Ne Zha

The Child, The Demon, and The Mirror

In the landscape of modern animation, where technical polish often disguises a hollow core, Jiao Zi’s *Ne Zha* (2019) arrives like a bolt of lightning—chaotic, dazzling, and undeniably alive. It is a film that refuses to behave. While ostensibly an adaptation of the 16th-century classic *Investiture of the Gods*, this is no dusty museum piece. Jiao Zi, a former pharmacist turned self-taught animator, has injected the rebellious DNA of punk rock into ancient folklore. The result is not just a blockbuster; it is a primal scream against determinism, wrapped in the vibrant, swirling silks of Chinese mythology.



Visually, *Ne Zha* is a high-wire act between the grotesque and the sublime. Jiao Zi rejects the porcelain-doll aesthetic typical of hero myths. His protagonist is ugly—deliberately so. With his sunken, raccoon-like eyes, slouching posture, and shark-toothed grin, Nezha looks less like a deity and more like a latchkey kid who hasn’t slept in a week. This character design is a stroke of brilliance; it forces the audience to confront their own prejudices before the villagers in the film even cast their first stone. The animation matches this energy, utilizing a kinetic, "elastic" camera that swoops through the Dragon King’s underwater purgatory and the celestial scroll paintings with equal fluidity. The color palette is a war of elements: the suffocating, bruised purples of the Dragon Clan clash violently against the defiant, scorching reds of Nezha’s fire.

But the spectacle, as grand as it is, serves a deeply intimate narrative. At its heart, this is a tragedy about the crushing weight of expectation. Nezha is born from a "Demon Orb," cursed by prophecy to destroy the world in three years. He is a child condemned before he has committed a single sin. The film navigates the heartbreaking space of a boy who desperately wants to be loved but is told by the world that he is a monster, eventually deciding to play the role to protect his own bruised ego. It is a poignant allegory for the "problem child"—the one society deems broken, failing to see that the brokenness is a mirror reflecting their own intolerance.



The film’s emotional anchor lies in the relationship between Nezha and Ao Bing, the Dragon Prince. They are cosmic opposites—Fire and Ice, Demon and Spirit—yet mirrored souls. Ao Bing, elegant and noble, is imprisoned by his family’s desperate hope for salvation; Nezha is imprisoned by the world’s fear. Their friendship is the film’s most subversive element, suggesting that the labels of "hero" and "villain" are merely costumes forced upon us by circumstance. The climax, a breathtaking duel that morphs into a desperate alliance against the heavens, is not just a fight for survival, but a rejection of binary morality. When Nezha cries out, "My fate is up to me, not the heavens," it earns the sentiment because we have watched him bleed for it.



*Ne Zha* is flawed, certainly. The slapstick humor, involving a flatulent comic-relief mentor, occasionally undercuts the gravity of the drama. Yet, these tonal jarring moments feel authentically human, a reminder that life is rarely purely tragic or purely heroic. Jiao Zi has crafted a film that asks us to look at the "demons" among us—the outcasts, the weirdos, the misunderstood—and see the potential for divinity. In an era of sanitized fables, *Ne Zha* burns with the messy, glorious heat of real truth.