March 12, 2025 • 51 mins
We dive into the Chinese animated phenomenon Ne Zha on this episode, exploring how this little-known film and its sequel became the highest-grossing animated movies of all time while most Western audiences have never heard of them. Whether you're an animation enthusiast or simply curious about international cinema that's breaking records, Ne Zha offers stunning visuals, emotional storytelling, and cultural insights that shouldn't be missed.
• Based on Chinese folk religion, Ne Zha tells the story of a protection deity born as a devil incarnate instead of a hero
• First film released in 2019 on a modest $22 million budget with stunning animation that rivals Western studios
• Character development shines with Ne Zha starting as an irritating troublemaker but evolving through emotional depth
• Nezha 2 has grossed approximately $2 billion worldwide, primarily from the Chinese market
• Animation quality in action sequences demonstrates exceptional skill that highlights "laziness" from other studios
• Third film likely in development with anticipation building for how they'll top the spectacular second installment
Letterbox'd Synopsis (Ne Zha 2019): The Primus extracts a Mixed Yuan Bead into a Spirit Seed and a Demon Pill. The Spirit Seed can be reincarnated as a human to help King Zhou establish a new dynasty, whereas the Demon Pill will create a devil threatening humanity. Ne Zha is the one who is destined to be the hero, but instead he becomes a devil incarnate, because the Spirit Seed and a Demon Pill are switched.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to your go-to source for entertainment.
Wait for it Gaming.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Wait for it.
Anime PLUS ULTRA.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
Mr Eric Almighty and Phil the Filipino.
Yeah, they've got you covered,and all you gotta do is wait for
it.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
This is the Wait For it Podcast.
Hey, everyone, welcome back tothe Wait For it Podcast.
I am your co-host, phil Barrera, aka Phil the Filipino.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
And I'm your other co-host, mr Eric Almighty, and
for this episode we decided tohighlight a movie that was
starting to appear on our radarsrecently, with the highly
anticipated sequel expecting tobe a box office juggernaut in
2025.
We had been hearing about aChinese animated film that
quietly came out in 2019 here inthe States, and I have a
(01:02):
feeling many of you haven't seenit either.
So on this edition of theInternational Feature Series, we
are covering Neja.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
Yeah, eric, this movie came across my timeline I
think it was over on Twitterbecause the second film had
either already surpassed or wasquickly approaching the $1
billion mark, which spoileralert, guys it is now doubled as
far as Nezha 2.
So we're going to be talkingabout both films here today.
(01:32):
So you're probably wonderinghow is it that a film is now
essentially the highest grossingfilm of all time and I've never
heard of it.
Well, listen, you combine theChinese market with an animated
story that I think holds its own, as we will discuss here today,
(01:52):
and that's why you get thenumbers that you are seeing here
and that we will discuss thisevening.
So, eric, excited to talk aboutthis movie that, like you
alluded to, probably a lot ofyou have never even heard of up
until recently, because you knowwhen, when something makes a
ton of money like this, it'sgoing to turn some heads.
So hopefully, we can be thatkind of intermediary point
(02:13):
between you and watching thesefilms, because, eric, I tried to
do a deep dive into this onyoutube and you can't really,
because the content just doesn'treally exist yeah, and it
should be mentioned that most ofthat two billion in revenue
from the box office came fromChina.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
So, even as we're talking about this now, this is
as of right now, as of thisrecording, it is about to jump
into the top five top grossingfilms of all time, and it is the
highest grossing animated filmof all time, most of that coming
again from the chinese market,which is a big market fill in
(02:52):
box office history.
But not in this way, never inthis way.
Actually, this is unprecedented.
So I'm very excited to talkabout this.
We are going to speak spoilerfree, because I think the main
goal of this series is tohighlight films internationally
that aren't as popular or youhaven't seen as much, and I
(03:14):
think, with what we've said,although it's a high grossing
movie in the box office, most ofthe people here that are
listening to this podcast in theStates don't even know this
thing exists.
So I think it's a greatopportunity for us to talk about
the first film, the second filmand we might open up a spoiler
discussion, if necessary, at theend of this episode.
(03:35):
So make sure to stick around,if you've seen those two films,
for that.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
Yeah, yeah.
(04:06):
And last thing I'll say beforewe start on the first film.
I don't even think that Neja 2has released inboxd states.
The premise extracts a mixedyuan bead into a spirit seed and
a demon pill.
The spirit seed can bereincarnated as a human to help
King Zhao establish a newdynasty, whereas the demon pill
will create a devil-threateninghumanity.
Nezha is the one who isdestined to be the hero, but
(04:26):
instead he becomes a devilincarnate because the spirit
seed and a demon pill areswitched.
Now we'll get this out of theway here first.
This film is originally inMandarin, so of course you can
watch this in with subtitles oryou can watch it dubbed on
Amazon Prime.
It's relatively cheap.
You can buy it for like $7 andyou can rent it for $3.50.
(04:50):
Or in my case, because I trackmy feet, I rented it twice, so I
should have just bought thedamn thing.
But, going into this film, Ithink it's very important to let
people know our opinion.
Eric, I'm not sure how you felt, because I did start watching
this in dub, but then I switchedover to watching it in Mandarin
with sub.
You watched both, correct.
(05:11):
So how do you feel?
Speaker 1 (05:14):
Yeah, so I saw most of the dub the second watch
through.
I did watch it in Mandarin, inits natural state, mandarin in
its natural state, and I've gotto say the English dub is not
bad, but it is not as clean cutas you would expect from like
watching an anime English dub,and I think that was very
(05:35):
prevalent.
With certain voice actors inparticular, I tended to notice
that the ones that I've seen inanime before had a lot better of
a job getting very close to themouth flaps, but it is kind of
distracting at points.
I don't think it ruined theexperience by any mean and I do
(05:56):
think that this is a premise youguys just heard the synopsis
right, right Like this is apremise that kind of could lend
(06:21):
itself to a little bit of thatfamiliar dialect to be able to
understand and grasp the conceptand the Mandarin, and I think
the dub is serviceable to getyou through that if that's going
to be an issue.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
Yeah, and you know, mandarin is probably one of the
most difficult languages tolearn.
It's why whenever people try toportray it in film or
television, it's usually prettybad.
It in film or television, it'susually pretty bad.
I think Mood Night is probablythe most recent example of how
poorly that can go.
(06:52):
So I would suggest watching itin sub.
But you know, eric gave you areally good opinion there in
terms of getting through iteither way, to kind of give you
guys the inspiration of thisfilm, it tells the mythological
origins of Nezha, who is aprotection deity in Chinese folk
religion, and the story isloosely based on the literary
(07:12):
version of the myth that formstwo chapters of Investiture of
the Gods.
There's going to be a lot ofthis.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
This is what happens when you read Wikipedia.
Man, I know.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
A Ming Dynasty Shenmue novel, traditionally
attributed to Zhu Zhonglin,which incorporates various
existing myths into a widernarrative.
So that is one thing Like onemovie or one video I came across
on YouTube is kind of likethere was a lot of lore, a lot
of backdrop when it comes to theorigins of these characters and
(07:47):
for somebody who didn't knowanything about them it starts
off.
It's a very kind of basic tothe point setup.
It's got probably the mostobvious bad, bad guy looking bad
guy in animation history.
So that wasn't really too muchof a surprise when everything
went down.
But I think it's, you know,does a good job setting up the
(08:09):
story right away.
And you know, one thing poppeople probably want to know
right off the bat is how does ithold up animation wise?
And Eric, when I had, I hadn'tgotten all the way through the
movie yet, but you would ask meI'm at the gammy's after I had
watched some of it.
You know how I felt it and Isaid to you that I think when
the animation is kind of justchugging along and there's not
(08:31):
really a whole lot going on,it's not really my favorite.
But when they kick it into highgear with some of these fight
scenes and action scenes, man,it is another example that just
displays the laziness we'reseeing from other animation
studios Disney.
So we're getting a little aheadof ourselves, but I'm very
(08:54):
anxious to see what kind ofrecognition this gets, because
we are in award season a yearfrom now when we're talking
animation.
Speaker 1 (09:01):
Yeah, I think when we talk about the sequel, some of
those things may have been right?
Speaker 2 (09:06):
yeah, not this one right yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:07):
So for the first one, though it was, it was very good
.
It was very good, it was veryserviceable.
It's very much a kid's film.
So there are obviously anytimeyou watch an animated film, you
have to make that distinction.
Uh, this is not for adults.
That is from the humor aloneyou can kind of tell.
But even the animation, like Idon't know, it's almost, it's
(09:31):
almost discreetly or it's likeunderrated, lee good, because
it's something that on surfacelevel, when you look at the
character designs, for example,you're looking at it and it kind
of gives you that sameimpression that dreamworks gave
us for like a long time, untilyou, uh, wait for it, bingo,
watch puss in boots and then yourealize, oh shit, they're
(09:55):
pretty good at animation anddoing other things and they've
had a couple other films otherthan that.
I think what's really specialabout this film is that this
came out of nowhere.
Again, this is not somethingthat's happening overseas, where
there's one Disney for Chinathat is just trucking out films
(10:16):
and making billions of dollars.
This seemingly did come out ofnowhere, and Neja 1 and 2
apparently both took about fiveyears to produce, and there are
thousands of people involvedwith this and over 138 animation
companies that participated inthe creation of those films.
(10:36):
So I think that tells you quitea lot when it comes to how much
is involved with this and howmuch work was put into it, and I
think the first one does areally great job from an
animation standpoint.
I do think as we get to thatconversation, the second one
takes it to a whole differentlevel.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
Yeah, they made this first movie on a budget of 22
million US dollars, which is notreally a lot of money when
you're talking about I mean,this isn't the best example, but
, like the game, grand TheftAuto 6 cost a billion dollars to
make, supposedly probably.
So the fact that they churnedthis out on that budget, like
you said, relatively unknown andunder the radar, and put
(11:21):
together what is a cinematicexperience that I wish I had
gotten to see in theaters youknow you're talking about five
years ago oh my God, six yearsago.
We had never even heard of thisuntil a month ago.
So very, very impressive.
Let's talk about thesecharacters here.
Eric.
We'll have to start with themain character, of course, which
(11:44):
is Neja, and a character that Ithink intentionally is meant to
kind of irritate and gross youout here in the beginning and
kind of frustrate you.
He's got a lot of Bart Simpsonin him.
If Bart Simpson were an evilworld-ending deity.
So I feel like there was a lotof inspiration taken from Bart
(12:07):
here when it comes to thecharacter, but he really wins
you over very quickly,especially once you see just how
he is treated and his backstory, and again, there's a lot of
really good humor in those earlydays or in those early moments
like when he's playing uh, youknow the game with his mom.
That made me laugh right out ofthe gate.
(12:27):
What do you think about our,our main character, our hero
here, when you initially met him?
Speaker 1 (12:34):
so I love nasia.
I love nasia.
From the moment I laid eyes onhim he was great.
I understand that he is alittle shit.
He took the demon pill.
I mean pretty straightforwardstuff.
They could have gone with thatand it would have been a fun
premise.
I don't know if this is tooearly to start talking about the
(12:55):
, the themes of the movie andwhat the movie accomplishes, but
I really, really really likethe depth to this character.
So this character is, you know,a demon child.
He's causing ruckus, he'smaking ruckus, causing chaos,
and he is destroy, uh,destruction, just living and
(13:16):
breathing and walking.
But there are so many momentsin both films but definitely the
first one to start where yousee the humanity in that
character and like there arelittle things that I appreciated
, such as this character cries alot and not like cry, baby
cries, like for the sake ofcrying, but like to show that
(13:37):
there is some emotion andfeeling behind it.
Like we talk about some of thethings again not getting into
too many plot details, but youtalked about the way he's
treated.
Well, there's a scene thattalks to that where he's kind of
called out on it, like I don'treally care, and he's called out
on the fact that, yeah, you do,and he gets really emotional
and just he like balls up hisfist, you know, and you could
(14:00):
kind of like it's a subtlethings that this movie does
through nasia.
That really worked and that alsomade the relationship with him
and his parents a lot moreeffective by the film's end and
going into the sequel for me.
So those are the type of thingsthat I liked.
He's also really fucking funnyI I found a lot of his stuff to
be funny.
(14:20):
Yeah, a little bit too many peeand fart jokes for my liking,
in particular, especially in thefirst one, but it is, at the
end of the day, the first one,at least.
Second one's an argumentdirected to kids.
So I just really like thischaracter, phil, from the sake
that they're funny.
I love the character design ofNeja and I also just love the
(14:43):
fact that he's a sympathetichero who's not afraid to cry and
I don't know why, but that justlike really worked for me.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
Yeah, the depth of this character I think, at least
upon the initial outset of it,because of how he's kind of
presented, even down to, I think, his animation style, I think
you're just led to kind ofbelieve that once again, just to
lean on that Bart Simpsoncomparison, that he's not really
meant to be taken seriously.
But also, bart is an incrediblylayered animated character.
(15:14):
That's why he's still aroundafter 30, almost 40 years most
likely.
But yeah, I very much becameendeared with this character
throughout the course of thefilm and definitely carries over
into the second one.
We do get a mentor relationshipthere with a, with a character
that I think is also very, veryfun.
(15:36):
Now, that character is the onethat, unfortunately, where a lot
of the toilet humor comes from,that is directed at kids.
A lot of that is pretty miss.
I'm not sure how your son feltabout it, but uh, you know, for
us in our, in our 30s, are justlike well, that's that's the
part where you have to be likewell, that that wasn't put in
there to make us laugh, but somekids somewhere probably did, so
(15:57):
that was uh, yeah, so gettingto see him evolve over time and
and then really take that turninto still trying to hide the
fact that he wants approval, butstill very much trying to gain
that approval.
I think that is not necessarilyan original story, but it was
presented very well and I verymuch enjoyed that.
And then when we get that arcthere in the middle, that's when
(16:21):
we are introduced into anothercharacter, if you want to talk
about them and their importancein the story.
Speaker 1 (16:28):
Yes, so Ao Bing is the opposite of Nezha, he is the
Spirit Pearl and he is acharacter that I really enjoy
because he's like the completeopposite.
It's the yin and yang situationthat is happening here.
They're complete opposites butthey also have very similar
(16:52):
issues in their life that stemfrom the situation that they are
in, even though theirsituations essentially are
reversed, and I really liked theimplication that they just kind
of become friends.
Naturally I would like to haveseen that fleshed out a little
bit more in the first one.
We could talk about maybe somecritiques and stuff like that.
(17:12):
I think this movie is actually alittle too short, where the
sequel, I think, has a bettergrip on the time management
there of its story.
Not perfect by any means, but Iwould have liked to see them
develop that more.
But for what we did get, it wasbelievable, like I just I just
believe that story and I reallyenjoyed the relationship between
(17:34):
the two because they are sodifferent and you know, albing
is is just cool, calm, collected, where nasia is is a hot-headed
uh, you know troublemaker, andI like that dynamic a lot every
friendship needs the, thestraight laced guy, and that's
(17:54):
definitely him, voiced by alexlee, I believe correct in the uh
in the dub in the dub so forthose of you that are gonna
gonna go that route, so familiarvoice there.
Speaker 2 (18:04):
So, yeah, he is a very calming, seemingly
level-headed presence but, likeyou said, not without his own
issues and struggles.
And when you you, you knowobviously you given the story,
you know the context of thestory and, down to his look, you
know who this character is ifyou're paying attention to the
(18:25):
story.
But it still doesn't make thereveal and you know the depth of
this character any lessinteresting or tragic or however
you want to feel about it.
Yeah, I would have loved to seethem focus a little bit more on
this relationship, whether itbe adding time or cutting
(18:46):
elsewhere.
Maybe a little bit too muchtime spent in like that training
arc, you know area, becausethere are a couple times in the
movie where they go back to thetraining arc, which is kind of
strange.
But I very much like thischaracter and very much liked
his design too, not only thisone but one that we'll talk
(19:07):
about a little bit later as well.
So, yeah, cool character forsure, and really loved their
chemistry and kind of their meetcute there on the beach.
Speaker 1 (19:16):
Yeah, and this movie?
It serves a purpose of settingup the world and setting up the
sequel.
Speaker 2 (19:28):
That's what the first movie's purpose is really there
for.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
Yeah, there's 15 post-credit scenes just to let
you guys know there's a lot.
Also.
I think the last one was for amovie that's somewhat related
but not related.
What I heard was that this wassupposed to be the start of
essentially a cinematic universe.
There has been no evidence tosupport that.
That is actually what ishappening and, based off of
(19:50):
watching the sequel, I don'tthink that's real.
But there there was a lot ofnews that I kind of did my
research on where that was thethought process and I could kind
of see that with this film Icould understand it.
But I understand it more thatagain it really does a good job
of the world building andsetting up a sequel, and
(20:10):
effectively and I think thismovie does that because the
sequel picks right up where weleft off, which I think again
adds to the appeal of this film.
And I do think, phil, althoughit is a lot to digest, I do
believe it is digestible as faras the story and the plot goes.
It can absolutely be run of themill at times and it can
(20:34):
absolutely be convoluted attimes, but I think overall it's
very effective.
So on the positive end, I alsodo want to call that out, I
guess you know, before we talkabout the sequel, too much.
Is there anything else you wantto talk about?
Uh, positive or negative aboutnasia?
Uh, for people that arethinking about watching it or
have seen it, Positively.
Speaker 2 (20:55):
I do want to bring up his parents, madam Ying and
then also Li Jing.
I thought they were very strongin their own separate ways.
I mean, the mom is a badass,dad is a badass, and while we
are led to believe that the dadjust kind of has this very stoic
, not incredibly emotionalpresence about him, but that is
(21:17):
certainly not the case at all.
So we're talking about again.
There are storylines going onwith these characters that we
aren't even like thinking aboutuntil they're revealed later in
very, very important times orvery important segments of the
film.
So I think the parents weregood.
How did you feel about?
We got to talk about thevillain again, the the least
(21:38):
surprising and the most villainlooking villain I think ever
created in animated history,maybe next to like jafar, if
there's.
Is there ever any any fanfiction where jafar is the good
guy?
That's shen gong, uh gong, baogong bao.
Speaker 1 (21:53):
Yeah, yeah, that's, that's good old shen, it's never
.
Speaker 2 (21:57):
It's never like there's no fanfic of jafar, like
at a farmer's market justenjoying his sunday.
Speaker 1 (22:03):
No, maybe we'll talk about maybe we'll talk about
more about him in, uh, thespoiler section, uh, about how
his character growth kind ofhappens progressively over two
films.
But uh, in the first film he isvery much just your typical bad
guy and he's very much thepuppet master to the situation
that is at hand.
This movie kind of works arounda time-based situation that is
(22:29):
going to occur because of thesituation that Nezha and Albing
are in with the spirit pearl andthe demon orb.
So again, I don't want to gettoo much into spoilers for that
part, but I would mention thatagain, very run of the mill and
that's why my rating, I think,can't go much higher than where
(22:51):
it already is.
Like, I really enjoyed thismovie, but there are just
obvious things holding it backfrom being something that is
like a masterpiece or utterlyamazing.
I mentioned Puss in Boots.
Like this is not gonna reachPuss in Boots territory for us,
but will I bring this up topeople?
Yeah, yeah, I will.
I definitely will.
Speaker 2 (23:13):
It'd be a fun double feature movie night, especially
since neither one of them arereally that long Now.
We'll talk about in a momentthe second one definitely feels
like it goes on forever, but youcould get through it with some
friends, both of them in onenight and have a really, really
good time.
And then the other thing I'llshout out is I won't give away
(23:33):
what this.
You know who this character isor really what they look like
until later.
But I also like Al Guang.
I thought in the very limitedtime that they have in the first
movie, very effective.
I came away wanting to knowmore about that character and
I'm glad we got it in the secondmovie.
Speaker 1 (23:50):
Yeah, a hundred percent, and I think 100 and I
think you know let's.
Let's talk a little bit aboutthe second movie, but not again.
I don't want to really get intoany plot points, because this
is a movie that, as of right now, I think, is still out in
theaters.
As of recording this, I don'tknow how much longer it's going
to be in theaters and I have aweird like thought or
(24:14):
premonition that there will be are-release when the dub becomes
available.
I don't know why I feel thatway but I think it could happen.
So I would like to talk about,maybe, just our reactions going
from the first one to the secondone, and then, you know, we
could talk about scores andstuff like that, before
eventually opening up a spoilerdiscussion, because, phil, we
(24:37):
saw the second one together andwe didn't really talk about it
very much, so maybe this willgive us that avenue.
But, with that being said, whatwere your thoughts seeing the
first one and then getting readya few days later to see the
second one in theaters, and howwas that experience?
Speaker 2 (24:53):
yeah, I'm actually not going to read the synopsis
here either because it's prettyspoiler heavy.
So, again, very much suggestyou guys see these for
yourselves, so we don't giveanything away here.
But, yeah, very excited, reallyexcited, after seeing the first
film and wanting to know whatwas going to happen with these
characters, because it's leftvery much open-ended and there's
(25:14):
also, I mean, who who knew?
I mean, well, this was 2019, so, like, post-credit scenes were
still good, unlike now we're in2025 where they're like what are
we doing here, what are we evendoing?
So the post-credit scenes didvery well and then you know, not
having to wait six years to seethe sequel, we just got to go
see it right away and that wasreally really great.
(25:36):
So certainly, again, I suggestseeing this on a really big
screen.
It is colorful, it is loud, itand it is loud and colorful very
early and often.
So very excited going into thetheater and once again surprised
that, like more people don'tknow about this because it
(25:57):
really well one.
There's no dub yet, but itreally does cater to, I think,
what a lot of kids are arelooking for in terms of
animation, especially when youlook at what anime are currently
popular.
So once this does get thatre-release that you're
predicting, eric, I doanticipate we'll see more of a
(26:17):
bump than we are seeing in termsof box office numbers here in
the US, because it's not verybig, it's not a whole lot of
money, which is to be expected,but I was very much looking
forward to seeing the sequel.
How about you?
Speaker 1 (26:27):
Yeah, 100%, and I really enjoyed the sequel.
We're not going to talk toomuch about it, we'll give our
scores for both, but I reallythink it offers just such a
different version of thecharacter in the world compared
to the first one.
Like, I don't know if you agreewith this, phil, but the first
one is very set up based andstory driven, where the second
(26:51):
one very much is about beingbigger and bolder when it comes
to the animation and the action.
Like, I definitely felt therewas a huge increase in those
areas where I think maybe thestory took a little bit of a
predictable-ness.
That took it a step back fromthe first one and it was still
(27:12):
very good.
But I also think that this moviestruggled to balance some of
the kid appeals and the darkernatures of what it does, and I
think most movies struggle withthat with their second or third
film in a franchise.
But those are all minimalcomplaints and again, I really
view Neja 1 and 2 as like a 1A,1b type situation, which makes
me really excited for what thethird one will hold, and two as
(27:33):
like a 1A, 1b type situation,which makes me really excited
for what the third one will hold.
And I will say this.
There is one scene that me andPhil laughed harder than
anything that I can recall inrecent memory Honestly, maybe
since we started the podcast.
Speaker 2 (27:54):
It was it almost ruined.
It came out of nowhere and noone else was laughing.
Speaker 1 (28:00):
Nobody else.
Speaker 2 (28:01):
Granted.
There were only four otherpeople in the theater.
Speaker 1 (28:03):
It was like a 20-seat theater we were obnoxious for a
solid 20 minutes after thatscene.
I do feel like I missed 20minutes of the movie, so I do
need to go rewatch it.
And that's the thing, phil.
I watched the first one in duband I got to rewatch it a second
time.
Through that lens, I definitelywant to see Neja 2 again, and I
(28:24):
would love to see it again intheaters as well.
So I mean that that's just areally big you know.
Statement of confidence forthat movie in particular.
Speaker 2 (28:34):
big you know statement of confidence for that
movie in particular.
Yeah, in terms of budget, itwent from the $22 million for
the first movie American to $80million American.
So this is what they were ableto do with $60 million more,
which, yes, is a lot of money.
But in the grand scheme ofthings, when you're talking
about animation, you're talkingabout film that's not a big
increase.
So the fact that they were ableto really implement those
(29:03):
changes, those big time changesand again, nasia one looks great
and nasia two really ups theante.
The thing that that got me aboutthis film eric is like what if
the infinity war fight was justthe whole movie?
Pretty much.
There are times where it doesslow down, but it is like balls
to the wall.
It's like a fast, fast and theFurious movie.
You guys, it is crazy.
From beginning to end we get newcharacters that were teased in
the first one that are reallygood additions.
(29:25):
We get more fleshed outcharacters in this.
It is everything that you wantfrom a sequel, except that again
, maybe it has its foot in thepedal a little bit too much and
they could have slowed down ormaybe even saved some stuff for
the next one.
But again, those are reallylike we're complaining about a
movie being like super fun andsuper over the top, like that's
just a really weird thing.
(29:46):
It's not even complaints, it'sjust like man, you, what the
hell do they have planned forthat third movie, if this is
what we got in number two?
So that's one thing where I waslike man, we could have maybe
saved some of this.
There are a lot of characterson this and a lot of characters
on screen at some point, so youcould have definitely parceled
(30:07):
that out a little bit.
But again, it was a really funtime and I would certainly go
see it again, whether it be insub or in dub, when we finally
do get that.
Speaker 1 (30:20):
Yeah, I definitely agree with that.
And, phil, I think that's agreat place for us to maybe talk
about reception for these films, our particular scores, where
they ranked in the internationalfeature movies that we've done.
I think this now crosses usover 30 on our letterbox list,
so very curious where that'sgoing to take us and where that
(30:41):
landed for both of us.
But again got to implore youguys check this out, at least
the first one, and then if youdon't catch the second one in
theaters, I think it will beback, but if not, it'll be
available at some point.
I would be shocked if, at somepoint, both of these don't end
up on a streaming service.
So I think they will be moreaccessible.
(31:02):
Just based off of the historicnature of how the second one is
performed at the box office,even if most of it's in China, I
think there will be noticebeing taken by at least one
streaming company, probablyNetflix.
Speaker 2 (31:17):
I was going to say, netflix is knocking on the door
right now.
Speaker 1 (31:20):
It's there for them.
Speaker 2 (31:22):
Yeah, I guarantee you this even has like the Netflix
style of animation that theylike.
That they like.
Yeah, no, it's totally theirthing.
It's made for Netflix.
Speaker 1 (31:32):
It's got the international appeal yeah.
Speaker 2 (31:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (31:35):
Now that's 100% it.
But yeah, phil, how did thisfilm perform out both films Neja
1 and 2?
And then we'll get into ourscores before we open up a
spoiler section yeah, I've got alot of tabs open here, guys, so
bear with me.
Speaker 2 (31:47):
Nasia one on rotten tomatoes 88 percent tomato meter
score.
That's only 17 reviews rememberit's a six, six year old movie.
A 98 to a popcorn meter scorefor users.
Uh, nasia two has only sixreviews, so it does not have a
tomato meter score.
But for uh, if you're curious,they are all certified fresh,
(32:08):
but there's just not enough tocertify it, I think, on the
website, with a 99 popcorn meterscore for nasia 2 up over on
imdb, the harshest of them all7.4 for the first film and an
8.2 for the second.
So again very high, especiallyfor that second film, when, when
you're looking at the letterboxgrades, we have a 3.5 for Nasia
(32:31):
and a 3.9 for Nasia 2.
So we'll be interested to seehow these numbers change as this
film gains more popularity hereon our side of the world.
You're already seeing a lotmore reviews pop up than I saw
even just a few weeks ago, right, eric?
So we're seeing a lot of those,a lot of people that are seeing
the second one and then goingback to the first, which I find
(32:53):
very strange.
But you do, you.
So that's where we are at interms of scores.
Do you just want to go back toback for both of these?
How do we want to do it?
Speaker 1 (33:02):
Yeah, I think that's fair.
Okay, I don't know about you.
Mine are very close togetherand same on my list, so I'm
probably going to be a littlebit closer than you.
I'd love to see where you endedup.
Speaker 2 (33:13):
OK, yeah, for the first film, I gave it a three
and a half.
It is a the setup of all setupmovies in terms now that we have
seen the second one but stillvery fun.
Has a lot of really, reallygreat action scenes and now,
looking back, just gives you theperfect amount of introduction
to some of these characters.
Could have used a little bitmore, like I talked about, in
(33:36):
terms of some relationships, butstill very much enjoyed it and
would recommend watching it toto friends and watch it with
them as well.
Uh, neja 2 I gave a 4.
And that very much could changeafter seeing it a second time,
just because, again, I thinkmaybe I was just so overwhelmed
and then that one moment in thefilm just totally threw us off,
(33:57):
so maybe I need to go see itagain and it can go even higher.
I think probably even after thefirst watch I could go 4.25.
But I leave it at a 4 right now, with room for improvement.
Speaker 1 (34:08):
Yeah, that's completely fair For me.
I gave both of these films thesame exact score.
I gave them both a four andagain, I really think it's a 1A,
1b scenario here for Neja 1.
I think I prefer it a littlebit more.
I need to see Neja 2 again tosolidify that.
The only reason I feel that wayis because I feel like Neja 1
(34:31):
had a little bit more heart anda little bit more control over
the narrative.
It was trying to tell Neja 2though balls to the wall, crazy
good.
I think it's funnier than thefirst one.
I think there's more action.
I think there's a lot morethings that are effective, but
when it comes to the heart ofthe character and the film, I
(34:51):
think the first one does it justa tiny bit better, and I don't
know.
That just means more to me thanmaking it bigger, but not
necessarily better.
That doesn't always make itbetter.
So again, both of them neck andneck Phil on my list for
international feature.
If you want to mention yours aswell, mine are back to back
(35:12):
together.
I'm putting them right next toeach other to reflect what I
just said, and they are ranked13th and 14th out of 30 on our
international movies and showsthat we've watched.
The Raid is before it and filmslike Okja and Decisional Leave
are after it.
So that's my placement and,again, very respectable for the
(35:35):
films that are in front of it,which are spectacular.
Speaker 2 (35:38):
Yeah, for me I have Nezha 1 at 15, right behind
Perfect Days and right in frontof Ultraman Rising, so that is
where the first film sits.
And then the second one cracksthe top 10 at number 10, right
behind another round, and Iactually dropped down high Nana
for this.
So, they're both force.
(35:58):
You're a criminal.
Speaker 1 (36:01):
Absolutely.
I'm crying now.
I introduced you to fuckingtore me apart, dude.
I love that movie.
I don't you dare Fucking toreme apart, dude, I love that
movie.
I'm going to want to watch thatagain.
Speaker 2 (36:12):
Boy talk about a movie that has a million
different themes.
It really is like the rom-comof RRR, the RRR rom-com.
Man, if you just improve themusic a little bit and the dance
number, it's probably a five inmy opinion we're getting off
topic, but there is straight upjust a music video towards the
finale of that does not fit whatis happening?
(36:36):
yeah, so nature 2, yeah, number10 for me.
Still, like I said, very muchenjoyed it and uh cannot wait to
see what happens next yeah, 100and phil, I guess now I'll ask
you we get here.
Speaker 1 (36:49):
Is there anything on the spoiler side of things that
we would like to talk about fromeither film?
Would we like to open up thatdoor?
If so, this is going to be yourwarning listeners to either
skip ahead or check out thefilms and come back.
But, phil, anything that youwant to tackle in the spoiler
section, we can open that up.
Speaker 2 (37:08):
Yeah, here is your youtube warning right now.
You heard the man get out.
Get out.
Yeah, I would say so.
What did you think about?
Uh, what are your thoughts,because you're obviously a very
big fan of base character, baseset, naysha?
(37:29):
What do you think of hisultimate form, naysha?
Speaker 1 (37:33):
I like his ultimate form a little bit more in the
second one yeah his ultimateform's cool.
It's chill, you know, Idefinitely.
I just love his base form likedid they need?
Speaker 2 (37:45):
maybe because you know, I mean, I'll bring it.
Speaker 1 (37:47):
Yeah, i'llbing is literally, and again, let's not
Because the age thing isconfusing.
They're three but they're likeTeens technically, but Nezha is
still a child.
Speaker 2 (37:57):
That's right, that's what I needed to talk to you
about, so that's all.
Specifically, in the second one, we have to talk about time.
Speaker 1 (38:05):
There's some questions there about Some of
those things.
I thought it was fine.
I kind of like you know you'renot a dragon ball guy, but I
like that.
That's kind of like his, hissuper saiyan.
Like he gets the ring off, histrue power is revealed and he
has a different form, like thatis very anime coded for me and I
(38:25):
uh, I personally don't mind it.
I love his base design, though.
Like even when we talk, when wetalk about the second one, when
they kept changing his face toal bings, it was funny.
I get it, I hated it, I fuckinghated it, but not not enough to
hate the movie, but I love, Ireally love nasia's design.
What I'll say is about thesecond form is it's equally as
(38:48):
cool with the spear and theribbon, like the way it like
hovers over his neck and stuff.
Super fucking cool, the fuckingflame circles that he rides.
Speaker 2 (38:59):
Yeah, rings are cool, love it.
You know, being a big fan of ofshang chi, those were really
neat as well.
So I love the dragon designsreally, really cool.
And even though I wouldn't beable to like tell you their
names per se, they do all havetheir own unique design which I
very much love.
And yeah, I thought that wasreal.
I mean, you know dragons, uh,kaiju, you sold, I've sold, it
(39:22):
doesn't?
It's not going to take a wholelot for for me to be convinced?
So, yes, so let's talk aboutthis time thing.
Because did they not establishin the first movie that like a
like an hour up there was likemultiple days in the real world?
Was that not a thing?
And then he spent a lot of timein the second movie like
(39:43):
fighting all these essentiallybosses?
yeah these three boss fights.
Was that not a thing?
I'm not making that up, right?
No?
I don't think so becauseremember, remember, the dad goes
up to the gate and thensomebody tells him what you know
, an hour up here is multipledays down on earth, yeah, and
(40:04):
then he goes and he spendsseveral hours.
He's there movie, he's therefor a while.
Yeah.
So I was like, shouldn't thetown?
Yeah, nope, that's why thetown's gone, because you took
forever.
Speaker 1 (40:15):
Which the decimation of the town.
Crazy, yeah, crazy, that'swhere I was like.
Straight up Pompeii style.
And then they made sure to letyou know yeah, that family from
the first one dead, gone Didn.
Speaker 2 (40:31):
And then they, they made sure to let you know?
Speaker 1 (40:32):
yeah, that family from the first one dead gone,
didn't like that.
Remember the redemption arc ofthe bully?
Yeah, that mom got the shitpunched out of her dude.
She didn't even get to recoverfrom that she did have it coming
.
He punched the shit out of her.
So I uh, no, I was definitelytorn, I was definitely um taken
aback by it, for sure.
But yeah, there are some things.
And again, I don't know if it'slike a cultural divide or what
(40:53):
it is.
Speaker 2 (40:55):
It's a cultural divide.
Speaker 1 (40:58):
Anyway, you got me.
I'm thinking of the Super Bowlperformance.
Now I lost track.
I lost it.
So but I do think that thereare definitely some continuity
issues from the first to thesecond one that you're kind of
referencing with time.
There are a couple of thingslike that for both films and
(41:19):
that's what makes it a four, andI don't know that these will
ever go to a four and a half,because it does feel like at
times, like there are things inthis movie that don't fit and
they just either didn't have thetime or didn't, maybe don't
have enough experience to knowbetter, because I don't.
Speaker 2 (41:34):
again, it's not like a new studio, it's a bunch of
animation studios workingtogether, but maybe too many
hands, uh, in the pot, I don'tknow I'm talking about a lot of
side quests, a lot of storylinesand a few too many, especially
with the I don't have theirnames up in front of me anymore,
but with the main villain fromthe first movie and you know his
(41:57):
.
What was that?
His brother?
Yeah, his brother that showedup Randomly, randomly, oh yeah,
he's the Jaguar, you know.
And also that fight scene inthe waterfall Cool as shit
Slapped.
Speaker 1 (42:14):
Yeah, slapped, slapped, for sure.
Speaker 2 (42:17):
So they're just juggling too many different
families and too many tragediesand they didn't need to do all
that.
Speaker 1 (42:24):
Yes, and I think a lot of that gets lost when we
have the sacrifice at the end.
I guess you would call it asacrifice the death at the end
where the mother dies, and Ifelt like that could have been
played a little bit better.
It's still sad, still sad, butI think that could have been
(42:45):
played a little bit better.
There were signs of it.
But again, I just, I think thismovie is balancing a lot and I
think it's doing it in the sakeof that twist, which is not
really a twist Like that guy'sclearly the bad guy, the big,
the big headed guy, big brain,mega mind, asian, mega mind.
Speaker 2 (43:07):
So I was going to go Modok.
Speaker 1 (43:13):
It's like a very clear twist.
Speaker 2 (43:15):
This video is going to get to China and we're going
to be weird, so much trouble.
It's the opposite of RR.
We talked so positively aboutRR that that community like
embraced us.
Speaker 1 (43:27):
No, no, we mean well, but but yeah, there was stuff
like that, that, um, I I thinkit was a little bit too focused
on doing also the fact that thedragon designs were really cool,
but then they stopped switchinginto dragons and they were just
human.
Speaker 2 (43:40):
I didn't, I didn't really yeah, human designs
weren't as cool.
Speaker 1 (43:42):
I want dragons I want dragons, so how'd you feel
about the?
Speaker 2 (43:46):
uh, the, the pp dream switch in the in the t?
Speaker 1 (43:51):
the pp switch was funny, it was uh, it was pretty
good.
You know again, it's betterthan the fart jokes.
Speaker 2 (43:55):
None of the fart jokes were funny no, no, they
weren't.
Speaker 1 (43:58):
but again, the, the marmot, is that what you call it
?
A marmot, a marmot?
I don't know how you?
They're the, the big, the, thebig squirrels that look like
beavers, again doing the memefunniest, the funniest fucking
thing I've ever seen.
Speaker 2 (44:13):
Came out of nowhere, absolute left field.
The most unexpected thing Ithink I've ever seen in cinema.
Speaker 1 (44:22):
I think about it like people say they think about the
Roman Empire.
I think about it all the time.
Speaker 2 (44:27):
This is our Roman Empire.
Speaker 1 (44:28):
I think about it all the time.
Speaker 2 (44:29):
No one will know other than us, because no one
else is gonna see this movienobody gets it.
Speaker 1 (44:34):
We're gonna implore cory's gonna do an episode about
it in 2026 yeah, now it'sgenuinely the funniest thing
that's ever happened in cinemaand I just it's the pause, it's
the, it's the look down and thenthe look back and it's funny
because, like you do think forlike a second, like, oh, this
kind of reminds me of that memeand it doesn't give you time
(44:59):
there's no, there's no worldwhere you're thinking, oh,
they're gonna do the meme, soyeah, that's um, that's pretty
much it.
And and then the after creditsfor the film.
It kind of sets up the secondone.
We're going to see a lot moreof Nezha's brothers, which we
didn't really get a good look atuntil the end.
Speaker 2 (45:19):
So very curious.
I also don't really know whythey're gone either.
Speaker 1 (45:25):
That's where the world building, I think is, is
pretty good, but only up till apoint yeah it's enough to stay
on board with the story, butyeah, there are some deeper
things that that I think arelost there is the post-credits
scene where there's beating theshit out of them because they
have to reopen the door thatwent on for so long went on for
a good amount of time but it wasfunny it was.
Speaker 2 (45:47):
It was good though it was funny.
Speaker 1 (45:48):
so, yeah, no, I think those, uh, those are some of
the, I know, the main pointsthat we definitely wanted to to
discuss, um, and a lot from thesecond one in particular, this
third one going to be nuts,still don't know what it's gonna
look like like 2030.
Yeah, yeah, it'll probably takethat long.
Speaker 2 (46:10):
We'll be.
Will we get Nasia 3 or the nextSpider-Verse film first, or GTA
6?
Speaker 1 (46:20):
I hate that.
Any of that's a conversationhonestly.
Speaker 2 (46:24):
Just so you know when this movie comes out, we will
have PlayStation 6s.
Yes, that much is for surewe'll have playstation sixes,
and robert downey jr will becast as what's a marvel villain
they haven't used yet.
They're gonna go back to kang,go back to king all right.
Speaker 1 (46:46):
Well, now we've lost into the plot, watch this in
five years and let us know ifwe're yeah, we're correct but I
think that, uh, that kind ofdoes it for the spoiler portion
of this episode and also thisepisode in general.
A huge recommendation by bothof us uh, definitely a film that
, with the right people involved, I think you could show it to
(47:06):
pretty much anybody and theywould take something positive
away from the film, and I thinkyou could show it to pretty much
anybody and they would takesomething positive away from the
film and I think most peoplewould like it.
Honestly, I think this this hassuccess written all over it
when it comes to americanaudiences.
I'm sure there's someunderlying reason why this movie
isn't getting advertised hereor shown in a lot of theaters.
There's probably something weknow what to know with.
(47:28):
That we know why um, what?
Speaker 2 (47:30):
that's not what we're going to talk about.
If, uh at uh, some of theseconventions we got coming up,
will we see any?
Anything, nasia?
Um, that'll be interesting thatwill be interesting.
Speaker 1 (47:41):
I doubt it, but he's just such a he's such a cute,
like, like convention-worthycharacter.
We didn't even bring up, likewhen he puts his hands in his
pants, like that's so fuckingcool dude Like yeah.
Speaker 2 (47:55):
I Him and Al Bain.
They're both soconvention-ready.
Speaker 1 (47:59):
We need Ivan to get a hold of this movie.
Speaker 2 (48:01):
We finally watched Puss in Boots.
Speaker 1 (48:03):
So that artwork's coming.
We've told enough, for, justlike you know, the whole time
we've known him.
Speaker 2 (48:12):
So that's, that's fine, he'll get to.
He'll get to this one by thetime.
Last wish, by the way, take ashot take a shot.
Speaker 1 (48:15):
This, uh, he'll, he'll watch the the first two,
uh, when the third one comes out.
So that's how that will work.
But, phil, yeah, if you want to, uh wrap us up here, I think,
uh, I think we've saideverything that we can say, and
if you're still here and youhaven't watched them, what the
fuck is wrong with you?
Speaker 2 (48:33):
How dare you?
How dare you Go watch the movieand then go to the show notes of
this episode and find ourLinktree link, which is where
you'll find everything you needto keep up with us on social
media, the most important onesbeing Instagram, tiktok, our
growing Discord channel.
We're also over on YouTube andwe stream every other week over
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You can support the podcast acouple of different ways.
(48:54):
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You guys know the drill.
All of that is greatlyappreciated and as this podcast
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(49:15):
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So thank you guys so much forall of that.
And if you find yourself maybewanting to be a little bit more
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and become part of a very, veryfun, uh, exclusive crew known
as the Weight Watchers, eric,we'll let you know a little bit
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Speaker 1 (49:33):
Yeah, thank you, guys , and thanks to our patrons
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That's the best way to help usout.
(49:54):
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(50:15):
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With that being said, my nameis Mr Eric Almighty.
That is my co-host.
Phil the Filipino.
Speaker 2 (50:38):
And please don't forget, we release new episodes
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Speaker 2 (00:31):
This is the Wait For it Podcast.
Hey, everyone, welcome back tothe Wait For it Podcast.
I am your co-host, phil Barrera, aka Phil the Filipino.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
And I'm your other co-host, mr Eric Almighty, and
for this episode we decided tohighlight a movie that was
starting to appear on our radarsrecently, with the highly
anticipated sequel expecting tobe a box office juggernaut in
2025.
We had been hearing about aChinese animated film that
quietly came out in 2019 here inthe States, and I have a
(01:02):
feeling many of you haven't seenit either.
So on this edition of theInternational Feature Series, we
are covering Neja.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
Yeah, eric, this movie came across my timeline I
think it was over on Twitterbecause the second film had
either already surpassed or wasquickly approaching the $1
billion mark, which spoileralert, guys it is now doubled as
far as Nezha 2.
So we're going to be talkingabout both films here today.
(01:32):
So you're probably wonderinghow is it that a film is now
essentially the highest grossingfilm of all time and I've never
heard of it.
Well, listen, you combine theChinese market with an animated
story that I think holds its own, as we will discuss here today,
(01:52):
and that's why you get thenumbers that you are seeing here
and that we will discuss thisevening.
So, eric, excited to talk aboutthis movie that, like you
alluded to, probably a lot ofyou have never even heard of up
until recently, because you knowwhen, when something makes a
ton of money like this, it'sgoing to turn some heads.
So hopefully, we can be thatkind of intermediary point
(02:13):
between you and watching thesefilms, because, eric, I tried to
do a deep dive into this onyoutube and you can't really,
because the content just doesn'treally exist yeah, and it
should be mentioned that most ofthat two billion in revenue
from the box office came fromChina.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
So, even as we're talking about this now, this is
as of right now, as of thisrecording, it is about to jump
into the top five top grossingfilms of all time, and it is the
highest grossing animated filmof all time, most of that coming
again from the chinese market,which is a big market fill in
(02:52):
box office history.
But not in this way, never inthis way.
Actually, this is unprecedented.
So I'm very excited to talkabout this.
We are going to speak spoilerfree, because I think the main
goal of this series is tohighlight films internationally
that aren't as popular or youhaven't seen as much, and I
(03:14):
think, with what we've said,although it's a high grossing
movie in the box office, most ofthe people here that are
listening to this podcast in theStates don't even know this
thing exists.
So I think it's a greatopportunity for us to talk about
the first film, the second filmand we might open up a spoiler
discussion, if necessary, at theend of this episode.
(03:35):
So make sure to stick around,if you've seen those two films,
for that.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
Yeah, yeah.
(04:06):
And last thing I'll say beforewe start on the first film.
I don't even think that Neja 2has released inboxd states.
The premise extracts a mixedyuan bead into a spirit seed and
a demon pill.
The spirit seed can bereincarnated as a human to help
King Zhao establish a newdynasty, whereas the demon pill
will create a devil-threateninghumanity.
Nezha is the one who isdestined to be the hero, but
(04:26):
instead he becomes a devilincarnate because the spirit
seed and a demon pill areswitched.
Now we'll get this out of theway here first.
This film is originally inMandarin, so of course you can
watch this in with subtitles oryou can watch it dubbed on
Amazon Prime.
It's relatively cheap.
You can buy it for like $7 andyou can rent it for $3.50.
(04:50):
Or in my case, because I trackmy feet, I rented it twice, so I
should have just bought thedamn thing.
But, going into this film, Ithink it's very important to let
people know our opinion.
Eric, I'm not sure how you felt, because I did start watching
this in dub, but then I switchedover to watching it in Mandarin
with sub.
You watched both, correct.
(05:11):
So how do you feel?
Speaker 1 (05:14):
Yeah, so I saw most of the dub the second watch
through.
I did watch it in Mandarin, inits natural state, mandarin in
its natural state, and I've gotto say the English dub is not
bad, but it is not as clean cutas you would expect from like
watching an anime English dub,and I think that was very
(05:35):
prevalent.
With certain voice actors inparticular, I tended to notice
that the ones that I've seen inanime before had a lot better of
a job getting very close to themouth flaps, but it is kind of
distracting at points.
I don't think it ruined theexperience by any mean and I do
(05:56):
think that this is a premise youguys just heard the synopsis
right, right Like this is apremise that kind of could lend
(06:21):
itself to a little bit of thatfamiliar dialect to be able to
understand and grasp the conceptand the Mandarin, and I think
the dub is serviceable to getyou through that if that's going
to be an issue.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
Yeah, and you know, mandarin is probably one of the
most difficult languages tolearn.
It's why whenever people try toportray it in film or
television, it's usually prettybad.
It in film or television, it'susually pretty bad.
I think Mood Night is probablythe most recent example of how
poorly that can go.
(06:52):
So I would suggest watching itin sub.
But you know, eric gave you areally good opinion there in
terms of getting through iteither way, to kind of give you
guys the inspiration of thisfilm, it tells the mythological
origins of Nezha, who is aprotection deity in Chinese folk
religion, and the story isloosely based on the literary
(07:12):
version of the myth that formstwo chapters of Investiture of
the Gods.
There's going to be a lot ofthis.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
This is what happens when you read Wikipedia.
Man, I know.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
A Ming Dynasty Shenmue novel, traditionally
attributed to Zhu Zhonglin,which incorporates various
existing myths into a widernarrative.
So that is one thing Like onemovie or one video I came across
on YouTube is kind of likethere was a lot of lore, a lot
of backdrop when it comes to theorigins of these characters and
(07:47):
for somebody who didn't knowanything about them it starts
off.
It's a very kind of basic tothe point setup.
It's got probably the mostobvious bad, bad guy looking bad
guy in animation history.
So that wasn't really too muchof a surprise when everything
went down.
But I think it's, you know,does a good job setting up the
(08:09):
story right away.
And you know, one thing poppeople probably want to know
right off the bat is how does ithold up animation wise?
And Eric, when I had, I hadn'tgotten all the way through the
movie yet, but you would ask meI'm at the gammy's after I had
watched some of it.
You know how I felt it and Isaid to you that I think when
the animation is kind of justchugging along and there's not
(08:31):
really a whole lot going on,it's not really my favorite.
But when they kick it into highgear with some of these fight
scenes and action scenes, man,it is another example that just
displays the laziness we'reseeing from other animation
studios Disney.
So we're getting a little aheadof ourselves, but I'm very
(08:54):
anxious to see what kind ofrecognition this gets, because
we are in award season a yearfrom now when we're talking
animation.
Speaker 1 (09:01):
Yeah, I think when we talk about the sequel, some of
those things may have been right?
Speaker 2 (09:06):
yeah, not this one right yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:07):
So for the first one, though it was, it was very good
.
It was very good, it was veryserviceable.
It's very much a kid's film.
So there are obviously anytimeyou watch an animated film, you
have to make that distinction.
Uh, this is not for adults.
That is from the humor aloneyou can kind of tell.
But even the animation, like Idon't know, it's almost, it's
(09:31):
almost discreetly or it's likeunderrated, lee good, because
it's something that on surfacelevel, when you look at the
character designs, for example,you're looking at it and it kind
of gives you that sameimpression that dreamworks gave
us for like a long time, untilyou, uh, wait for it, bingo,
watch puss in boots and then yourealize, oh shit, they're
(09:55):
pretty good at animation anddoing other things and they've
had a couple other films otherthan that.
I think what's really specialabout this film is that this
came out of nowhere.
Again, this is not somethingthat's happening overseas, where
there's one Disney for Chinathat is just trucking out films
(10:16):
and making billions of dollars.
This seemingly did come out ofnowhere, and Neja 1 and 2
apparently both took about fiveyears to produce, and there are
thousands of people involvedwith this and over 138 animation
companies that participated inthe creation of those films.
(10:36):
So I think that tells you quitea lot when it comes to how much
is involved with this and howmuch work was put into it, and I
think the first one does areally great job from an
animation standpoint.
I do think as we get to thatconversation, the second one
takes it to a whole differentlevel.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
Yeah, they made this first movie on a budget of 22
million US dollars, which is notreally a lot of money when
you're talking about I mean,this isn't the best example, but
, like the game, grand TheftAuto 6 cost a billion dollars to
make, supposedly probably.
So the fact that they churnedthis out on that budget, like
you said, relatively unknown andunder the radar, and put
(11:21):
together what is a cinematicexperience that I wish I had
gotten to see in theaters youknow you're talking about five
years ago oh my God, six yearsago.
We had never even heard of thisuntil a month ago.
So very, very impressive.
Let's talk about thesecharacters here.
Eric.
We'll have to start with themain character, of course, which
(11:44):
is Neja, and a character that Ithink intentionally is meant to
kind of irritate and gross youout here in the beginning and
kind of frustrate you.
He's got a lot of Bart Simpsonin him.
If Bart Simpson were an evilworld-ending deity.
So I feel like there was a lotof inspiration taken from Bart
(12:07):
here when it comes to thecharacter, but he really wins
you over very quickly,especially once you see just how
he is treated and his backstory, and again, there's a lot of
really good humor in those earlydays or in those early moments
like when he's playing uh, youknow the game with his mom.
That made me laugh right out ofthe gate.
(12:27):
What do you think about our,our main character, our hero
here, when you initially met him?
Speaker 1 (12:34):
so I love nasia.
I love nasia.
From the moment I laid eyes onhim he was great.
I understand that he is alittle shit.
He took the demon pill.
I mean pretty straightforwardstuff.
They could have gone with thatand it would have been a fun
premise.
I don't know if this is tooearly to start talking about the
(12:55):
, the themes of the movie andwhat the movie accomplishes, but
I really, really really likethe depth to this character.
So this character is, you know,a demon child.
He's causing ruckus, he'smaking ruckus, causing chaos,
and he is destroy, uh,destruction, just living and
(13:16):
breathing and walking.
But there are so many momentsin both films but definitely the
first one to start where yousee the humanity in that
character and like there arelittle things that I appreciated
, such as this character cries alot and not like cry, baby
cries, like for the sake ofcrying, but like to show that
(13:37):
there is some emotion andfeeling behind it.
Like we talk about some of thethings again not getting into
too many plot details, but youtalked about the way he's
treated.
Well, there's a scene thattalks to that where he's kind of
called out on it, like I don'treally care, and he's called out
on the fact that, yeah, you do,and he gets really emotional
and just he like balls up hisfist, you know, and you could
(14:00):
kind of like it's a subtlethings that this movie does
through nasia.
That really worked and that alsomade the relationship with him
and his parents a lot moreeffective by the film's end and
going into the sequel for me.
So those are the type of thingsthat I liked.
He's also really fucking funnyI I found a lot of his stuff to
be funny.
(14:20):
Yeah, a little bit too many peeand fart jokes for my liking,
in particular, especially in thefirst one, but it is, at the
end of the day, the first one,at least.
Second one's an argumentdirected to kids.
So I just really like thischaracter, phil, from the sake
that they're funny.
I love the character design ofNeja and I also just love the
(14:43):
fact that he's a sympathetichero who's not afraid to cry and
I don't know why, but that justlike really worked for me.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
Yeah, the depth of this character I think, at least
upon the initial outset of it,because of how he's kind of
presented, even down to, I think, his animation style, I think
you're just led to kind ofbelieve that once again, just to
lean on that Bart Simpsoncomparison, that he's not really
meant to be taken seriously.
But also, bart is an incrediblylayered animated character.
(15:14):
That's why he's still aroundafter 30, almost 40 years most
likely.
But yeah, I very much becameendeared with this character
throughout the course of thefilm and definitely carries over
into the second one.
We do get a mentor relationshipthere with a, with a character
that I think is also very, veryfun.
(15:36):
Now, that character is the onethat, unfortunately, where a lot
of the toilet humor comes from,that is directed at kids.
A lot of that is pretty miss.
I'm not sure how your son feltabout it, but uh, you know, for
us in our, in our 30s, are justlike well, that's that's the
part where you have to be likewell, that that wasn't put in
there to make us laugh, but somekids somewhere probably did, so
(15:57):
that was uh, yeah, so gettingto see him evolve over time and
and then really take that turninto still trying to hide the
fact that he wants approval, butstill very much trying to gain
that approval.
I think that is not necessarilyan original story, but it was
presented very well and I verymuch enjoyed that.
And then when we get that arcthere in the middle, that's when
(16:21):
we are introduced into anothercharacter, if you want to talk
about them and their importancein the story.
Speaker 1 (16:28):
Yes, so Ao Bing is the opposite of Nezha, he is the
Spirit Pearl and he is acharacter that I really enjoy
because he's like the completeopposite.
It's the yin and yang situationthat is happening here.
They're complete opposites butthey also have very similar
(16:52):
issues in their life that stemfrom the situation that they are
in, even though theirsituations essentially are
reversed, and I really liked theimplication that they just kind
of become friends.
Naturally I would like to haveseen that fleshed out a little
bit more in the first one.
We could talk about maybe somecritiques and stuff like that.
(17:12):
I think this movie is actually alittle too short, where the
sequel, I think, has a bettergrip on the time management
there of its story.
Not perfect by any means, but Iwould have liked to see them
develop that more.
But for what we did get, it wasbelievable, like I just I just
believe that story and I reallyenjoyed the relationship between
(17:34):
the two because they are sodifferent and you know, albing
is is just cool, calm, collected, where nasia is is a hot-headed
uh, you know troublemaker, andI like that dynamic a lot every
friendship needs the, thestraight laced guy, and that's
(17:54):
definitely him, voiced by alexlee, I believe correct in the uh
in the dub in the dub so forthose of you that are gonna
gonna go that route, so familiarvoice there.
Speaker 2 (18:04):
So, yeah, he is a very calming, seemingly
level-headed presence but, likeyou said, not without his own
issues and struggles.
And when you you, you knowobviously you given the story,
you know the context of thestory and, down to his look, you
know who this character is ifyou're paying attention to the
(18:25):
story.
But it still doesn't make thereveal and you know the depth of
this character any lessinteresting or tragic or however
you want to feel about it.
Yeah, I would have loved to seethem focus a little bit more on
this relationship, whether itbe adding time or cutting
(18:46):
elsewhere.
Maybe a little bit too muchtime spent in like that training
arc, you know area, becausethere are a couple times in the
movie where they go back to thetraining arc, which is kind of
strange.
But I very much like thischaracter and very much liked
his design too, not only thisone but one that we'll talk
(19:07):
about a little bit later as well.
So, yeah, cool character forsure, and really loved their
chemistry and kind of their meetcute there on the beach.
Speaker 1 (19:16):
Yeah, and this movie?
It serves a purpose of settingup the world and setting up the
sequel.
Speaker 2 (19:28):
That's what the first movie's purpose is really there
for.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
Yeah, there's 15 post-credit scenes just to let
you guys know there's a lot.
Also.
I think the last one was for amovie that's somewhat related
but not related.
What I heard was that this wassupposed to be the start of
essentially a cinematic universe.
There has been no evidence tosupport that.
That is actually what ishappening and, based off of
(19:50):
watching the sequel, I don'tthink that's real.
But there there was a lot ofnews that I kind of did my
research on where that was thethought process and I could kind
of see that with this film Icould understand it.
But I understand it more thatagain it really does a good job
of the world building andsetting up a sequel, and
(20:10):
effectively and I think thismovie does that because the
sequel picks right up where weleft off, which I think again
adds to the appeal of this film.
And I do think, phil, althoughit is a lot to digest, I do
believe it is digestible as faras the story and the plot goes.
It can absolutely be run of themill at times and it can
(20:34):
absolutely be convoluted attimes, but I think overall it's
very effective.
So on the positive end, I alsodo want to call that out, I
guess you know, before we talkabout the sequel, too much.
Is there anything else you wantto talk about?
Uh, positive or negative aboutnasia?
Uh, for people that arethinking about watching it or
have seen it, Positively.
Speaker 2 (20:55):
I do want to bring up his parents, madam Ying and
then also Li Jing.
I thought they were very strongin their own separate ways.
I mean, the mom is a badass,dad is a badass, and while we
are led to believe that the dadjust kind of has this very stoic
, not incredibly emotionalpresence about him, but that is
(21:17):
certainly not the case at all.
So we're talking about again.
There are storylines going onwith these characters that we
aren't even like thinking aboutuntil they're revealed later in
very, very important times orvery important segments of the
film.
So I think the parents weregood.
How did you feel about?
We got to talk about thevillain again, the the least
(21:38):
surprising and the most villainlooking villain I think ever
created in animated history,maybe next to like jafar, if
there's.
Is there ever any any fanfiction where jafar is the good
guy?
That's shen gong, uh gong, baogong bao.
Speaker 1 (21:53):
Yeah, yeah, that's, that's good old shen, it's never
.
Speaker 2 (21:57):
It's never like there's no fanfic of jafar, like
at a farmer's market justenjoying his sunday.
Speaker 1 (22:03):
No, maybe we'll talk about maybe we'll talk about
more about him in, uh, thespoiler section, uh, about how
his character growth kind ofhappens progressively over two
films.
But uh, in the first film he isvery much just your typical bad
guy and he's very much thepuppet master to the situation
that is at hand.
This movie kind of works arounda time-based situation that is
(22:29):
going to occur because of thesituation that Nezha and Albing
are in with the spirit pearl andthe demon orb.
So again, I don't want to gettoo much into spoilers for that
part, but I would mention thatagain, very run of the mill and
that's why my rating, I think,can't go much higher than where
(22:51):
it already is.
Like, I really enjoyed thismovie, but there are just
obvious things holding it backfrom being something that is
like a masterpiece or utterlyamazing.
I mentioned Puss in Boots.
Like this is not gonna reachPuss in Boots territory for us,
but will I bring this up topeople?
Yeah, yeah, I will.
I definitely will.
Speaker 2 (23:13):
It'd be a fun double feature movie night, especially
since neither one of them arereally that long Now.
We'll talk about in a momentthe second one definitely feels
like it goes on forever, but youcould get through it with some
friends, both of them in onenight and have a really, really
good time.
And then the other thing I'llshout out is I won't give away
(23:33):
what this.
You know who this character isor really what they look like
until later.
But I also like Al Guang.
I thought in the very limitedtime that they have in the first
movie, very effective.
I came away wanting to knowmore about that character and
I'm glad we got it in the secondmovie.
Speaker 1 (23:50):
Yeah, a hundred percent, and I think 100 and I
think you know let's.
Let's talk a little bit aboutthe second movie, but not again.
I don't want to really get intoany plot points, because this
is a movie that, as of right now, I think, is still out in
theaters.
As of recording this, I don'tknow how much longer it's going
to be in theaters and I have aweird like thought or
(24:14):
premonition that there will be are-release when the dub becomes
available.
I don't know why I feel thatway but I think it could happen.
So I would like to talk about,maybe, just our reactions going
from the first one to the secondone, and then, you know, we
could talk about scores andstuff like that, before
eventually opening up a spoilerdiscussion, because, phil, we
(24:37):
saw the second one together andwe didn't really talk about it
very much, so maybe this willgive us that avenue.
But, with that being said, whatwere your thoughts seeing the
first one and then getting readya few days later to see the
second one in theaters, and howwas that experience?
Speaker 2 (24:53):
yeah, I'm actually not going to read the synopsis
here either because it's prettyspoiler heavy.
So, again, very much suggestyou guys see these for
yourselves, so we don't giveanything away here.
But, yeah, very excited, reallyexcited, after seeing the first
film and wanting to know whatwas going to happen with these
characters, because it's leftvery much open-ended and there's
(25:14):
also, I mean, who who knew?
I mean, well, this was 2019, so, like, post-credit scenes were
still good, unlike now we're in2025 where they're like what are
we doing here, what are we evendoing?
So the post-credit scenes didvery well and then you know, not
having to wait six years to seethe sequel, we just got to go
see it right away and that wasreally really great.
(25:36):
So certainly, again, I suggestseeing this on a really big
screen.
It is colorful, it is loud, itand it is loud and colorful very
early and often.
So very excited going into thetheater and once again surprised
that, like more people don'tknow about this because it
(25:57):
really well one.
There's no dub yet, but itreally does cater to, I think,
what a lot of kids are arelooking for in terms of
animation, especially when youlook at what anime are currently
popular.
So once this does get thatre-release that you're
predicting, eric, I doanticipate we'll see more of a
(26:17):
bump than we are seeing in termsof box office numbers here in
the US, because it's not verybig, it's not a whole lot of
money, which is to be expected,but I was very much looking
forward to seeing the sequel.
How about you?
Speaker 1 (26:27):
Yeah, 100%, and I really enjoyed the sequel.
We're not going to talk toomuch about it, we'll give our
scores for both, but I reallythink it offers just such a
different version of thecharacter in the world compared
to the first one.
Like, I don't know if you agreewith this, phil, but the first
one is very set up based andstory driven, where the second
(26:51):
one very much is about beingbigger and bolder when it comes
to the animation and the action.
Like, I definitely felt therewas a huge increase in those
areas where I think maybe thestory took a little bit of a
predictable-ness.
That took it a step back fromthe first one and it was still
(27:12):
very good.
But I also think that this moviestruggled to balance some of
the kid appeals and the darkernatures of what it does, and I
think most movies struggle withthat with their second or third
film in a franchise.
But those are all minimalcomplaints and again, I really
view Neja 1 and 2 as like a 1A,1b type situation, which makes
me really excited for what thethird one will hold, and two as
(27:33):
like a 1A, 1b type situation,which makes me really excited
for what the third one will hold.
And I will say this.
There is one scene that me andPhil laughed harder than
anything that I can recall inrecent memory Honestly, maybe
since we started the podcast.
Speaker 2 (27:54):
It was it almost ruined.
It came out of nowhere and noone else was laughing.
Speaker 1 (28:00):
Nobody else.
Speaker 2 (28:01):
Granted.
There were only four otherpeople in the theater.
Speaker 1 (28:03):
It was like a 20-seat theater we were obnoxious for a
solid 20 minutes after thatscene.
I do feel like I missed 20minutes of the movie, so I do
need to go rewatch it.
And that's the thing, phil.
I watched the first one in duband I got to rewatch it a second
time.
Through that lens, I definitelywant to see Neja 2 again, and I
(28:24):
would love to see it again intheaters as well.
So I mean that that's just areally big you know.
Statement of confidence forthat movie in particular.
Speaker 2 (28:34):
big you know statement of confidence for that
movie in particular.
Yeah, in terms of budget, itwent from the $22 million for
the first movie American to $80million American.
So this is what they were ableto do with $60 million more,
which, yes, is a lot of money.
But in the grand scheme ofthings, when you're talking
about animation, you're talkingabout film that's not a big
increase.
So the fact that they were ableto really implement those
(29:03):
changes, those big time changesand again, nasia one looks great
and nasia two really ups theante.
The thing that that got me aboutthis film eric is like what if
the infinity war fight was justthe whole movie?
Pretty much.
There are times where it doesslow down, but it is like balls
to the wall.
It's like a fast, fast and theFurious movie.
You guys, it is crazy.
From beginning to end we get newcharacters that were teased in
the first one that are reallygood additions.
(29:25):
We get more fleshed outcharacters in this.
It is everything that you wantfrom a sequel, except that again
, maybe it has its foot in thepedal a little bit too much and
they could have slowed down ormaybe even saved some stuff for
the next one.
But again, those are reallylike we're complaining about a
movie being like super fun andsuper over the top, like that's
just a really weird thing.
(29:46):
It's not even complaints, it'sjust like man, you, what the
hell do they have planned forthat third movie, if this is
what we got in number two?
So that's one thing where I waslike man, we could have maybe
saved some of this.
There are a lot of characterson this and a lot of characters
on screen at some point, so youcould have definitely parceled
(30:07):
that out a little bit.
But again, it was a really funtime and I would certainly go
see it again, whether it be insub or in dub, when we finally
do get that.
Speaker 1 (30:20):
Yeah, I definitely agree with that.
And, phil, I think that's agreat place for us to maybe talk
about reception for these films, our particular scores, where
they ranked in the internationalfeature movies that we've done.
I think this now crosses usover 30 on our letterbox list,
so very curious where that'sgoing to take us and where that
(30:41):
landed for both of us.
But again got to implore youguys check this out, at least
the first one, and then if youdon't catch the second one in
theaters, I think it will beback, but if not, it'll be
available at some point.
I would be shocked if, at somepoint, both of these don't end
up on a streaming service.
So I think they will be moreaccessible.
(31:02):
Just based off of the historicnature of how the second one is
performed at the box office,even if most of it's in China, I
think there will be noticebeing taken by at least one
streaming company, probablyNetflix.
Speaker 2 (31:17):
I was going to say, netflix is knocking on the door
right now.
Speaker 1 (31:20):
It's there for them.
Speaker 2 (31:22):
Yeah, I guarantee you this even has like the Netflix
style of animation that theylike.
That they like.
Yeah, no, it's totally theirthing.
It's made for Netflix.
Speaker 1 (31:32):
It's got the international appeal yeah.
Speaker 2 (31:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (31:35):
Now that's 100% it.
But yeah, phil, how did thisfilm perform out both films Neja
1 and 2?
And then we'll get into ourscores before we open up a
spoiler section yeah, I've got alot of tabs open here, guys, so
bear with me.
Speaker 2 (31:47):
Nasia one on rotten tomatoes 88 percent tomato meter
score.
That's only 17 reviews rememberit's a six, six year old movie.
A 98 to a popcorn meter scorefor users.
Uh, nasia two has only sixreviews, so it does not have a
tomato meter score.
But for uh, if you're curious,they are all certified fresh,
(32:08):
but there's just not enough tocertify it, I think, on the
website, with a 99 popcorn meterscore for nasia 2 up over on
imdb, the harshest of them all7.4 for the first film and an
8.2 for the second.
So again very high, especiallyfor that second film, when, when
you're looking at the letterboxgrades, we have a 3.5 for Nasia
(32:31):
and a 3.9 for Nasia 2.
So we'll be interested to seehow these numbers change as this
film gains more popularity hereon our side of the world.
You're already seeing a lotmore reviews pop up than I saw
even just a few weeks ago, right, eric?
So we're seeing a lot of those,a lot of people that are seeing
the second one and then goingback to the first, which I find
(32:53):
very strange.
But you do, you.
So that's where we are at interms of scores.
Do you just want to go back toback for both of these?
How do we want to do it?
Speaker 1 (33:02):
Yeah, I think that's fair.
Okay, I don't know about you.
Mine are very close togetherand same on my list, so I'm
probably going to be a littlebit closer than you.
I'd love to see where you endedup.
Speaker 2 (33:13):
OK, yeah, for the first film, I gave it a three
and a half.
It is a the setup of all setupmovies in terms now that we have
seen the second one but stillvery fun.
Has a lot of really, reallygreat action scenes and now,
looking back, just gives you theperfect amount of introduction
to some of these characters.
Could have used a little bitmore, like I talked about, in
(33:36):
terms of some relationships, butstill very much enjoyed it and
would recommend watching it toto friends and watch it with
them as well.
Uh, neja 2 I gave a 4.
And that very much could changeafter seeing it a second time,
just because, again, I thinkmaybe I was just so overwhelmed
and then that one moment in thefilm just totally threw us off,
(33:57):
so maybe I need to go see itagain and it can go even higher.
I think probably even after thefirst watch I could go 4.25.
But I leave it at a 4 right now, with room for improvement.
Speaker 1 (34:08):
Yeah, that's completely fair For me.
I gave both of these films thesame exact score.
I gave them both a four andagain, I really think it's a 1A,
1b scenario here for Neja 1.
I think I prefer it a littlebit more.
I need to see Neja 2 again tosolidify that.
The only reason I feel that wayis because I feel like Neja 1
(34:31):
had a little bit more heart anda little bit more control over
the narrative.
It was trying to tell Neja 2though balls to the wall, crazy
good.
I think it's funnier than thefirst one.
I think there's more action.
I think there's a lot morethings that are effective, but
when it comes to the heart ofthe character and the film, I
(34:51):
think the first one does it justa tiny bit better, and I don't
know.
That just means more to me thanmaking it bigger, but not
necessarily better.
That doesn't always make itbetter.
So again, both of them neck andneck Phil on my list for
international feature.
If you want to mention yours aswell, mine are back to back
(35:12):
together.
I'm putting them right next toeach other to reflect what I
just said, and they are ranked13th and 14th out of 30 on our
international movies and showsthat we've watched.
The Raid is before it and filmslike Okja and Decisional Leave
are after it.
So that's my placement and,again, very respectable for the
(35:35):
films that are in front of it,which are spectacular.
Speaker 2 (35:38):
Yeah, for me I have Nezha 1 at 15, right behind
Perfect Days and right in frontof Ultraman Rising, so that is
where the first film sits.
And then the second one cracksthe top 10 at number 10, right
behind another round, and Iactually dropped down high Nana
for this.
So, they're both force.
(35:58):
You're a criminal.
Speaker 1 (36:01):
Absolutely.
I'm crying now.
I introduced you to fuckingtore me apart, dude.
I love that movie.
I don't you dare Fucking toreme apart, dude, I love that
movie.
I'm going to want to watch thatagain.
Speaker 2 (36:12):
Boy talk about a movie that has a million
different themes.
It really is like the rom-comof RRR, the RRR rom-com.
Man, if you just improve themusic a little bit and the dance
number, it's probably a five inmy opinion we're getting off
topic, but there is straight upjust a music video towards the
finale of that does not fit whatis happening?
(36:36):
yeah, so nature 2, yeah, number10 for me.
Still, like I said, very muchenjoyed it and uh cannot wait to
see what happens next yeah, 100and phil, I guess now I'll ask
you we get here.
Speaker 1 (36:49):
Is there anything on the spoiler side of things that
we would like to talk about fromeither film?
Would we like to open up thatdoor?
If so, this is going to be yourwarning listeners to either
skip ahead or check out thefilms and come back.
But, phil, anything that youwant to tackle in the spoiler
section, we can open that up.
Speaker 2 (37:08):
Yeah, here is your youtube warning right now.
You heard the man get out.
Get out.
Yeah, I would say so.
What did you think about?
Uh, what are your thoughts,because you're obviously a very
big fan of base character, baseset, naysha?
(37:29):
What do you think of hisultimate form, naysha?
Speaker 1 (37:33):
I like his ultimate form a little bit more in the
second one yeah his ultimateform's cool.
It's chill, you know, Idefinitely.
I just love his base form likedid they need?
Speaker 2 (37:45):
maybe because you know, I mean, I'll bring it.
Speaker 1 (37:47):
Yeah, i'llbing is literally, and again, let's not
Because the age thing isconfusing.
They're three but they're likeTeens technically, but Nezha is
still a child.
Speaker 2 (37:57):
That's right, that's what I needed to talk to you
about, so that's all.
Specifically, in the second one, we have to talk about time.
Speaker 1 (38:05):
There's some questions there about Some of
those things.
I thought it was fine.
I kind of like you know you'renot a dragon ball guy, but I
like that.
That's kind of like his, hissuper saiyan.
Like he gets the ring off, histrue power is revealed and he
has a different form, like thatis very anime coded for me and I
(38:25):
uh, I personally don't mind it.
I love his base design, though.
Like even when we talk, when wetalk about the second one, when
they kept changing his face toal bings, it was funny.
I get it, I hated it, I fuckinghated it, but not not enough to
hate the movie, but I love, Ireally love nasia's design.
What I'll say is about thesecond form is it's equally as
(38:48):
cool with the spear and theribbon, like the way it like
hovers over his neck and stuff.
Super fucking cool, the fuckingflame circles that he rides.
Speaker 2 (38:59):
Yeah, rings are cool, love it.
You know, being a big fan of ofshang chi, those were really
neat as well.
So I love the dragon designsreally, really cool.
And even though I wouldn't beable to like tell you their
names per se, they do all havetheir own unique design which I
very much love.
And yeah, I thought that wasreal.
I mean, you know dragons, uh,kaiju, you sold, I've sold, it
(39:22):
doesn't?
It's not going to take a wholelot for for me to be convinced?
So, yes, so let's talk aboutthis time thing.
Because did they not establishin the first movie that like a
like an hour up there was likemultiple days in the real world?
Was that not a thing?
And then he spent a lot of timein the second movie like
(39:43):
fighting all these essentiallybosses?
yeah these three boss fights.
Was that not a thing?
I'm not making that up, right?
No?
I don't think so becauseremember, remember, the dad goes
up to the gate and thensomebody tells him what you know
, an hour up here is multipledays down on earth, yeah, and
(40:04):
then he goes and he spendsseveral hours.
He's there movie, he's therefor a while.
Yeah.
So I was like, shouldn't thetown?
Yeah, nope, that's why thetown's gone, because you took
forever.
Speaker 1 (40:15):
Which the decimation of the town.
Crazy, yeah, crazy, that'swhere I was like.
Straight up Pompeii style.
And then they made sure to letyou know yeah, that family from
the first one dead, gone Didn.
Speaker 2 (40:31):
And then they, they made sure to let you know?
Speaker 1 (40:32):
yeah, that family from the first one dead gone,
didn't like that.
Remember the redemption arc ofthe bully?
Yeah, that mom got the shitpunched out of her dude.
She didn't even get to recoverfrom that she did have it coming
.
He punched the shit out of her.
So I uh, no, I was definitelytorn, I was definitely um taken
aback by it, for sure.
But yeah, there are some things.
And again, I don't know if it'slike a cultural divide or what
(40:53):
it is.
Speaker 2 (40:55):
It's a cultural divide.
Speaker 1 (40:58):
Anyway, you got me.
I'm thinking of the Super Bowlperformance.
Now I lost track.
I lost it.
So but I do think that thereare definitely some continuity
issues from the first to thesecond one that you're kind of
referencing with time.
There are a couple of thingslike that for both films and
(41:19):
that's what makes it a four, andI don't know that these will
ever go to a four and a half,because it does feel like at
times, like there are things inthis movie that don't fit and
they just either didn't have thetime or didn't, maybe don't
have enough experience to knowbetter, because I don't.
Speaker 2 (41:34):
again, it's not like a new studio, it's a bunch of
animation studios workingtogether, but maybe too many
hands, uh, in the pot, I don'tknow I'm talking about a lot of
side quests, a lot of storylinesand a few too many, especially
with the I don't have theirnames up in front of me anymore,
but with the main villain fromthe first movie and you know his
(41:57):
.
What was that?
His brother?
Yeah, his brother that showedup Randomly, randomly, oh yeah,
he's the Jaguar, you know.
And also that fight scene inthe waterfall Cool as shit
Slapped.
Speaker 1 (42:14):
Yeah, slapped, slapped, for sure.
Speaker 2 (42:17):
So they're just juggling too many different
families and too many tragediesand they didn't need to do all
that.
Speaker 1 (42:24):
Yes, and I think a lot of that gets lost when we
have the sacrifice at the end.
I guess you would call it asacrifice the death at the end
where the mother dies, and Ifelt like that could have been
played a little bit better.
It's still sad, still sad, butI think that could have been
(42:45):
played a little bit better.
There were signs of it.
But again, I just, I think thismovie is balancing a lot and I
think it's doing it in the sakeof that twist, which is not
really a twist Like that guy'sclearly the bad guy, the big,
the big headed guy, big brain,mega mind, asian, mega mind.
Speaker 2 (43:07):
So I was going to go Modok.
Speaker 1 (43:13):
It's like a very clear twist.
Speaker 2 (43:15):
This video is going to get to China and we're going
to be weird, so much trouble.
It's the opposite of RR.
We talked so positively aboutRR that that community like
embraced us.
Speaker 1 (43:27):
No, no, we mean well, but but yeah, there was stuff
like that, that, um, I I thinkit was a little bit too focused
on doing also the fact that thedragon designs were really cool,
but then they stopped switchinginto dragons and they were just
human.
Speaker 2 (43:40):
I didn't, I didn't really yeah, human designs
weren't as cool.
Speaker 1 (43:42):
I want dragons I want dragons, so how'd you feel
about the?
Speaker 2 (43:46):
uh, the, the pp dream switch in the in the t?
Speaker 1 (43:51):
the pp switch was funny, it was uh, it was pretty
good.
You know again, it's betterthan the fart jokes.
Speaker 2 (43:55):
None of the fart jokes were funny no, no, they
weren't.
Speaker 1 (43:58):
but again, the, the marmot, is that what you call it
?
A marmot, a marmot?
I don't know how you?
They're the, the big, the, thebig squirrels that look like
beavers, again doing the memefunniest, the funniest fucking
thing I've ever seen.
Speaker 2 (44:13):
Came out of nowhere, absolute left field.
The most unexpected thing Ithink I've ever seen in cinema.
Speaker 1 (44:22):
I think about it like people say they think about the
Roman Empire.
I think about it all the time.
Speaker 2 (44:27):
This is our Roman Empire.
Speaker 1 (44:28):
I think about it all the time.
Speaker 2 (44:29):
No one will know other than us, because no one
else is gonna see this movienobody gets it.
Speaker 1 (44:34):
We're gonna implore cory's gonna do an episode about
it in 2026 yeah, now it'sgenuinely the funniest thing
that's ever happened in cinemaand I just it's the pause, it's
the, it's the look down and thenthe look back and it's funny
because, like you do think forlike a second, like, oh, this
kind of reminds me of that memeand it doesn't give you time
(44:59):
there's no, there's no worldwhere you're thinking, oh,
they're gonna do the meme, soyeah, that's um, that's pretty
much it.
And and then the after creditsfor the film.
It kind of sets up the secondone.
We're going to see a lot moreof Nezha's brothers, which we
didn't really get a good look atuntil the end.
Speaker 2 (45:19):
So very curious.
I also don't really know whythey're gone either.
Speaker 1 (45:25):
That's where the world building, I think is, is
pretty good, but only up till apoint yeah it's enough to stay
on board with the story, butyeah, there are some deeper
things that that I think arelost there is the post-credits
scene where there's beating theshit out of them because they
have to reopen the door thatwent on for so long went on for
a good amount of time but it wasfunny it was.
Speaker 2 (45:47):
It was good though it was funny.
Speaker 1 (45:48):
so, yeah, no, I think those, uh, those are some of
the, I know, the main pointsthat we definitely wanted to to
discuss, um, and a lot from thesecond one in particular, this
third one going to be nuts,still don't know what it's gonna
look like like 2030.
Yeah, yeah, it'll probably takethat long.
Speaker 2 (46:10):
We'll be.
Will we get Nasia 3 or the nextSpider-Verse film first, or GTA
6?
Speaker 1 (46:20):
I hate that.
Any of that's a conversationhonestly.
Speaker 2 (46:24):
Just so you know when this movie comes out, we will
have PlayStation 6s.
Yes, that much is for surewe'll have playstation sixes,
and robert downey jr will becast as what's a marvel villain
they haven't used yet.
They're gonna go back to kang,go back to king all right.
Speaker 1 (46:46):
Well, now we've lost into the plot, watch this in
five years and let us know ifwe're yeah, we're correct but I
think that, uh, that kind ofdoes it for the spoiler portion
of this episode and also thisepisode in general.
A huge recommendation by bothof us uh, definitely a film that
, with the right people involved, I think you could show it to
(47:06):
pretty much anybody and theywould take something positive
away from the film, and I thinkyou could show it to pretty much
anybody and they would takesomething positive away from the
film and I think most peoplewould like it.
Honestly, I think this this hassuccess written all over it
when it comes to americanaudiences.
I'm sure there's someunderlying reason why this movie
isn't getting advertised hereor shown in a lot of theaters.
There's probably something weknow what to know with.
(47:28):
That we know why um, what?
Speaker 2 (47:30):
that's not what we're going to talk about.
If, uh at uh, some of theseconventions we got coming up,
will we see any?
Anything, nasia?
Um, that'll be interesting thatwill be interesting.
Speaker 1 (47:41):
I doubt it, but he's just such a he's such a cute,
like, like convention-worthycharacter.
We didn't even bring up, likewhen he puts his hands in his
pants, like that's so fuckingcool dude Like yeah.
Speaker 2 (47:55):
I Him and Al Bain.
They're both soconvention-ready.
Speaker 1 (47:59):
We need Ivan to get a hold of this movie.
Speaker 2 (48:01):
We finally watched Puss in Boots.
Speaker 1 (48:03):
So that artwork's coming.
We've told enough, for, justlike you know, the whole time
we've known him.
Speaker 2 (48:12):
So that's, that's fine, he'll get to.
He'll get to this one by thetime.
Last wish, by the way, take ashot take a shot.
Speaker 1 (48:15):
This, uh, he'll, he'll watch the the first two,
uh, when the third one comes out.
So that's how that will work.
But, phil, yeah, if you want to, uh wrap us up here, I think,
uh, I think we've saideverything that we can say, and
if you're still here and youhaven't watched them, what the
fuck is wrong with you?
Speaker 2 (48:33):
How dare you?
How dare you Go watch the movieand then go to the show notes of
this episode and find ourLinktree link, which is where
you'll find everything you needto keep up with us on social
media, the most important onesbeing Instagram, tiktok, our
growing Discord channel.
We're also over on YouTube andwe stream every other week over
on Twitch.
You can support the podcast acouple of different ways.
(48:54):
You can tag us, let us knowthat you're listening, let other
people know that you arelistening, and head over to your
podcast app of choice and leaveus a five-star review, thumbs
up, 100%, whatever it may be,and then on YouTube, like share,
subscribe.
You guys know the drill.
All of that is greatlyappreciated and as this podcast
continues to grow and see newopportunities that you guys are
(49:15):
coming across here in the newyear, that's all because of you.
So thank you guys so much forall of that.
And if you find yourself maybewanting to be a little bit more
involved with the community andget some behind the scenes stuff
and become part of a very, veryfun, uh, exclusive crew known
as the Weight Watchers, eric,we'll let you know a little bit
more about that.
Speaker 1 (49:33):
Yeah, thank you, guys , and thanks to our patrons
Briar, stefan T3, kato Coreyfrom the world is my burrito and
vintage, and Bridget from retroAV rewind.
Your support means the world tous and we'd love for you to
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That's the best way to help usout.
(49:54):
In return, you'll get exclusiveaccess and behind the scenes
access to episodes like this one.
We're getting into a groove, sothese episodes are starting to
release earlier than ever onthat platform.
Make sure to check it out, giveit a try, but if you're not
able to, we totally get it.
All the other stuff that youcan do for free goes a long,
(50:15):
long way the likes, the comments, the shares, the listens, the
engagement, everything under thesun.
With that being said, my nameis Mr Eric Almighty.
That is my co-host.
Phil the Filipino.
Speaker 2 (50:38):
And please don't forget, we release new episodes
every Wednesday on the podcast,with bonus content on platforms
like TikTok and Twitch, and allyou got to do is wait for it.
So I heard you're looking for ago-to source for entertainment.
Speaker 1 (50:47):
Wait for it.
Gaming.
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Mr Eric Almighty and Phil theFilipino yeah, they've got you
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Speaker 2 (51:07):
This is the Wait For it Podcast.
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