Promotional material for Ne Zha Photo: IC

Promotional material for Ne Zha Photo: IC

Chinese animated film Ne Zha is smashing records for Chinese and imported animated films. 

With 128 million yuan ($18.59 million), the fantasy film based on the mythological character of Ne Zha broke the opening day box-office record for an animated film in China set by Despicable Me 3. The film's box-office take surpassed the 900 million yuan mark on Monday. 

Ne Zha has also captured the attention of film lovers overseas. Many netizens have taken to Twitter to say they are looking forward to the film coming to their country. 

However, the reasons why Ne Zha has proven so popular in China isn't limited to the quality of the animation, but also due to the film's unique take on this mythological figure. 

Some foreign audiences may only be attracted by the film's furious fight scenes or beautiful landscapes and miss the message of the film.

To better understand what the film is trying to say, it might be a good idea to get to know the character's background a bit better. 


Folk tales and novels

Ne Zha appears both in Chinese and Indian myths. In Buddhist stories, Ne Zha is a young powerful god. 

In the Chinese Taoist story, Ne Zha is the son of Li Jing, the Pagoda-Bearing Heavenly King Li. Ne Zha has two older brothers Jin Zha and Mu Zha. 

In the folk stories, Ne Zha was born after his mother's three-year-pregnancy. Later, Ne Zha kills the third son of the Dragon King and then commits suicide to protect his family from the vengeful dragons. The Buddha sympathizes with Ne Zha and brings him back to life using lotus roots.

Ne Zha has appeared in many classic novels such as Journey to the West and Investiture of the Gods, which each changing his background a bit.

In Investiture of the Gods, Ne Zha has four precious and powerful tools. He rides a pair of wheels called fenghuolun, or Wind Fire Wheels. The left wheel creates wind and the right creates fire. Ne Zha can use these wheels to move quickly. The qiankunquan, or Universe bracelet, is a golden bracelet that is very hard and can change size at will. What's more, Ne Zha can use his magical huntianling, or Red Armillary Sash, to tie up his enemies and then use the huojianqiang, or Fire-tipped Spear, to defeat them. 

In Journey to the West, Ne Zha's appearance is similar that of Investiture of the Gods. Ne Zha first appears in the novel to capture the Monkey King Sun Wukong along with his father Li Jing. However, Ne Zha ends up becoming an ally of Sun Wukong and aids him on his journey. 


Handsome youth

This is not the first time that Ne Zha has appeared in animated form. The story of Ne Zha has been seen as a good fit for cartoons because he is a young child. 

In 1979, the Shanghai Animation Film Studio produced Prince Ne Zha's Triumph against the Dragon King. In the film, a dragon who lives in the ocean and can control rain causes Ne Zha's hometown of Chentangguan suffer a drought and asks for young children as sacrifices. 

Ne Zha kills the Dragon King's third son, which leads the dragons to threaten to destroy Chentangguan if Ne Zha is not killed. Ne Zha chooses to kill himself but is later revived by his master Taiyi Zhenren. Ne Zha goes on to defeat all the dragons and makes them promise to never bother Chentangguan again.

In 2003, China Central Television (CCTV) and CCTV's child entertainment studio produced a 52-episode cartoon titled The Legend of Ne Zha. Shown on CCTV-14, the cartoon tells the story about Ne Zha and his friends as they help Ji Fa, the eventual King Wu of Zhou, overthrow the tyrannical King Zhou of Shang and build a new dynasty. 

In both cartoons Ne Zha is depicted as a positive and innocent child with amazing powers who always wants to help others. For many TV viewers born in the 1980s and 1990s, Ne Zha was their childhood hero.


Inverted roles

When netizens first saw the poster for the new Ne Zha film, the depiction of the character as a young boy with black circles under his eyes and an evil smile came across as a little strange. Many wondered why the little hero from their childhood looked so frightening. 

The director of the film, Jiaozi (lit: dumpling), explained in an interview with the Beijing News that they had more than 100 designs for Ne Zha. Their goal was to ensure that his appearance would serve the theme of the film, which is overcoming prejudice and changing one's fate. 

In the film, Ne Zha becomes a demon child by accident and must be isolated from other humans.

"If we wanted to highlight the theme of the film, which is to fight against fate, we couldn't have designed Ne Zha as a bright and positive character," Jiaozi noted.

"I also want to help the audience to think in real life. I want to make audiences change their prejudice toward this 'ugly' Ne Zha after walking out of theaters."
Newspaper headline: Fighting against fate