Ne Zha 2 Review - Defying Fate by Healing the Heart
How is it that the highest-grossing film of 2025 so far, the highest-grossing animated film of all time, and the only film this year to cross the $2 billion mark worldwide, is one that American audiences have largely never even heard of? In fact, until a few months ago, I hadn’t either. Yet here we are, discussing Ne Zha 2 – a Chinese fantasy epic that has managed to redefine the global box office before even gaining the benefit of a major Western release until now.
Walking into my local IMAX theater, I was intrigued to find the premiere screening of this international phenomenon completely empty. There’s a strange irony in that – this global juggernaut arriving in America like a quiet whisper, as if I had somehow been invited to a private screening of history in the making.
A Sequel with Bigger Stakes
Ne Zha 2 picks up where its 2019 predecessor left off. That first film – solid, though modest in its reach – told the story of Ne Zha, the trickster child of generals Li Jing and Lady Yin. Destined by a cosmic mishap to be born with demonic attributes instead of godly grace, Ne Zha was cursed to die at the age of three, lightning striking him down as fate demanded. His only friend was Ao Bing, the dragon prince who inherited the Spirit Pearl, the divine essence originally meant for Ne Zha. Their bond – a fragile alliance between the most unlikely of kindred spirits – ended in sacrifice: their bodies dissolved in lightning, though their spirits endured.
In Ne Zha 2, written and directed once again by Jiaozi, the question becomes: what happens after defying destiny? The film opens with Taiyi Zhenren, Ne Zha’s bumbling yet wise mentor, attempting to restore Ne Zha and Ao Bing to physical form. An interruption complicates matters, and the two spirits are forced – in largely comedic fashion – to share one body. This odd-couple arrangement sets off an odyssey across heaven, earth, and sea, with Ne Zha seeking immortality not for glory but to save both his best friend and his home.
A Myth on the Scale of Marvel
It would be tempting to dismiss Ne Zha 2 as a curiosity, a cultural artifact inflated by foreign box office momentum. But to do so would be to ignore its undeniable craft and scope, because Jiaozi has built a spectacle that could just as easily rival anything from DC or Marvel.
The animation, particularly in IMAX, is breathtaking. Cascading waterfalls crash against cliffside pagodas. Empires rise and fall beneath sprawling skies. A prison break unfolds beneath the ocean’s crushing weight, lit by bioluminescent fire. Dragon fire glows in tri-colored arcs, while martial arts duels slow time to savor the rhythm of each strike.
And yes, there is humor. Sometimes broad, sometimes juvenile. Jiaozi seems unafraid of slapstick or even gross-out comedy – fart jokes, a reference to eating boogers, and even a moment involving regurgitated vomit. At first, this tone feels somewhat jarring. But like many great modern films, the story makes space for levity alongside the profound. Beneath the laughter lies an emotional core of startling sincerity.
A Story of Parents and Children
What elevates Ne Zha 2 beyond spectacle is its insistence on grounding fantasy in human emotion. This is a film not just about heroes and gods, but about parents and children. Li Jing is a father who would move heaven and earth to protect his son. Lady Yin, voiced in the English dub by Michelle Yeoh, radiates warmth and resilience, embodying the mother who would sacrifice everything just to embrace her child. There’s something quietly devastating in her scenes, moments where myth yields to simple, recognizable gestures of care.
There are worthwhile criticisms to be leveled at the film’s casting. Yeoh’s presence undeniably adds prestige and marketability, but the replacement of Chinese-American voice actress Stephanie Sheh, who originated the role in the 2019 dub, is worth noting considering the animation industry’s long and questionable history of sidelining career voice talent in favor of celebrity names. Still, Yeoh brings a gravity to Lady Yin’s limited screen time, anchoring the film’s most poignant moments.
These parents, like the gods themselves, refuse to accept that fate must be cruel. In their defiance we glimpse something deeply moving: the belief that love can alter destiny. Ne Zha 2 insists that no prophecy is stronger than the bond between parent and child, and no curse more enduring than silence left where love should be spoken.
A Chinese Epic for the Modern Day
For Western viewers unfamiliar with the Investiture of the Gods (the 16th-century novel on which the film is loosely based), the tone of Ne Zha 2 may feel closer to anime than to Disney or Pixar. Its pacing, its blend of slapstick and high drama, its emphasis on youthful defiance of authority – all echo the structure of long-running shonen series along the lines of Naruto.
This isn’t coincidence. Like those Japanese sagas, Ne Zha 2 is about testing limits, breaking through destiny’s walls, and affirming the right to exist as oneself. Ne Zha’s struggle is not just against external foes but against the expectation that he must either conform or perish. That such a theme thrives in a state-approved blockbuster from China is remarkable in itself, as the film is a masterful parable about nonconformity and resilience.
The Messiness of Myth
At 144 minutes, the film moves quickly but never feels rushed. Its energy is relentless, its imagination boundless. Some sequences may test one’s patience – the humor is not for everyone, even myself – and yet, even those moments feel like part of a larger tapestry. Myths, after all, are rarely tidy. They combine the grotesque with the sublime, laughter with terror, chaos with beauty.
When the final act arrives – a crescendo of visual invention and emotional catharsis – the film achieves something rare. The thunderclaps that once heralded Ne Zha’s doom now sound like applause, a triumph over the inevitability of death itself.
Conclusion
Ne Zha II is more than a cultural curiosity or record-breaking anomaly. It is a film that, in its best moments, heals the inner child who longed to hear their parents say the words they could not find. It is a reminder that destiny can be rewritten, that love is not bound by fate, and that even in the silliest of comedies or the wildest of spectacles, cinema can touch something deeply human.
Ne Zha 2 deserves every bit of success that has come its way. And it deserves to be seen, not as a foreign novelty, but as part of the shared language of storytelling.