A Reversed Construction between Deities and Demons: A Case Study of Ne Zha: I’m the Destiny

Tang Hai(School of Foreign Languages, Wuxi Taihu University)
You Yang(School of Foreign Languages, Wuxi Taihu University)
Ma Mengchun(School of Foreign Languages, Wuxi Taihu University)

Abstract

In 2019, Ne Zha: I’m the Destiny won more than 5-billion-yuan box office in Chinese movie market. Although the box office is not the only criterion for judging the quality of an animated movie, Ne Zha breaks a certain stereotype in storytelling, technical means, and the setting of the positive and negative characters. This potentially indicates that in producing an animated film, Chinese artists start to pay more attention to how to refine a movie production, or how to make the story more interesting. One of the attractive elements of this movie is that, Ne Zha has made a breakthrough in creation of a character of Children’s hero, and is totally different from its previous versions: with his joy and sorrow, audiences see the characteristics of Ne Zha as a nice as well as an aggressive boy. This partially because in setting the role of Ne Zha, boundaries between the good and the evil or between beauty and ugly are not so clear in the animation, while it features that Chinese cartoons are set to focus more on authenticity rather than their instructive functions. Additionally, the change of the image of Ne Zha and the subversive characters re-created in the movie have metaphorical significances, featuring how “Chinese school” reconstructs the subjectivity of Chinese stories in contemporary world.

Keywords

Ne Zha: I’m the Destiny; Animation; Chinese school; Gods and demons; Hero

References

Chen, G. N., (2019). On Discussion of the Aesthetic dimensions of Ne Zha: I’m the Destiny (in Chinese). Movie Literature, 23, pp.131-133.

Chen, X. and Wu, Y. Y. (2020). Deconstruction of the Concept of Destiny in Ne Zha: I’m the Destiny (in Chinese). Journal of Changchun Normal University, 7:197-200.

Ding, Y. (2020). Analyses of the Similarities and Difference of the Characteristics of Ne Zha in Ne Zha: I’m the Destiny and The Story of Chinese Gods. Radio and TV Journal, 9, pp.89-90.

Ding, Y. P. (2019). The Past, Present and Future of the Chinese School and the Chinese Animations (in Chinese). Yuehaifeng, 2, pp.55-63.

Hu, Y. H. (2019). Research on Changes in Building Nationalism in Domestic Animations (in Chinese). Movie Review, 19: 47-52.

Li, J. H. (2019) The Expression of Chinese Styles in Domestic Chinese Films (in Chinese). Research on Digital Media, 36(11), pp.51-53.

Liu. W. G. (2009). On Discussion and Evaluation of the Image of Ne Zha (in Chinese). Religious Studies, 3, pp.178-183.

Lv, X. Y. (2020). Cultural Deconstruction and Remodeling of Ne Zha in Ne Zha: I’m the Destiny (in Chinese). Movie Literature, 4, pp.127-129.

Pan, J. (2020). An Observation and Analysis on 2019 Chinese Animation Films (in Chinese). Contemporary Cinema, 2, pp.27-34.

Qin, X. L. (2019). From a Legend towards a Human: Rethinking about the Changing Images of Sun Wukong (in Chinese). Movie Review, 16:84-7.

Sun, L. J. (2020). Cultural Deconstruction and Remodeling of the Journey to the West. Movie Review, 5, pp.48-51.

Yuan, K. (2016). Chinese Myths and Legends (in Chinese). Beijing: Beijing United Publishing.

Zhang, J. (2019). On Traditional Culture and Aesthetic Construction in the Animated Film White Snake. Art Evaluation, 24, 165-168.

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.26549/jetm.v5i1.6369