English Dub Review: New Gods: Nezha Reborn

Overview (Spoilers Below):

Li Yunxiang is a racer and a fake courier job when he’s really a water smuggler in Donghai city. He crosses paths with the heir to the De clan, Ao Bing that controls the water distribution in the city. Li Yunxiang discovers that he’s the reincarnation of Nezha, sworn enemy to the Dragon King of the East, Ao Guang, and his third son who Nezha killed in his past life, Ao Bing. The Dragon King of the East and his son are the current De clan that hires assassins to kill Li Yunxiang. However, a masked man steps in and helps train Li Yunxiang to control his power. The masked man reveals himself as the Monkey King, Sun Wukong.

He faces off against the De clan after their attempts to kill him and harm the people around him. Li Yunxiang finds out that the De clan has captured the river dragons responsible for producing the water for Donghai city. He enters the Palace of the Dragon King and fights the Dragon King of the East. He attempts to prevent the river dragons from flooding the city, but he dies, and Nezha revives him. Newly revived, Li Yunxiang redirects the river dragon to the sky with his Sky Ribbon. Li Yunxiang saves the city and comes to terms with being Nezha.

 

Our Take:

New Gods: Nezha Reborn is a unique take on the old Chinese novel, Investiture of the Gods. On a quick note, the movie isn’t the sequel to the 2019 Nezha movie both movies were produced by different companies. Admittedly I couldn’t get used to how they pronounced Nezha, but other than that the voice acting was good. I do like how they kept the songs in Mandarin to retain the cultural aspect of the people.

Now the movie’s setting of Donghai city was creative. The environment set up the gap between the wealthy and the poor with the water shortage. There are a lot of chase scenes that showcase the environment of the city and the underwater palace. However, the movie leans into the human relationships and innovations like Li Yunxiang’s skills as a blacksmith rather than use its fantastical aspects to the fullest extent like in the 2019 Nezha movie. There’s also the fact that everyone seems really calm about Li Yunxiang suddenly getting magical fire powers. It makes me question how much of the fantastical is normal for them to the point where the characters don’t mention it.

The animation for the fights is amazing. The scene where the Dragon King of the East flips the tiles of the building to sprout out coral was gorgeous. The primordial spirits being summoned in time with the rock music was great. The character designs are nice. I like how they gave Rosy Cloud, the assassin a prosthetic blade arm. Her fight with Li Yunxiang was exciting with how she uses it as a blade and shield.

However, the plot was average with Li Yunxiang discovering his past life as Nezha and fighting the De clan. Li Yunxiang’s struggle to control his fire powers and his family issues with his father. The fight between Li Yunxiang and Ao Bing was average. It had cool effects, but Ao Bing wanting to fight to prove himself as a Dragon Prince pales in comparison to Li Yunxiang avenging his father. There’s also Rosy Cloud’s animosity towards Li Yunxiang. When she explains how Nezha killed her friend while playing with his master’s bow and arrow. Li Yunxiang gets a flashback to the time Nezha killed Ao Bing. That scene fails to connect Rosy Cloud’s hatred to Nezha and as a result, makes her motive flop and reduces her role in the final conflict.

The movie does expect the viewer to know about Nezha as it only gives snippets of Nezha’s life as a brat that refuses to apologize. It doesn’t go into the reason why Nezha killed the Dragon King’s third son in their past life. It works in painting Nezha as an evil kid. However, it could be confusing to viewers who are jumping into the movie without any knowledge of Nezha’s story. The fact that Nezha and Li Yunxiang have one-sided conversations only adds to the vagueness.

The masked man, the Six-Earred Macaque was an unusual character that helped out Li Yunxiang despite getting bribed to kill him. However, as the movie progresses it’s later revealed that he’s Sun Wukong, the Monkey King and that he’s tired of fixing up the messes of the world. The Monkey King is a wacky mentor that pushes Li Yunxiang forward with his unique explanations.

The family relationships in the movie are rough to put it nicely. It’s got the cliche father figure of Old Li disapproving of Li Yunxiang’s career. Then we get his death scene and it does work because of his talk with Li Yunxiang’s brother and his funeral with the drinks. It pushes Li Yunxiang to storm the De clan on his own and later to save everyone by bringing back the water. Then there’s the terrifying father Ao Guang, the Dragon King of the East. He is scary even in the eyes of his son, Ao Bing. Their beginning interactions make it hard to believe that Ao Guang cares for his son with his actions. Then you see him whisk his son’s corpse to a part of the palace, and the look on his face does show a bit of his sadness.

Now there’s the romance, but it doesn’t overshadow the action. Li Yunxiang’s got a crush on Doctor Su, who is a racer like him. On the other hand Kasha, his friend who sings at a local bar has a crush on him. They both emotionally support him in their own way as he figures out his identity as Nezha. The ending leaves it up to the viewer on the trio’s relationship status as they ride off on the bikes.

Overall New Gods: Nezha Reborn is an interesting twist on an old classic. However, its plot is simplistic and has a few gaps in the explanations for Nezha and his actions.