Film breaks world box office records

Virtually unknown in the West, animated film Ne Zha 2 has taken over China and smashed global box office records, The Observer’s Amy Hawkins reports.

Just a few years ago, the biggest star of the Chinese box office was a brave army commander.

Last year, it was a woman who rediscovers herself through boxing.

But in 2025 the hero who has caught everyone’s attention — and broken international box office records — is an animated demon child.

Ne Zha 2, a Chinese animated film written and directed by Yang Yu, is a whirlwind of a film.

The plot, inspired by Chinese mythology, follows the story of Ne Zha, a demon child raised by humans.

He is on a quest to obtain a precious elixir to restore the physical state of his friend, the dragon prince Ao Bing, whose body has been destroyed by a lightning strike.

Epic battle scenes and spellbinding graphics — and a dose of symbolism — have enticed Chinese audiences to the cinema in their millions.

Since its release over the lunar new year holiday between the end of January and the middle of February, Ne Zha 2 has taken 14.7 billion yuan ($NZ3.5b) at the box office, making it the best-performing film in Chinese cinema history.

Ne Zha 2 has also broken records globally: it is the highest-grossing animated film worldwide, surpassing Pixar’s Inside Out 2.

Ne Zha 2 marks a shift from the patriotic epics that have dominated Chinese cinemas for the past few years.

The Battle at Lake Changjin, which Ne Zha 2 pushed into second place, is a 2021 Communist Party-sponsored film that depicts Chinese soldiers battling Americans in the Korean War.

Wolf Warrior 2, now third in the Chinese box-office rankings, is a 2017 film about a Chinese soldier who protects aid workers in Africa.

That did not mean Chinese audiences were turning away from patriotism, Yu Yaqin, an independent film critic in Beijing, said.

But it reflected the fact "everybody can find something that resonates" in Ne Zha 2.

With the economy at a difficult ebb, and young people facing high unemployment rates, dissatisfaction with Chinese society was higher than it was a few years ago.

The storyline about battling injustice and powerful authorities might feel particularly apt, Yu said.

In one scene, Ne Zha proclaims: "My fate is controlled by myself, not by God."

"That really fits into the current situation, where a lot of people might be struggling," Yu said.

"If a country isn’t doing well, people want to put more focus on themselves."

But patriotic viewers may also find their feelings reflected in the film.

Some commentators have suggested there is anti-American symbolism in the film, such as when Ne Zha visits the jade palace belonging to the evil Shen Gongbao.

Ne Zha gawps at how white the jade is — nationalists have suggested it represents the White House.

There is also a good dose of luck.

The film was released over the lunar new year holiday, a time when many families make their only annual trip to the cinema.

While the film was originally a word-of-mouth hit, local authorities and businesses soon jumped on the bandwagon to promote China’s latest national hero, snowballing the film’s success into a moment that netizens have described as China’s guoyun, or national destiny.

The writer Afra Wang explained in a recent essay for the ChinaTalk newsletter: "Having weathered the pandemic’s disruption, many ordinary Chinese seek reassurance about the future through familiar cultural frameworks.

"‘National destiny’ provides exactly that — it’s a narrative that contextualises current struggles within a larger, ultimately triumphant story. It’s therapeutic."

Like another of the guoyun darlings — the AI company DeepSeek — Ne Zha 2 is everywhere in China.

At a press conference about the economy on the sidelines of China’s Two Sessions, the annual political meetings that concluded last Tuesday, the commerce minister, Wang Wentao, praised the film’s success in attracting moviegoers to the cinema at a time when China is desperate to boost consumer spending.

One company in Shandong province spent 40,000 yuan buying tickets for its 1000 employees to go and see it.

A bar in Beijing offers a "Ne Zha reborn" cocktail (gin, raspberry, blueberry, roselle and lemon — 95 yuan).

Yu said her local hairdresser was offering discounts to customers who came in with a receipt from seeing Ne Zha 2.

"When things go viral ... every city government will try to claim their involvement or say that they were part of the success story," Yu said.

Despite Ne Zha 2’s success in China, it is unclear if the film will perform as well overseas.

The plot relies to a large degree on familiarity with Chinese mythology and with the original Ne Zha film, which was released in 2019.

The one market where it might have a better-than-average chance because of its shared Chinese cultural history is Taiwan, but the country limits the number of films from China that can be released each year.

Ne Zha 2 is not on the list for 2025.

The film had its full release in the UK on Friday.

But even if British audiences swerve, many in China feel that their point has been made: China is reaching its national destiny, without needing the West. — Guardian News & Media

• Additional research by Jason Tzu Kuan Lu.