Ne Zha - The Ascent of the Fire Warrior, the sequel that wasn't (but rocks)

Considering the low regard for animated cinema (outside of Pixar and a few imitators) in our parts, and the similar attention given to Asian productions, the arrival of Ne Zha - The Ascent of the Fire Warrior in our cinemas is already an exceptional event in itself. However, it becomes a little less inexplicable if one looks at the numbers that Jiaozi's film (animator, screenwriter, producer, and of course, Chinese director) has generated around the planet and the records it has broken: the highest-grossing animated film in history (2.2 billion dollars against an 80 million budget), the first animated film to exceed one billion in revenue in a single country (China), and the first animated film to break the 2 billion box office barrier.

As easily inferable from the figures, Ne Zha - The Ascent of the Fire Warrior (whose original title is Ne Zha 2) immediately became a cultural phenomenon in its homeland, with its wave expanding far beyond Asian borders, a clear and tangible sign of the growing sphere of Chinese influence, now capable of reaching the West on numerous occasions, overlapping with Hollywood's decades-long influence. In the USA, the production and distribution company A24 was quick to grasp the change, acquiring the rights to the first Ne Zha (also a huge success in China). In Italy, Ne Zha - The Ascent of the Fire Warrior is in cinemas these days thanks to the efforts of Minerva Pictures, which moved this summer to secure the rights; however, it is still impossible to watch the first chapter of the saga through the platforms available in Italy, which somewhat complicates the understanding of every twist and turn of this intricate and majestic sequel.

A Majestic Narrative

It is indeed complicated not to feel a certain sense of bewilderment during the first few minutes of Ne Zha - The Ascent of the Fire Warrior, during which we meet Ne Zha and Ao Bing, a pair of protagonists who appear only in spiritual form in the opening. A brief (very, very brief) summary of the previous film then allows us to understand that at the end of the final clash, both lost their physical bodies. It is a rather extreme synthesis of the previous chapter that does not allow us to understand what is at stake in the story, nor how the relationship between the protagonists has evolved. For an Italian viewer, it turns out to be a kind of involuntary in medias res beginning, in which one navigates by sight for a few tens of minutes before finding the coordinates of the story.

Soon, the volatile and jovial master Zhenren enters the scene, using the powers of a miraculous and enormous lotus flower to create two new, very fragile bodies for the young pair. Meanwhile, Ao Bing's father, believing his son dead, unleashes an attack on Chentang Pass. If you feel disoriented, that's the effect we anticipated earlier: the events of Ne Zha - The Ascent of the Fire Warrior are deeply linked to the events that occurred and the relationships made explicit in the previous chapter. And unlike the Western approach, which often tends towards oversimplification and didactic exposition of every concept when addressing children, here Jiaozi goes straight his own way, relying on the audience's attention. Even without fully understanding the nuances and some gags, one can clearly discern the factions involved, while Ne Zha embarks on his hero's journey, in which he must overcome three trials to achieve immortality, hiding within himself the soul of Ao Bing, who is bodiless and has become the brake on his friend's demonic impulses.

A Deserved Success

From the start of this second act, Ne Zha - The Ascent of the Fire Warrior follows an even less canonical trend (at least by my standards as a Western viewer accustomed to more "domesticated" animation), in which Ne Zha's trials alternate with sudden shifts in allegiance at Chentang Pass, managing without apparent difficulty an enormous tangle of threads that converge through plots and subplots towards a final act that further raises the bar of majesty, epic scale, and wonder. Behind an ever-present humor, sometimes very "physical," other times more subtle, Jiaozi's animation proves not to fear complexity, tackling it both narratively and productively, emerging victorious in both cases.

Within Ne Zha, tradition and modernity coexist, the latter not understood as adherence to Western standards, but as an attempt to offer answers that can help overcome dogmas and stigmas of today's Chinese society, with which the young audience it addresses in its homeland lives. Ne Zha - The Ascent of the Fire Warrior is a complex film also because it does not speak directly to us, but through the universal language of cinema, it manages to reach anyone, even those who sit in the theater knowing nothing at all. With its syncopated rhythm, which suddenly brakes and restarts, with its plot that flips perspectives and allegiances multiple times, pulling threads visible to the attentive viewer, with its CGI that manages an endless succession of enormous, crowded scenes with an incalculable multitude of characters who dialogue with Chinese mythology, Ne Zha - The Ascent of the Fire Warrior is an epic of colors and forms that amaze and dazzle.