Film Name: 哪吒之魔童闹海 / Ne Zha 2
This year’s Spring Festival has made new history, with the headline smash hit Ne Zha 2 so hot that it has made many market truisms fail ……
I’m getting a little numb watching Ne Zha continue to set all kinds of box office records, just waiting for it to become the box office champion of China’s movie market and then see if it can reach over 8.7 billion yuan.
During this period of time, a whole lot has been said about why Ne Zha 2 is so popular with audiences, including but not limited to, well-made, smooth narrative, colorful characters, deep meaning, beautiful graphics, full of emotions, detailed special effects, cute and burning, etc., etc., etc., etc., etc.
All of these reasons are of course correct and important, but I think the most fundamental basis for Ne Zha 2 to be a hit, and the advantage that many people are most likely to ignore or trivialize, is actually just two words: funny.
The key to determining whether a movie is a hit or not is never us, the “idle people” or movie fans who comment on the internet, but a large number of “seasonal viewers” who don’t usually go into the theater. Their biggest demand for movies is “relaxation and leisure”, so comedies have always been in high demand.
In the fiercely competitive Spring Festival season, comedies have an inherent advantage – the current record for the highest single-day box office of a domestic movie is still the 1.01 billion yuan of Detective Chinatown 3 in the Spring Festival season of 2021.
Last year’s Chinese New Year box office best Yolo and Pegasus 2, although the biggest selling point is not comedy, but because of hanging the name of the comedy film, in the end, both helped the film sold more than 3 billion.
“Comedy film sells well” this truth everyone understands, but many filmmakers are reluctant to shoot comedy films, this type is always in the movie fans ‘contempt chain’ at the end of the chain; but at the same time, there are a lot of simply not good to shoot the comedy of the jerks, engaged in a large number of shoddy film! But at the same time, there are a lot of bad comedians who make a lot of shoddy movies to fool the audience, which makes more people dislike comedies.
To put it bluntly, it’s hard to make comedies, and it’s even harder to make good, timely, popular comedies, like “Detective Chinatown 3”, which got into the lower market with its shallow and commonplace punchlines, but the poor word-of-mouth has made it difficult for it to go any further.
Coincidentally, Ne Zha 2 is not only the strongest blockbuster, but also the funniest comedy among this year’s Spring Festival movies.
Only the ‘funny’ of the magical child Nezha has been controversial since its inception.
As early as before the release of Nezha: Birth of the Demon Child in 2019, there were many people who questioned its image design, with its lewd and evil appearance, and two smoky dark circles under his eyes, how to look at it does not look like the protagonist, so how can the audience buy it?
But then the audience took action to answer the question – at that time, many people attributed the success of Birth of the Demon Child to the latter half of the film’s “My life is up to me, but not to God”, but I think it was a good idea to attract people to the theater in the first place. But I think the sweet spot that drew people into the theater in the first half was the nonsense of little Nezha.
In the movie, Nezha, who is possessed by a magic pill, is a little devil who doesn’t do anything harmful, in other words, he’s just a high-grade version of an urchin who likes to play pranks and make limerick poems, which makes him annoying, but not to the extent that it’s really disgusting.
For those who do as they please and have no inhibitions (especially mischievous children), Nezha is friendly enough to empathize with, while those who follow the rules and keep to themselves will find him amusing and even envious.
Aside from the fact that it’s a set-up for bratty, impatient people, Ne Zha’s jokes are easy to understand, simple and effective, but that’s the main “flaw” it’s been criticized for, especially for its “piss and fart” moments.
Birth of the Demon Child featured a sissy strong man, eating snot, peeing and farting, and Dumpling is still the same in Ne Zha 2 (as the creator should be), with foot-picking and nose-blowing, stepping on skirts, and drinking a strong version of “fairy dew”.
Is it cheesy? It’s so cheesy it’s almost “bad”. Is it effective? Especially effective, and this kind of vulgarity is not simply vulgar or kitsch.
Take the Jade Palace in the movie that episode to speak of, why will appear to step on the skirt, drink spiced fairy dew results, is not because of the Jade Palace that false, is “hypocritical” false?
To recap, Crane Child took Nezha to “change clothes” – a urinating child was in a hurry to get some water, but Crane Child was still in the posture of a child, slowly walking around and around, and Nezha was not allowed to make any noise, so Nezha accidentally stepped on her skirt, and then went to change clothes. Nezha’s skirt is accidentally ruined, and the crane child hastens to change his clothes, thus allowing Nezha to get lost and go to the wrong place.
In other words, Nezha had the opportunity to spice up the immortal nectar because Crane Girl was trying to maintain her demeanor throughout, not wanting to show the slightest trace of her demonic race.
After drinking the “Immortal Dew,” Immortal Weng didn’t simply show a satisfied expression and say it was good, nor did he immediately spit it out because he felt something was wrong, but rather he frowned as if he were tasting wine and tea, and then quipped that the taste was strong and that it should be used in the same way as the craft, which is a masterstroke for fully saturating the baggage to maximize the comedic effect.
In addition, only the protagonists themselves (Nezha, Taiyi) and the villains (Crane Boy, Xianweng) are really hurt by the “immortal dew”, which seems to be a big scale, but in fact, it has also left a certain amount of space.
It doesn’t matter if the jokes are cheesy, or if they’re just a bunch of shit, but it’s rare to find someone who can pull off something that’s so tightly integrated with the plot and characters, as well as logical and accurate.
Of course, this is not to say that you want to be funny have to play the vulgar, “elegant” funny also have, such as the 2019 release of the animated film “The Legend of Hei” is one of the best.
Based on the anime of the same name, The Legend of Hei has a knack for comedy, with high-class, clean laughs and very “anime-y” baggage that you’ll feel comfortable watching.
The only problem is that there’s a slight barrier to getting those laughs in the movie, and you may have to do a double-take in parts of the movie in order to laugh at them. Although it’s very satisfying when you do laugh, it’s really not as universal or entertaining as something like Ne Zha 2, which you can laugh at at a glance. ……
The reality is that many filmmakers aren’t happy to please their audiences (they’re more keen to educate them), and those who are left who are willing are generally too bad at it.
But Dumpling is a master of his craft; he’s a big fan of acting himself, and he’s been personally involved in voice direction on both movies (he dubbed King Groundhog in Ne Zha 2), and he spends his days polishing up the plot and laughs, and thoroughly making the dangling little Ne Zha hang out with the funny.
Anyway, whenever I think of/see the image of Ne Zha on the white jade stage flicking his tongue in a dribbling manner to say hello, and then getting whacked on the head by Tai Yi Zhen, I can’t help but laugh out loud.
This kind of self-contained comedy in characterization + persona has reached a point where it’s a natural fit.
When I think of how in most other comedy movies nowadays, one still has to rely on exaggerated expressions, suffering makeup, raw baggage, one-threaded segments, etc., to be funny, I feel more and more that Ne Zha 2 is not easy to make …… You can say that its laughs are crass and clichéd, but you can’t deny that it’s “laugh out loud! “Easy to absorb, easy to digest, easy to see.
I can’t help but think of my own wa, the first few years she was happy to go to the cinema, I can take her to see a dozen or two dozens of sub-feeding to the animation in a year, but last year on the call can’t move her, the whole year only three or four (in addition to the “Boonie Bears” there is nothing I want to see outside of the film), it is clear that her interest shifted, or don’t want to see a movie too low.
And this year we went to see Ne Zha 2 on the morning of the first day of the Lunar New Year, after which I went to see it on second viewing at her urging, and have already made plans to go to see it on third viewing in IMAX a few days later – it’s the first movie she’s ever seen on second viewing in the theater, and she’s just as hooked on it as I am, largely because of how funny and entertaining it is! “Funny, funny”.
Today’s record-breaking box office results also prove that Ne Zha 2 has won over the sinking market, bringing countless viewers into the theater for the first time or again.
It is only when the general audience is entertained and amused that they will have the interest and patience to see the story through and continue to realize that the film has so much more to offer as mentioned at the beginning of this article.
The four words “elegance and vulgarity” are easy to say, but in reality it is very difficult to do. We do not lack of filmmakers who play with elegance or vulgarity (especially “elegance” and “vulgarity” without any limit), but we lack of filmmakers who play with elegance or vulgarity (especially “elegance” and “vulgarity” without any limit). There’s no shortage of filmmakers who play highbrow or lowbrow (especially the smugly “elegant” and the unabashedly “cheesy”), but there’s a shortage of creators who can do both, and who are actually willing to put in the effort to respect their audience.
Ne Zha 2″ is certainly not a perfect movie, and there are many shortcomings and improvements ……, but it can make most viewers laugh out loud while ensuring that both the elegant and the vulgar can be appreciated together, and maintains a very high lower limit and upper limit.
It is well deserved for such a movie to become the new box office champion in the Chinese movie market.
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