The Current Cinema - Barrie Pattison unearths NE ZHA 2 (Yu Yang, China, 2025)

Yu Yang’s new  Ne Zha 2 -  the0 Nezha Mo tong nao hai follow up - is, they are telling us, the most successful animated film of all time. I have to wonder about this as the one of the eight-a-day sessions I attended drew only a single figure attendance by lights down, despite all the sold seats indicated on the plan. There was also female giggling issuing from a stall in the blokes’ loo before the session, which I felt it better not to investigate.

The film might be more approachable if you see part one but what we end up with is a brain frying succession of wide screen set piece displays with a few anime characters wandering through them. The plot finally settles into a Kirikou rip off.

It  has the rebellious kid Ne Zha (Yanting Lü) who is half of the Chaos Pearl with Ao Bing (Mo Han), a more sedate character. After some gross-out bodily fluids comedy, suited to his tot aspect, we get down to what passes for a plot with the immortals battling monsters as represented by the Dragon King rulers of the Four Seas, setting their sea creatures against  the Chan Sect’s  bearded baby Wuliang from the Yu Zu Palace on a cloud, with the valiant human defenders of the Chentang Pass as victims of The Dragon Rulers of the Four Seas. The master pan is to convert opponents into immortality pearls in the mighty heavenly cauldron. Devices like the sky splitting severed hand are employed by faltering frozen parents and a chubby stone matron who ends up as rocks imprisoned in a metal cage, while hostile Badger Armies and  (impressive) underwater dragons, which are normally found only in the Eastern region, get into the combat. Will our hero be able to withstand the ice thorns which have immobilised him as the true author of the celestial  infamy is revealed?

Admirers of King Hu (Touch of Zen’s immortals on wavering bamboo stalks) and Li Han-hsiang (Love Etern’s derisive white outfit idlers) will recognise their influence. The panoramas of grotesque monsters from Asian traditional art and kiddie literature are impressive but constant barrages of them tend to have a numbing effect. The film just keeps on going long after the big screen impact of its great design and laboratory work has been absorbed. We end with a joke anachronistic routine  embedded in the end titles  Toon freaks and curious tinies are likely to enjoy it.