New Gods: Nezha Reborn

In the peak movie season of the Spring Festival holiday, a domestic animation has earned itself a place among the many films released, and has won numerous positive reviews.

As a dark horse of the film box office during the Lunar New Year, the film has left a deep impression on countless audiences with its amazing animation production technology, and also left a strong symbol of Chinese traditional culture in the film market of the colorful Spring Festival. This film conveys to us through the re-creation that whoever you are, you should try your best to make your own world.

The background of the story is set in a Shanghai alley with a Chinese flavor. The Shanghai Town is full of songs and dance and a peaceful atmosphere. In these alleyways, the main character of the story, Li Yunxiang, appears. In the film passages that depict the background of the story, Chinese elements, such as qipao, the boys walking through the streets selling newspapers, the neighbors sitting in rocking chairs and chatting in Shanghai accent at the entrance of the lane, and the lively dance halls, can be seen almost everywhere.

The film tells the story of Nezha who escaped the heaven and the gods' accountability for his sins 3,000 years ago, and is constantly reborn, while the Dragon King of the East China Sea took on the guise of the famous De family in the East China Sea. It seems that he is doing water conservancy business. In fact, he not only occupies all the fresh water resources in the East China Sea to support the dragon, which symbolizes extreme evil, but also takes revenge by suppressing Nezha in every life. Nezha and his current life, Li Yunxiang, redeem and achieve each other, and finally save the people of the East China Sea and their own world together.

There are three main aspects of the film that show the gradual maturity of national animation technology and the cultural charm of traditional Chinese mythological characters. The first is details of the characters, such as the skin texture of Chinese faces is depicted perfectly, the beard of the third prince of the Dragon King and the scaly skin of the dragon after the transformation are all amazing. In addition, the portrayal of the image of spirit in the body of Sun Wukong and Nezha in the film is also vivid and unique with the intangible felling of god.

The second point is the profound and beautiful images in the film. The two most impressive confrontational scenes are Nezha and Aobing and the Dragon King Aoguang. First, Nezha and Aobing. Aobing is burdened with deep family hatred and has lived in the Dragon Palace since childhood. His weapon is water, while Nezha's weapon happens to be fire. As the saying goes: Water and fire are incompatible, therefore, in the scene of their confrontation, two positive and negative shots were used respectively to show their confrontation, the scene of the power of water and fire made the audience very excited.

Nezha's fight with the Dragon King Aoguang is more like a battle between dark and light, this general attack also led to the emergence of Nezha, the three-headed and six-armed Yuan Shen. When the audience sees the image of the Yuan Shen in the fairy tale, they also feel the rapid rise of special effects production technology of domestic animation, which is no less than that of Disney production.

The last point is the film's Chinese-inspired music. In the film, when Li Yunxiang studies Sun Wukong's phonograph, the machine is playing Peking Opera clips, when Sun Wukong shows his Yuan Shen, the film chooses the opening song of the TV series Journey to the West, which bring back the childhood memories of countless viewers.

All in all, the film New Gods: Nezha Reborn is a traditional Chinese fairy tale carefully created by Light Chaser Animation. Through their increasingly mature animation and special effects production technology, they let viewers into the cinema, feeling the enthusiasm brought by the movie story, the charm of traditional culture, and the rise of domestic animation technology.

They also welcome the first Lunar New Year with the Chinese audience after the epidemic. The film not only shows Nezha's past life, but also tells us more about Nezha's future life after the integration of man and god. The profound traditional Chinese culture will also ensure that the film’s box office and reputation will keep pace, and it will occupy a place in the fierce competition of films during the Spring Festival period.

The author is from School of Resources & Environmental, Tibet Agricultural and Animal Husbandry College.

The opinions expressed here are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent the views of China Daily and China Daily website.

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