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Thread: Nezha

  1. #16
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    PRC's big box office winners

    DECEMBER 18, 2019 1:28AM PT
    China’s Box Office Total Breaks All-Time Record
    By PATRICK FRATER
    Asia Bureau Chief


    CREDIT: COURTESY OF CHINA FILM GROUP

    The Chinese box office has broken its all-time yearly record, with local films accounting for eight of the top 10 movies so far in 2019 and a few more anticipated releases yet to come. The previous record total, set last year, of RMB60.7 billion – $8.67 billion at current conversion rates – was overtaken last Friday, according to data from online ticketing agency Maoyan.

    With nearly two weeks to go until the end of the year, and a clutch of big titles to be released during the busy Christmas season, 2019’s takings could show several percentage points of growth from last year. Maoyan chose not to issue a forecast, noting that some 2019 releases remain fluid even at this late stage.

    The record-breaking haul seemed an unlikely outcome throughout the first half of the year, when the local industry was dogged by uncertainty caused by the Fan Bingbing tax scandal. That triggered a sharp slowdown in production from mid-2018, as well as financial difficulties for studios large and small.

    The crucial Chinese New Year period in early 2019 did deliver a record total and a breakthrough for Chinese sci-fi, with “The Wandering Earth” taking RMB4.66 billion ($665 million). But the total did not match the rate of cinema construction, and the season included several disappointments.

    Summer was rescued by the unexpected performance of Chinese animated film “Nezha,” which achieved RMB4.97 billion ($710 million), making it China’s second-highest-grossing film ever. And the early autumn, which included a clutch of patriotic movies with releases intended to coincide with the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic, turned into blockbuster season. Winners were “My People, My Country” and “The Captain” (previously known as “The Chinese Pilot”). It also threw up the unlikely breakthrough of oft-delayed “Better Days,” a local film that got yanked at the last minute from the Berlin Film Festival because of Chinese censors.

    Among foreign titles, the only two to figure in the year’s current top 10 are “Avengers: Endgame” and “Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw.”

    Maoyan noted that this year has seen a marked polarization of the Chinese box office. “Nezha” and “Wandering Earth” together account for nearly one sixth of the entire annual total. “China needs more high-quality movies to drive the steady growth of the box office,” it said in an announcement. It highlighted “Song of Youth,” “The Legend of Hei” and “White Snake” as examples of low- and mid-budget successes.
    THREADS
    Chollywood rising
    Avengers: Endgame
    Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw
    The Wandering Earth
    Nezha
    Gene Ching
    Publisher www.KungFuMagazine.com
    Author of Shaolin Trips
    Support our forum by getting your gear at MartialArtSmart

  2. #17
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    NE ZHA (2020) Official English Dub Trailer | Epic Animated Chinese Movie



    Okay, that's not how to pronounce 'Nezha'. This English-dubbed version is getting a re-release next Friday (JAN 31). I'm so torn. I think this might be great on the big screen but this dubbing sounds awful.
    Gene Ching
    Publisher www.KungFuMagazine.com
    Author of Shaolin Trips
    Support our forum by getting your gear at MartialArtSmart

  3. #18
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    First forum review

    Dang. I forgot to review this one too.

    Nezha is the baby god, a figure out of Chinese myth like the Monkey King. In fact, he battles the Monkey King early on in Journey to the West. He is the baby god, with a magic spear, a magic scarf and flaming wind fire wheels for celestial roller skates which evolve into the Wind Fire Wheel weapons of Kung Fu, the ones I demonstrated for Man at Arms: Art of War. This animated film was a major blockbuster in PRC and I've been wanting to see it since.

    It's an origin story, but I don't know much about Nezha's origins beyond JttW and research I've done on the weapons. My friend Prof. Meir Shahar did a major academic study on him but embarrassingly I've not read that yet - see OEDIPAL GOD: THE CHINESE NEZHA AND HIS INDIAN ORIGINS. In this, Nezha's birth ritual is disrupted by evil forces and split into two entities. Nezha is raised in a village but he's an outcast and rightly so because he brings destruction whenever he escapes from his home. This makes him an angsty brat with untold superpowers. His parents are minor deities and he has a mentor, a fat drunken god who rides a flying pig with dumbo ears and has a magic paintbrush with which he can create holodecks in paintings and paint objects to change reality. The split entity is a born in a dragon who incarnates as a white clad warrior with deer horns. The Dragon King is chained at the bottom of the sea with the dragon clan, keeping back hellish demons from rising to the earth. It's heavy Yaoguai magic, a deep dive into Chinese myth.

    At first, this felt like it stole the backgrounds from Kung Fu Panda, but it takes off when the magic battles begin. There's some great stuff in here. Sure, it's got a lot of the trappings of PRC animation, pee & **** jokes (including a **** trap escape), lots of cartoonish comic relief like dopey Monty Pythonesque guards, a burly effeminate villager, a drunk fool, a flying pig that sneezes visions, a sea demon that blows petrifying bubbles and antidote snot. It's all about the fight scenes. There are sword fights, magic chi blasts, weird spiky weapons, that magic spear, a magic flywhisk, that magic brush and shuttlecock action - total superhero choreo, very satisfying and somewhat fresh in its vision.

    The funny thing is the version I watched had fan subtitles which were clearly generated by just tossing it into some web translator, so some were right and the rest was literal, so made little sense. Nezha's parents call him "pediatric inquisition". All the explanations of the foundation myths make no sense at all. My fav was a subtitle that had no context - "heart is meat". Between my broken Mandarin, following the context and the weird subtitles, this was an exercise to understand. I'd probably have had better luck if I just ignored the subs, but they were rather amusing in their own way.
    Gene Ching
    Publisher www.KungFuMagazine.com
    Author of Shaolin Trips
    Support our forum by getting your gear at MartialArtSmart

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