Like many Malaysians, Melissa Chow usually watches Hollywood films when she goes to the movies.
But several weeks ago, she went with some hesitation to check out Ne Zha 2, an animated feature from China, on the urging of friends.
“I was pleasantly surprised and very impressed by the production,” said Chow, who lives in a suburb of Kuala Lumpur. “I thought the animation, cinematography and storyline were excellent, with humor and plot twists injected at just the right moments.”
Malaysians like Chow have embraced Ne Zha 2 more strongly than audiences anywhere but China, buying MYR 50.3 million (USD 11.9 million) worth of tickets since the film’s local release on March 13. Overall, the movie has racked up USD 2.14 billion in ticket sales in four months, setting world records for both an animated film and a non-English film.
Neither China’s film industry nor any other in Asia has ever produced a hit on this scale before. Among the 59 movies that have generated USD 1 billion in cumulative box-office sales according to industry website Box Office Mojo, Ne Zha 2 is the first to come from beyond the studios of Hollywood.
Yet while curious moviegoers like Chow have turned out in droves, international sales have been inconsequential to the film’s success so far—a stark contrast with the average Hollywood blockbuster, which typically generates 50–75% of its revenues outside the US. The animated feature’s box office take thus shows how far China’s industry has come in terms of creating blockbuster content, and how far it has to go to reshape the global movie market.
“They make stories that Chinese audiences can relate to, which in itself (can produce) a billion-dollar box office, but still they are very limited in what they can do with other, more universal stories,” said Thomas William Whyke, an assistant professor of international communications at the University of Nottingham’s campus in Ningbo, China. “That has an impact on how well their films will do abroad.”
Loosely based on a 16th-century classical Chinese novel known in English as “Investiture of the Gods” or “Creation of the Gods,” Ne Zha 2 is a sequel to a 2019 hit film. Both were directed by Yang Yu, who goes by the nickname “Jiaozi,” the Mandarin Chinese word for dumpling. His latest fantasy adventure centers on two supernatural youth, the demonic Ne Zha and dragon offspring Ao Bing, who are forced to share a single body as they embark on a series of epic trials.
An USD 80 million joint production involving 138 local companies led by Jiaozi’s studio Chengdu Coco Cartoon, Ne Zha 2 was five years in the making and required 4,000 animators and use of the Guian supercomputing center in Guizhou. Sichuan, which encompasses Chengdu, provided financial support for the production.
“China’s entire CGI industry was mobilized to produce Ne Zha 2,” said Daisy Yan Du, a Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) humanities professor, referring to computer-generated imagery.
At first, Chinese CGI studios were unable to render certain elements of Jiaozi’s vision, Du said, such as the rippling fur of a leopard demon. Preparing the movie for display on IMAX screens required particularly detailed imaging.
“Jiaozi pushed hard,” Du said. “As of now, Ne Zha 2 represents the highest achievement of Chinese CGI technology.”
The Chinese animators’ accomplishments in turn have been highlighted in the film’s domestic marketing campaigns and in posts by fans on social media who have championed Ne Zha 2 as the equal of any American production.
“The challenge to Hollywood’s cultural hegemony has been driving the (online) discussions around the film,” Nottingham’s Whyke said.
See Wei Ming, a researcher in Kuala Lumpur, compared Ne Zha 2 to a hit video game from China last year.
“The film’s vibrant animation, rebellious theme and clever humor demonstrate the self-initiative of Chinese filmmakers, akin to those behind Black Myth: Wukong, who are creatively reimagining mythology to captivate domestic audiences while simultaneously ‘telling China’s stories well’ to international audiences,” he said, referencing a slogan often used by Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Some Asians are rallying behind Ne Zha 2 out of a wider sense of regional pride.
Tan Meng Kheng, a Malaysian director and actor, compares the film’s success to that of the Academy Award-winning movie Parasite and the Squid Game television series, both from South Korea.
“You know, all these things have actually made people realize that, ‘Hey, we are not inferior to the West,'” Tan said. “We are actually just as good, if not better.”
A reviewer at the newspaper The Hindu, which is based in Chennai, India, where the movie opened on April 25, raved that Ne Zha 2 had “eaten Pixar for breakfast,” adding that the film’s “critique of Western imperialism feels incandescent.”
“Unlike the current wave of contrite, state-sponsored Western superheroes, or the glut of sad boys in capes stuck in a cycle of moral ambiguity, Ne Zha is simply furious, and his clarity is radical: oppression is evil, resistance is righteous,” he wrote.
Yet for other potential audiences outside mainland China, the film’s embedded cultural references—and possible political messaging that observers like The Hindu’s reviewer perceive—appear to be turnoffs.
Ne Zha 2 has yet to be scheduled for release in either Taiwan or Vietnam, to the consternation of China’s state-owned media, which have published stories claiming frustrated moviegoers from the two markets, each politically wary of Beijing, have been crossing borders to see the film.
Taiwan sets an annual quota on mainland Chinese movies, which was allotted for the current year without the submittal of an application for Ne Zha 2, according to the island’s Ministry of Culture. Officials indicated that an exception could be made if the movie wins a top international prize.
In Vietnam, internet user Le Thuy Tien posted that she had been looking forward to the film since before the Lunar New Year holiday in January but the continued lack of a local screening date was causing her to lose interest.
“Now, if it’s convenient to go to the theater, I’ll watch it,” she said. “If not, then I won’t. I’m not that excited anymore.”
Like many of the animated film’s Malaysian fans, a large share of viewers outside China praising Ne Zha 2 are themselves ethnic Chinese.
“It did a better job in Asian markets than Western ones because the story is deeply rooted in traditional Chinese mythology, which appeals to Asian audiences who are familiar with it, but may create a cultural barrier for Western audiences,” HKUST’s Du said.
Overall, less than 2% of Ne Zha 2 ticket sales have come from outside mainland China. Still, that marks an improvement over other recent Chinese blockbusters, some of which brought in less than 0.1% of their box office abroad. By comparison, Avatar, still the world’s all-time box office champion, generated 73.1% of its USD 2.92 billion in ticket sales outside its US home market.
Notably, while Ne Zha 2 is now four places behind Avatar in total take, Jiaozi’s feature ranks a mere ninth in ticket sales outside China for a Chinese-language movie, according to Chinese film ticketing platform Maoyan. So far, the animated feature’s non-China box office amounts to barely a quarter of that of the 2000 Hollywood co-production Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.
Even so, the big payoff is already inspiring Chinese companies and officials to plan for more animated productions.
Enlight Media, one of the feature’s main backers, is investing RMB 1.2 billion (USD 168 million) in a new Beijing animation center. Its net profits for the January-March quarter rose nearly fivefold from a year earlier to RMB 2 billion (USD 280 million) thanks to Ne Zha 2. Enlight is developing six more animated titles, with plans for at least ten more in the works.
This kind of outcome shows how the success of Ne Zha 2, alongside that of Black Myth: Wukong, “are achievements of China’s private sector,” in the view of Ngeow Chow Bing, director of the Institute of China Studies at the University of Malaya.
“They are successful independent of any state-directed soft power initiatives,” he said. “It shows the amount of enormous creativity within the private (sector).”
Yet as with Black Myth: Wukong and the artificial intelligence platform DeepSeek, the Chinese state began to throw considerable weight behind boosting Ne Zha 2 at home and abroad once the movie showed its market potential. Schools, companies and community organizations were encouraged to turn out for group viewings. Officials repeatedly extended the domestic run of Ne Zha 2 even as turnout trailed off and total Chinese box office receipts began plunging in March.
Still, the film’s box office success dovetails with a goal set by Beijing to establish the nation as a “leading global film power” by 2035. Under a plan adopted four years ago, the country is to enhance its capacity to produce a “steady stream of outstanding works that embody the Chinese spirit, values, strength, and aesthetics”—exactly the traits which state media have praised Ne Zha 2 for.
The welcome reception the film has gotten suggests that animation might indeed offer China, as with Japan before it, a shortcut to influence viewing habits abroad.
“Ne Zha 2 could represent a blueprint for Chinese producers on how to find a global audience,” said Rob Mitchell, director of theatrical insights at Gower Street Analytics, a London-based film industry research company.
“Ne Zha 2 may represent a beginning, but it is too early to identify a trend,” he added. “To be more than an anomaly, there needs to be a steadier pipeline of appealing hits coming through.”
This article first appeared on Nikkei Asia. It has been republished here as part of 36Kr’s ongoing partnership with Nikkei.