Warning: This article contains spoilers
"Nezha: The Devil Child Conquers the Dragon King" will obviously not be the last film in the "Nezha" series. When the Wuliang Immortal in the movie repeatedly emphasized that he was actively preparing for the upcoming "Battle of the Gods", I almost laughed out loud in the cinema: After all this time, it turns out that the two Spring Festival movies are just about the same topic?
Poster of Nezha: The Devil Boy Conquers the Dragon King
So far, the biggest winner of the entire Spring Festival period is undoubtedly this film. Not only does it have a high score of 8.6 on a certain website (ratings by about 280,000 people), but its box office performance has been soaring. It is likely to continue to exert a siphon effect in the coming days, and it is not impossible to break the historical box office record.
It seems that although both cameras are focused on the story of "Fengshen", the next part of the "Nezha" series may be more worth looking forward to than the "Fengshen" series, which has received mixed reviews.
As of 15:00 on February 1, the box office of "Nezha: The Devil Boy Conquers the Dragon King" exceeded 2.1 billion, becoming the single-day box office champion of animated films in mainland China's film history.
So, what is the advantage of this film?
From a technical perspective, "Nezha: The Devil Boy Conquers the Dragon King" is certainly an improvement over its predecessor, but the extent of the improvement is limited. If the stunning debut of the previous work shocked the audience with the technical strength of domestic animation, then with the release of many similar works in recent years, both the exquisite pictures and the grand scenes have become commonplace.
The level of care put into the production of this film is beyond doubt, but the real highlight may be the characterization. Shen Gongbao in the previous film has already left a lasting impression on the audience because of his both good and evil character. As a leopard spirit who has cultivated to become an immortal, his heartfelt words "prejudices in people's hearts are like mountains, and no matter how hard you try, you can't shake them" have become a golden sentence.
Shen Gongbao, who is both good and evil, is impressive
In the second part, the main creative team not only arranged a father who understands the big picture and a super cute brother for him, but also gave him a calm mind that is not provoked or confused by the villains and the courage to fight against injustice, which can be said to have won countless fans. In addition to Shen Gongbao, the old father Ao Guang who is eager to protect his son but is willing to understand the ideas of young people, and the Wuliang Xianweng who talks about benevolence and morality but is actually hypocritical and cruel, are all impressive.
These three-dimensional and rich characters are enough to prove the level of care put into the "Nezha" series. In comparison, the "Fengshen" series shows a trend of regression.
Although the rewriting of the relationship between King Zhou and Daji in the first part of The Investiture of the Gods was not strictly original, it did incorporate the creator's more "modern" thinking, which was refreshing. However, in the second part, it became a simple and crude opposition between good and evil. There were many characters, but except for Deng Chanyu, there was almost no depth of character to speak of, and they all became background boards for the battle between immortals and demons.
This cannot but make people wonder, what kind of exciting "Battle of the Gods" that the "Nezha" series will tell next will be?
Nezha's gorgeous transformation
However, while fully affirming the artistic quality of this film, we should also calmly view the praise it has received and not flatter it. The audience's praise for "Nezha" is more or less a "comparison with peers". If we compare "Nezha: The Devil Child Conquers the Dragon King" with "Nezha: The Devil Child Comes into the World", we will find that this film does not have many highlights in terms of innovation.
Ao Bing becomes the protagonist's vassal
Handsome dragon father Ao Guang is more eye-catching than his son
For example, the relationship between Nezha and Ao Bing, who are both enemies and friends, has been simplified in this film. The plot where the latter possesses the former seems to add a lot of jokes, but it makes Ao Bing lose his true personality and become a vassal of the protagonist. For another example, the blood relationship between Li Jing, Madam Yin and Nezha is indeed touching, and the scene of Madam Yin's heroic sacrifice has earned the tears of countless viewers, but to be fair, this is just a sensational method that has been used repeatedly in previous works, and it lacks novelty. The arrangement that Nezha must awaken only after his mother's sacrifice is also too deliberate and abrupt.
The more critical issue lies in "thought". If Nezha's words "My fate is determined by myself, not by God" in the previous film really "ignited" everyone, then in this film, Nezha's rebelliousness has been greatly weakened. Not only has the gap between him and his parents, master, and friends completely disappeared, leaving only some insignificant "tsundere", but the object of Nezha's rebellion has also become abstract and vague.
On the surface, the conflict between Nezha and Wuliang Xianweng represents the collective accusation and counterattack of the new generation of young people against the oppression of rules and hypocritical order. But in fact, Wuliang Xianweng cannot really represent rules or order. He kept emphasizing that "Master has not yet come out of retreat", which is undoubtedly the leeway left by the main creative team for themselves. The future plot is likely to be that Master, with the help of Nezha, Ao Bing and others, turns the world around, cleans up the mess, and makes Wuliang Xianweng, who has been obstructing and constantly doing evil, pay the price he deserves.
Wuliang Xianweng keeps doing evil
In other words, as long as there are no "bad guys", there is no problem with the world order created by the immortals, and it can continue to operate. What Nezha did was not a willful "trouble", but in the final analysis, it was to help the world return to normal. If this is really the case, his resistance is at best a copy of the "Investiture of the Gods" series - once again returning to the old routine of good and evil fighting against each other.
In this regard, the problems faced by "Nezha" and "Ji Fa" are actually the same. The hard power of the Chinese film industry is indeed different from the past, but the trend of form overwhelms content is becoming more and more intense. Behind the visual spectacle of the final battle at the end of this film, the audience still only gets the emotional value of "cool".
What is Nezha fighting against? Why are the dragons of the East China Sea treated unfairly? Why is Shen Gongbao trapped in the quagmire of "birth theory"? Perhaps these are the questions that the creative team should face.
The battle of Chentangguan and the final battle at the end of the film are both visual spectacles
Some people also say that the "Nezha" series is an animated film for all ages after all, and as long as it can be "family-friendly", it is already successful enough, so why bother to be "serious"? This statement does make sense, just like the polarized reviews recently received by Chen Sicheng's "Detective Chinatown 1900", a considerable number of netizens support the view that movies only need to be "entertaining".
The huge success of the "Nezha" series must have brought invisible pressure to the creative team - should they be radical or conservative, should they continue to innovate or put safety first? As the box office continues to rise, their concerns will probably increase.
Movies are not purely charitable, and it is impossible not to talk about commercial interests, but whether a movie can be "deified" is obviously not the only criterion for box office. Just because the "Nezha" series has brought too many surprises to the audience, allowing people to see the possibility of domestic animation rising again on the world stage, this cute demon boy must also bear the corresponding pressure. In any case, the first two films have built the entire "Deified Universe" sufficiently complete, and we are looking forward to the next work breaking through the shackles and little Nezha creating new miracles.
