NE ZHA (2019) and NE ZHA 2 (2025)

Both of the Ne Zha movies have a commonality with them - I am not sure if I fully divulged my thoughts and feelings on the prior entry into this series, but that one is much like this except less BOOM AAAHHH in its climactic scope - which is that what must be hundreds (thousands?) of animators have put the kind of work into the characters and environments and creatures and, most of all, the hair-raising You Aint Seen This in a Cut Scene Before level action is astonishing. 

You have seen some action on this scale before if you are deeply versed in Japanese animation or some other epic tales of heroes and villains and little boys who can turn demon and use an element to save (or destroy) the world, but that is not most folks so this will come as a gigantic acconplishment (both films but this ups the ante on action).

It may be fool-harty to try if you are looking for depth as far as character development or things that will make the title character or the cold/water spirit that befriends him in the first film and then here is for the first half having to share a body and alternating personalities (how he gets into his own body again I am not sure, maybe I missed it on a bathroom break), but for stories that are all about leading up to battles and fights that largely go back to the achingly personal then what we get suffices. 

What the conflicts in these movies comes down to is actually something that should hit on the most primal level for younger audiences (and for some of the adults with them or on their own as well) which is "You Did WHAT to my parents?! Aaaahhhh!" ::10 mile wide fire punch::) and I would be lying if I said Ne Zha didn't get on my nerves, it is more so in the first movie as in this one he has to grow up a bit... kind of.

If I am less enthusiastic about the Ne Zha movies it is only in just pure storytelling, and by that how some things progress or go to the next points which can feel a little choppy or just abrupt, like "oh, ok, so now we are dealing with THIS" and have to get on with things on a more micro rather than macro level. There is a particular story turn in the second movie that I maybe should have seen coming more, but once it happened I was like "yes, naturally" and it was less of a surprise than a beat where the movie has no choice but to double back to explain things, which is not as exciting.

What I do like and respond to so much about these films, especially Ne Zha 2, is how much if I was some times feeling like events were just happening and being explained, at great length, whether I wanted them to or not, the emotional register was hitting.  Some of this humor is childish, and like not even clever childish but more like that gross friend you had in third grade who keeps making up farming and urine gags during class, except that, jarring tonal shifts not withstanding, I was into the comedy in both entries - maybe more in this than part one since that spent a lot more time with Ne Zha in training and around other kids, and the comedy helps to off set the darker elements.

Moreover, when it gets stupendously tragic with the death of a particular character in the midst of the climax, I was feeling the sadness and was, frankly, manipulated but in the way the filmmakers were after (it helps that the, ok mild spoiler, Oscar winning actor they got for that role really knocked it out of the park).

I think the way to describe what Ne Zha and Ne Zha 2 are at their best is like a combination of Avatar the Last Airbender and RRR - I can't say in good conscience that this is as great as those are, there is that thrill of seeing spectacle on a gigantic scale where all of the heart and other vital organs are up there on a level where you can sense a revitalizing of Myth-making going on (and I saw this in IMAX and even the 3D couldn't marr the experience, ho-ho).  

I would even say that in terms of raw spectacle, the second movie probably does out do the first by  a not insignificant margin - the downside is that the length wears one down a bit, despite the sort of thrill one gets in the climax like one does in Avengers Endgame.