Biggest Movie Of The Year Is Making Waves

The biggest movie of the year is here and it's generating a buzz everywhere. It isn’t ripped from a video game or a live-action remake of an animated children’s classic. It’s a sequel based on intellectual property that's familiar to much of the earth’s population, but chances are, you haven’t even heard of "Ne Zha II" until now.

It’s an animated action fantasy film that was released on 29 January in mainland China and has since made US$ 2.2 billion at the global box office. Written and directed by Jiao Zi, it follows a demon boy with remarkable but uncontrollable powers who faces a series of challenges to save his friends and family.

"Ne Zha II" is fascinatingly popular — the biggest animated movie of all time and the first non-Hollywood film to ever gross more than US$ 2 billion. Critics love it too, lauding the "massively scaled, spectacular visuals" and its "mind-blowing" blend of genres as the film’s Rotten Tomatoes score sits above 90 percent.

The buzz for "Ne Zha II" has only recently made its way to the United States, with trendy independent studio A24 releasing a version dubbed in English, featuring Oscar winner Michelle Yeoh, in theaters last 22 August. Though it only made US$ 1.5 million at the U.S. box office during its opening weekend, failing to outperform fellow animated demon-centric movie KPop Demon Hunters, the latter had weeks of domestic hype-building in the books ahead of time as it dominated Netflix streaming charts and offered fun sing-along screenings. Both films topped "Eden", it-girl Sydney Sweeney’s latest release.

The story itself is a little difficult to follow if you’re not familiar with Chinese legends and religious mythology pulled from Buddhism, Confucianism and Daoism — the film's naysayers have called it "exhausting" and confusing.

In the prologue, viewers get caught up on what happened in the original 2019 movie. The spiritual energy of heaven and earth formed a Chaos Pearl, which was then divided into two parts — the Spirit Pearl and the Demon Orb. The titular Ne Zha, the son of a warrior, receives the Demon Orb, and the son of an imprisoned king, Ao Bing, receives the Spirit Pearl.

Due to his demon status, Ne Zha becomes an outcast — but befriends the one person who should truly be his enemy, Ao Bing. The first film ends with their spirits being separated from their bodies.

The second film picks up with Ne Zha and Ao Bing attempting to restore their physical forms. They team up with Master Taiyi, the film’s comic relief. Their plan goes awry, forcing Ao Bing to share Ne Zha’s body with him. Together, they head to a palace where Ne Zha must pass a series of tests to become immortal, which would give him access to an elixir that can save his friend. Violent battles, deception and trickery ensue, leading to higher stakes than one might expect from a children’s movie.

There’s no denying that it’s a sight to behold, though, if you can handle it — according to A24, it took five years to make, and 4,000 people across 138 animation companies worked on it. With that extent of a workforce involved in its production, it’s no surprise they pulled off such an expectation-defying hit.

The subversive nature of the gritty animated movie might be what’s making it stand out internationally. George Huang, a filmmaker and professor at the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television, tells Yahoo the good-versus-evil story is sure to resonate with audiences, though the "hero" at its center isn’t your typical protagonist. Ne Zha is a mischievous, trouble-making demon who defies people’s misgivings, saving the world in the process.