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As well as important stories on The Eye, cultural news about movies and books are central for our Editor, Welshman Phil Parry, and now comes news that a film in one of the most populous countries in the world is breaking all box office records, possibly because it doesn’t tell people what to think.
Forget the Oscars in Tinseltown, keep an eye out for a film you may never have heard of in one of the most populous countries on earth because it is a smash hit.
It is an animated film in China called ‘Ne Zha 2’ – a sequel, in which the eponymous child battles monsters and immortals on a quest to save his friend and protect his family’s fortress.
Launched over the Chinese New Year holiday, it has taken more than $2 billion, and become the most successful animated feature ever made anywhere.
It has overtaken ‘Spider-Man: No Way Home’ as the seventh-highest-grossing film ever, and it has done so by tapping deep into China’s cultural roots.
Before ‘Ne Zha 2’ the two most popular films were ‘The Battle at Lake Changjin’ from 2021 and ‘Wolf Warrior 2‘ from 2017.
Both were action flicks involving the defeat of dastardly foreigners.
Such films topped China’s charts from 2017 to 2023 (except 2019), according to data from Maoyan, a movie-ticketing service, emphasising how the state has invested in the ‘correct’ sort of film.
The Ministry of Culture (MoC) in Beijing was dissolved in 2018, with its responsibilities assumed by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism (MCT), encompassing policy as well as monitoring activities across the huge country, which included managing national museums and monuments; promoting or ‘protecting’ the arts (and among that was censorship of visual, folk, theatrical, musical, dance, architectural, literary, televisual and cinematographic works); along with managing the national archives as well as regional cultural centres.
A law passed in 2016 to support the film industry listed “promoting core socialist values” as one key theme.
But their popularity peaked in 2020, when they accounted for more than half of box-office receipts of the 20 highest-grossing films.
This year, that share fell below two per cent.
Triumphant narratives of national strength seem detached from reality, with Chinese viewers now struggling in a depressed economy.
‘Ne Zha 2’ has perhaps caught on because it is not forcing anything on anyone.
Chinese people know the character from folklore. The film is packed with humour delivered by endearing characters, and it resonates because of its messages of self-determination, the unconditional love of family and the pursuit of justice.
The technical sophistication has amazed viewers and pitched domestic animation studios as serious competitors to their Hollywood counterparts.
At a cinema in the eastern city of Hangzhou one appreciative audience member, a 20-year-old student, watched the film with her friends.
She said she found the hero epics too heavy, and declared: “They force-feed patriotism”.
She has though seen ‘Ne Zha 2’ three times, and like many young people disillusioned by the current paucity of job opportunities, she finds hope in the rebellious and righteous Ne Zha.
“Nowadays we are overwhelmed by social pressure, but he tells you that you can define the type of person you want to be”, she proclaimed.
The popularity of ‘Ne Zha 2’ underlines the importance of making films people actually like, as opposed to ones the state THINKS they should like, and why we will keep reporting their reviews on The Eye…
The memories of Phil’s, incredible award-winning career in journalism (as opposed to film reviews).as he was gripped by the rare neurological disabling condition, Hereditary Spastic Paraplegia (HSP), have been released in a major book ‘A GOOD STORY’. Order the book now!
Tomorrow – how during that career secret recordings have often played a major role for him, and now this is underlined by local elections in England which may be affected by a senior Conservative figure being secretly recorded suggesting the party could need to form a pact with Reform UK.
