The hit Chinese movie Na Zha 2 is in theaters in the USA. The first Na Zha came out in 2019. Na Zha 2, is a continuation of one epic story, first told in ancient China. You can think of it like The Hobbit movies by Peter Jackson: one book, broken into two movies.

If you’re going to see Na Zha 2 then of course you need to watch the first part beforehand, and fortunately, you can do that for free on YouTube, in English no less! The movie is 1h 50m long and has outstanding animation.

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If you really like the story, I would recommend watching the 1979 animation. It’s only 58-minutes long and covers the entire story that the new version of Na Zha takes about 4 1/2-hours to cover. It’s a little like watching a 1950s Disney film.

Mythological Themes

Movies based on mythological tales have the advantage that they are already well-told stories. If they weren’t, they wouldn’t have been passed down from generation to generation for hundreds or thousands of years. Over time, these stories are polished from one storyteller to another, and the best versions are passed along to the present.

Na Zha: a small part of a larger story

The story told in Na Zha is essentially one chapter in a one-hundred-chapter story: Investiture of the Gods (wiki). Chinese mythology has a fantastic depth. You could spend a lifetime absorbing it and never finish.