My wife and I watched the first part of the Na Zhe movie last night. (For free on YouTube.) I’m curious to see how Na Zhe 2 will pick up the story. I’m pretty sure they’ll have a few minutes in the beginning devoted to what’s happened so far. Na Zhe 2 is about 2 1/2 hours long, so they have plenty of time.
Chinese Mythic Stories
My impression is that Chinese mythic stories are similar to ancient Greek mythology in their fantastic nature. That’s something to keep in mind while watching Ne Zhe. Ne Zhe was written during 16th century Ming Dynasty, but the character Ne Zhe has roots in Chinese mythology going back thousands of years ago. Again, similar to ancient Greek mythology.
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This is not the Ne Zhe of old
You can read an English translation of the chapters in Investiture of the Gods that cover Ne Zhe here. Suffice to say, the movie takes some liberties with the original. Obviously there is much that is added because the entire story of Ne Zhe takes only a handful of minutes to read, yet they’re expanding it to 4 1/2 hours of movie time. That’s some Peter Jackson-level story padding-right there. 🙂
Many of the characters in the movie have vastly different motivations than they did in the book. But we’re talking about mythic stories in the first place. They were never real to begin with.
Darth Ne Zhe
While watching the movie, I noticed that Ne Zhe has many similarities to the arc of Anikan Skywalker/Darth Vader. They are not exactly the same, but they are similar. The youthful Ne Zhe is exuberant and defies authority. They both have mentors who to guide them, yet are unsuccessful. Both feel misunderstood but most of all, both are lied to and manipulated by an evil character that seeks to use their powers for their own benefit. This is however an aspect of the movie that I don’t notice from the original Chinese mythic story.
The Ne Zhenator
The creators of the movie introduced many modern cultural references. You’ll notice that right away. Soon after Ne Zhe is born he is surrounded by a glowing red orb as the theme from The Terminator played with Chinese instruments builds. We then see the orb fade and leave Ne Zhe in a small indentation in the ground, just as the Terminator was after traveling back in time. It’s a cute nod to modern culture, and it’s not the last. I can only guess how many Chinese references to modern culture there are that I completely missed.
English Subtitles
Even though the movie is in English, you may want to turn on English subtitles because some of the dialog isn’t crystal clear because of action going on. What’s interesting is that the subtitles are not remotely the same as the dialog. It appears that the subtitles are translations done independently of the translations for the dialog. There are times that a character has a long diatribe and the subtitles are just a few words.
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