival with unabashed aplomb.

Before he thrillingly bashes every baddie in sight. (4.5/5 stars)

Eat your heart out, Disney!

Photo: Encore Films