English Dub Review: The Legend of Hei 2

In 2019, indie animator MTJJ released The Legend of Hei, an animated feature film that worked as a prequel to his webseries The Legend of Luo Xiaohei, which started in 2011 and is still going to this day. As a prequel, the movie worked as an introduction to the show’s world without much need for prerequisite knowledge, focusing on a cat spirit named Hei as he was pulled between a radical anti-human faction of spirits that took him in and his eventual mentor, the immortal human Wuxian, as Hei’s latent and untapped powers bring a conflict between spirits to a head. Seven years later, we’re here to talk about the sequel, which ups the ante on several levels, most of all the animation quality, which goes to show the small band of animators that made the first movie have truly grown as a team. Following up from the end of the first film, Hei has now started his tutelage to control his abilities under Wuxian, but when an attack on a human stronghold leads the guild they work for to suspect Wuxian of the crime, Hei must work with his old apprentice Luye to clear his name and uncover the true culprit before tensions boil over.

First off, a comment on the dub. I know these are titled “english dub review” but it’s usually just about the subject itself instead of its dubbing, unless it’s really good or bad. In this case, there’s a correction made in the dubbing for this sequel from the first movie, where all the characters had literally translated names. Apparently since then, the dubbing group decided to just give everyone their chinese names back instead of trying to call Wuxian “Infinity” since that’s the literal translation. As for the story, the main dynamic shifts from Hei and Wuxian in the first movie to Hei and Luye, which goes to show that Hei’s attitude towards humans has changed since the first movie. Luye, who suffered similar trauma to Hei but at an older age, is less ready to accept them and is even more casual with possibly letting them die on missions, which makes Hei mistrust her, but the bond between them as “sibling apprentices” helps them to overcome the difference in philosophy and work together. As for Wuxian, he takes a backseat for a good portion of the movie, hanging back with NeZha (unrelated to the Ne Zha of the other recent Chinese animated movie that made two billion dollars), but when he gets a chance to cut loose to protect the spirits, he basically gets the highlight of the movie. In fact, the first thing I saw of this series was the scene of him storming the human base single handedly in a t-shirt and yoga pants, which certainly made an impression even if I didn’t know where it was from.

Basically, if you enjoyed the first movie for its animation, characters, and themes, you’ll likely enjoy this sequel even more, as it adds dimension to every one of those aspects and more. I don’t know when or if the original web series will get some sort of official western release, but thankfully these movies stand on their own as self-contained stories, with fully realized characters, good morals, and jaw dropping animation. That said, we have no idea when or if we’ll get a third installment, but I’m confident that when it does hit, it will be worth the wait. There’s been a ton of Chinese donghua making their ways here to show just how underrated their animation industry is, and hopefully one day this will be counted among the greats of that group.