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It’s the biggest film of 2025 so far, but many don’t even know about it. Ne Zha 2 is now the highest-grossing animated film in the world ever, dethroning the previous title holder, another sequel, Inside Out 2 (2024). It is also the highest-grossing film in a single territory (China) in the world, unseating Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015) for North America. Since its release for the Lunar New Year, Ne Zha 2 has grossed over $2 billion, the first animated film to do so, and with those earnings, it has become the highest grossing non-English film ever. And at this writing, it’s currently placed 6th in the worldwide highest-grossing films ever, just below Star Wars: The Force Awakens and above Avengers: Infinity War (2018).
After emerging as a significant world cinema, Ne Zha 2 is the global success that China’s film industry has yearned for, and it’s matter of patriotic duty for Chinese nationals to see it. You must see just to keep up with the global film conversation.
Ne Zha 2 (pronounced Nuh-Jah) is the direct sequel of Ne Zha (2019), and both are written and directed by Jiaozi; these are his first two feature length films. Ne Zha was also a success, but it didn’t go global. When it came out, it rose to become the highest-grossing animated film in China, the highest-grossing non-U.S. animated film, and the highest-grossing non-English film of all time. It was also the first Chinese animated feature to be presented in IMAX.
Ne Zha 2 is the third film in the animated Fengshen Universe from Enlight Pictures. The second was Jiang Ziya (2020) although that story takes a slightly different path, particularly how the Twelve Golden Immortals are depicted. Fengshen refers to Fengshen Yanyi, a 16th-century Chinese novel by Xu Zhonglin, translated as The Investiture of the Gods. It’s an epic tale that lies at the root of Chinese fantasy, the genre of Xianxia (Immortal heroes). The story of Ne Zha, or Nezha as it usually spelled, is one of the many stories from this epic of classic Chinese literature.
Nezha is mischievous demon out of Chinese myth like the Monkey King. In fact, he battles the Monkey King early on in Journey to the West. Nezha has several manifestations ranging from a three-headed six-armed demon to his more common appearance as a cheeky boy. He wields a magic spear, a magic scarf that is semi-sentient as Doctor Strange’s cloak, and celestial roller skates of fire known as the Wind Fire Wheels.
In Bagua, an internal form of Kung Fu like Tai Chi, the Wind Fire Wheels are weapons that pay homage to Nezha’s flaming skates. These are wide flat metal rings with flame-shaped blades jutting from the edges. The wheels are always practiced in pairs.
I had the honor of testing a modern-made pair of Wind Fire Wheels for the El Rey TV show Man at Arms: Art of War. The show brought together expert craftsmen to reproduce weapons and armor from scratch for history and fantasy, then to test them in real-world applications. If you look quickly, you can see me in the trailer with the Wind Fire Wheels on the show’s trailer. I’m at the 5 second mark.
But I digress. Back to Ne Zha 2, wow. What a spectacle. The film is next level, relentless in its over-the-top imagery, like the wildest video game ever. It’s eye-poppingly visual, with startlingly fresh visions universes getting ripped open, invading demon hordes, armies of immortal mystics, cosmic battles, and some incredibly detailed and lush settings. The story moves from puerile pee humor to heart-wrenching mother and son feels, with great fights and massive battles all along the way. Ne Zha 2 is a lot of movie. And it might not make a lick of sense if you don’t know who Nezha is, but it’s so visual that you just need to know he’s a demon brat with a good heart. And he’s one of the most powerful beings in the cosmos.
Ne Zha 2 is such a huge level up from the first film, so much so that you should see this first, then go back for Ne Zha and treat it like a prequel, lest the first film dissuade you from seeing the sequel.
However, the original film, Ne Zha, is his origin story, a deep dive into Chinese myth. At first, the film might feel like it poached the backgrounds from Kung Fu Panda, but it takes off when the magic battles begin. It’s hampered by the trappings of PRC animation, including pee and fart jokes (including a fart trap escape), lots of cartoonish comic relief like dopey Monty Pythonesque guards, a burly effeminate villager, a drunk fool, a flying pig that sneezes visions, a sea demon that blows petrifying bubbles and antidote snot.
But it’s all about the fight scenes. There are sword fights, magic chi blasts, weird spiky weapons, magic spears, a magic flywhisk, that magic brush and shuttlecock action. It’s total superhero choreography that’s very satisfying and somewhat fresh in its vision. However, the magnitude of Ne Zha hardly approaches Ne Zha 2. Where most sequels fail, a few sequels double down to birth a franchise like The Empire Strikes Back (1980) and Aliens (1986). Ne Zha 2 improves exponentially.
If you want to do a deep dive into Nezha animation, watch Nezha Conquers the Dragon King (1979). It's astonishingly good, a stylish postcard from the era of hand-drawn cartoons long before CGI came into play. The film is full of vibrant color schemes, surreal animation, magic swordfights (between shellfish no less), and unique backgrounds based on classic Chinese landscape painting. The story is the same as what is told in Ne Zha and Ne Zha 2, but a completely different interpretation of many of the characters, especially Nezha.
Where Ne Zha 2025 is a brat punk, Nezha 1979 is a beautiful prepubescent boy that's all powerful, mischievous and dances about a lot. He is also bare assed for most of the film. After he emerges from an egg that his mom carried for 3 years, he rises on a lotus blossom and throws a lotus petal up in the air and it transforms into one of those red bandanas Chinese babies wear over the front of their bodies. But there's no back but strings. Through most of the film, Nezha remains unabashedly bare assed.
The music vacillates between sort of a classical orchestral sound akin to the soundtracks of old Disney animated films of the period and classic Chinese opera for the battle scenes, plus a few more. There's this distinctive battle music in traditional Chinese opera - tinny clanging cymbals and big drums with a stringed pipa. What’s more, there are also long gratuitous scenes of Nezha dancing to classical opera, also practicing his magic weapons or riding his deer mount. There's an oddly long gratuitous shot of Nezha's dad Li Jing playing guzheng - that's a beautiful segment musically but the animation doesn’t justify its inclusion.
Overall, Nezha Conquers the Dragon King has a lovely vintage style. It was the first feature length animated film for China, and premiered as part of the 30th anniversary of the founding of the PRC celebrations. It was screened out of competition at Cannes in 1980 and was a Google Doodle in 2014 (35th anniversary). With the triumph of Ne Zha 2, Enlight Pictures is sure to expand its animated Fengshen Universe for more installments. And there are plenty more tales from The Investiture of the Gods that could make fine movies. Since Lunar New Year 2025, Jiaozi has conquered the world with soft power to become China’s highest-grossing director of all time, and we can hardly wait to see what he might do next.
By Gene Ching
Immortal Squad, Martial Arts Editor & Action Choreographer
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