cashew | I finally got to watch 《哪吒2》! (Reply)

It was good.

TL;DR — FINALLY, IT'S A NEZHA MOVIE!

Having watched 《哪吒1》, I've been a bit leery of the second movie. See, movie 1 was fine, but it was such a deviation from the traditional story tropes, themes, characterization, and overall tone that it can hardly count as a 哪吒 movie. In much the same way that Disney's Hercules was not really a Hercules story or Troy was not The Iliad, 《哪吒1》 was not a 哪吒 movie.

So, I'm very, very happy to find that 《哪吒2》 returned to the mythology's roots and told an actual 哪吒 story. Yes, the characters are all turned around, mom came in out of nowhere to be very important, and the original good guys are now the bad guys and the bad guys are the good guys, but! At its heart, the movie captured the theme of the original 哪吒 mythos, and that's what makes this movie actually feel like a re-telling rather than an original modern story re-skinned with the 哪吒 aesthetic.

Let's get to the details.

Animation

On a technical level, the animation is good. I'm especially impressed with the rendering of water, since that's such a huge obstacle for CGI and the movie pulled it off well. No weird jello-water, so kudos there. In terms of action choreography, no complaints. Very smooth moves, very nice frame rate, etc. etc.

On an artistic level, while every 3D animation is going to be influenced by Pixar more or less, the original artistic vision nonetheless comes through and the movie doesn't feel like it's just copying the design decisions of western animation. Chinese animation has always suffered from slavishly copying outside influences, be it Japanese anime or Disney cartoons, so seeing Chinese-style aesthetic dominate in Chinese animation is very nice. I hope the production crew continues to pursue their own style and really push the envelope of originality.

Just one example of what I mean by "Chinese aesthetic": During 哪吒's exam, he introduced himself with a rhyme while doing some very classic stage-production posing before launching into the fight. This is a storytelling trope deeply familiar to any Chinese person who listened to 评书 (Pingshu), a traditional Chinese storytelling performance, usually done on stage in front of an audience where the storyteller acts out little gestures while performing the story narration. Is it stagey and fake? Yes. Is it so deeply ingrained in the collective Chinese psyche that it totally sounds normal? Also yes.

Seeing the normalization of traditional Chinese storytelling tropes and techniques in modern entertainment was just really, really satisfying. This is what we consider dramatic and there's no reason not to include it when we're going to be telling an inherently Chinese story. And if Westerners are going to be completely lost by WTF is happening, well, this movie had no intention of catering to the Western audience, and it's so nice to see the movie being confident enough to not give a damn.

Theme

As I mentioned earlier, 《哪吒2》 finally told 哪吒's story.

The core of the original 哪吒 myth is a story about a child going up against the injustices of the status quo. 哪吒 was a delinquent whose heart is in the right place if a bit impulsive and takes actions that are not very well thought out. Through his rash decisions, he dooms his home town, redeems himself by committing suicide to appease the dragon's rage, then is re-animated to kick more dragon butt and overthrows the human sacrifice system that plagued civilization, allowing the central plains' civilization to move past shamanistic rule.

(Later he participates in the effort to overthrow institutional slavery and help establish the new enlightened Zhou dynasty, but that's for another time.)

Point is, 哪吒 has always been a character who fights against authority. And 哪吒's struggle against authority is powered by his passionate belief in right vs wrong. 《哪吒2》 re-tells this story, only this time, the Dragons are the oppressed (as opposed to the humans, who were just canon fodder in this movie) and the gods are the oppressors. By switching the roles, the movie keeps the audience guessing while still sticking to the general framework of 哪吒's story. He still goes batshit bonkers, he still makes mistakes, and he still ultimately triumphs against the oppression of what seemed to be an all powerful deity. (In the original story, dragons were the oppressive all powerful deity.)

On top of the original themes of battling against oppression, 《哪吒2》 updates the story to be a relevant criticism of the current administration. By using mythology creatively, the movie gave voice to people's simmering rage against the current leadership. So for all those who keep trying to blame the crappy writing in modern entertainment on the censors that prevent the creatives from "saying it like it is", I point to 《哪吒2》, where creative use of metaphor and allegory allows the writer to get the messages past the censors.

(To be sure, censorship is bad. But censorship is not the reason creatives write bad material. Censorship sucks for intellectual freedom, but it doesn't really correlate with the quality of entertainment. I will remind the people that some of the best children's cartoon from the 90's was made precisely because the writers were sneaking things past the censors.)

In other words, the thematic message of 《哪吒2》 resonated with the Chinese audience, and that contributed to its massive popularity.

Miscellaneous

I actually found the humor in the movie to be pretty on point. I can't imagine how this could translate into English, however, since so much of the humor is dependent on creative punning and subversion of cultural expectations. For example, the joke that 哪吒 and 敖丙 had their bodies sculpted out of lotus root powder plays on the well known fact that 哪吒 was re-animated using the lotus to re-make his body (roots for the limbs, flower for the torso, leaves for the clothes). To fully appreciate the joke would also require the audience to have an intimate knowledge of the texture of lotus root powder, a common street food, and how the powder has this weird property of becoming delicious bouncy goo when mixed with hot water and hardens over a couple of days into a crusty thing if left alone. Most Chinese kids will have eaten lotus root powder as a snack at some point in their life, but this weirdo property of lotus root powder is probably lost on audiences who've never ate it.

Or, for example, the pee joke is actually a literary reference to Journey to the West. Not only does 哪吒 get a cameo in the original Journey to the West novel, but the pee thing is actually a repeat joke that happens in the novel to demonstrate the monkey's lack of civility. Hence, by having 哪吒 repeat the same action, the joke contextualizes 哪吒's role in the story by referencing 悟空 (Wukong) from the novel, and also serves to emphasize the disrespect both characters have for people in positions of power. This sets up the joke later in the movie where 哪吒 punches the big bad into 定海神针, 悟空's weapon. So in this movie, 悟空 gets a cameo reference, much like how 哪吒 got a cameo in 悟空's story. This mirroring is probably completely lost on a Western viewer who isn't intimately familiar with the plot beats of Journey to the West, while every Chinese kid will have this shit memorized from cultural osmosis.

On an animal behavior note, as someone who studied and worked with rodents for a decade, I deeply appreciate the biologically accurate depiction of prairie dog behavior. Holy shit, that was so funny. I was crying with laughter. Everything was so, so on point, from the uniform distribution, the hilariously synchronized eating, the linear social dominance hierarchy, etc. Someone spent precious time observing prairie dog behavior at the zoo and the movie was all the better for it.

Another thing that sticks out to me is how much family, and familial connections, get mentioned. I find one of the biggest differences between Western and Eastern storytelling is the importance of being motivated by family's safety, especially the mother's. Endangering mom is the biggest reason heroes go batshit berserk in Chinese stories. The importance of parents, especially parental death, in motivating the hero is basically everywhere. My friend and I joked that it's not a Chinese story until someone's daddy or mommy issues comes up, because the idea of "dying for one's parents" is so basic, it's not even questioned. Of course you'll die to protect your parents, there is ZERO questioning of this moral stance. Anyone who isn't ready to give their life to protect their parents are immediately labeled "evil". And even when parents are evil (which is exceedingly rare in Chinese stories), the protagonist has to struggle very, very hard trying to find a way to stop their evil parent without killing them. To kill one's parent, even if they're evil, is a sign of moral degeneration.

Yes, I am taking potshots at Marvel's Shang-Chi.

The collectivist nature of Chinese culture rears its head in the climax of the movie. Ultimately, while an individual hero can rally the crowd, it is the collective that gets shit done. 《哪吒2》 demonstrates this collectivist mindset, where it is the united effort of all the mooks against the other side's mooks that finally result in good triumphing. For all that 哪吒 is the hero of the story, the climax is the clash of everyone on one side versus everyone on the other side. The shiniest moment is not when 哪吒 gets to pull a "big damn hero" moment, but rather the swarming of good vs evil mooks against one another that finally drives back the powers that be.

Lastly, I'm deeply amused at the movie lampshading this version of 哪吒 being a knockoff and the 敖丙-version being the "brand name". The joke just sticks out as hilarious in my head.

Edit to add:

The original 哪吒 (before he was even officially called 哪吒) was a monstrous form (妖) that slowly morphed into a godly form (神) around North-South dynasty (南北朝). It wasn't until well into the Song dynasty (宋) that 哪吒 got firmly established as a god and took on the recognizable characterization that we know today. The movie clearly tapped into this origin by making the monsters (妖) the good guys, playing with the philosophical conflict of Buddhism, Daoism, and Confucianism, the three main philosophies that influenced Chinese cultural values. (If anyone wonders why Chinese culture seems so weird and mish-mashy, it's because three fundamentally conflicting philosophies are simultaneously dragging social values in disparate directions.)

However, I nonetheless insist that the classical 哪吒 story pitted 哪吒 against authority as its basic framework. And given 哪吒's origin is literally the result of people wrangling with the conflicting values of newly introduced Buddhist values against traditional Confucian teachings, 哪吒 at his heart has always been about challenging authority.