Jiang Ziya

This is China's attempt to set up a film universe like what Disney's done with Marvel. Last year we were introduced to Nezha, a popular character inspired by the 16th century Chinese classic novel "Feng Shen Yan Yi" (loosely translated as Investiture of the Gods). This year a quasi sequel to Nezha is brought to us in the form of another important character from the Investiture of the Gods universe - Jiang Ziya. Based on a real historical figure who helped overthrow the mad emperor of the Shang dynasty (King Zhou), Jiang Ziya is fictionalized here, yet true to the novel, as a deity-in-the-making who's already gifted with supernatural abilities and magical skills to help him rid the world of demonic beings.

Jiang Ziya is an intelligent take on the fictional tale from the Feng Shen fantastical universe. The movie remains somewhat loyal to the Feng Shen story in that it sets Jiang Ziya up as a divine celestial god from Heaven who was sent down to the mortal realm here on Earth to capture an evil fox spirit, Nine Tail, who possessed a young innocent but allegedly extremely beautiful maiden named Su Daji on the day she was heading off to become King Zhou's consort. Nine Tail and Daji shared an unbreakable bond (bound together by an ankle bracelet) since that fateful day as this pair of fox and human spirits became intertwined and destined to be together for eternity.

This film follows Jiang Ziya's journey to capture Nine Tail all the while attempting to release Daji from her unfortunate fate. Along the way, viewers are treated to beautiful rendering of colorful depictions of ancient China and cutesy character designs with top notch animations featuring fast paced kung fu fighting.

The storyline features elements and plots from the novel with added bonuses like the adorably cute heavenly fawn that acts like a puppy called Four Alike (whose Chinese name, "Si Bu Xiang", actually means the exact opposite - "Four Not Alike"). As in the novel, after the fall of the Shang dynasty, here too King Zhou is deified as a deity who manages the marriage affairs of mortals. And like the novel, the promise of deification to the nine tailed fox spirit for successfully completing her mission to seduce and overthrow King Zhou was not fulfilled as promised, thereby causing Nine Tail a lot of resentments and a desire for vengeance on the perpetrator.

I really enjoyed this film and that's maybe because I'm a big fan of "Investiture of the Gods". I find this much more enjoyable than last year's Nezha. I can't wait for it to release in 4k so that I can watch it again and certainly looking forward to next year's entry in this glorified Fengshen Cinematic Universe, "ErLang Shen" (God with Three Eyes). Until then, we still have the the live action version of this epic tale to look forward to (Director Wuershan's "Fengshen Trilogy")

Maybe it's because I'm Chinese, I actually like this movie (actually, lots of Chinese doesn't). I guess you can enjoy it much better when you don't see this as a typical movie, but as an extension of the existing, very old legends of Jiang Zi Ya. I don't know if there are other similar cultures, but in China's loose, complicated fusion of mythology, the gods can be roughly divided into two groups - the ones that are high and mighty, which we build large temples to worship because we want to stay on their good side, and the lesser gods who we invite to our homes to guard and protect. The former is neither malice nor benevolent, while the latter cares deeply for us mortals because most of them started out as mortals themselves (historical figures with written acounts). Jiang Zi Ya is one of the lesser gods. He is also believed to be the head of all gods. Why the contradiction you ask? I can only suspect it's because he's on our side, he doesn't mind if we are small and insignificant and full of flaws. You don't need to learn any script or religious ritual to call upon him, you can be completely ordinary and he still cares. And most importantly, lesser gods can have limits, it's acceptable that they aren't perfect. In fact we prefer it this way because once they begin to see the "bigger picture" or the "greater good", it can only mean massive bloodshed among mortals. Anyway, that's the Jiang Zi Ya I grew up knowing. And this movie portrays it successfully. To write about the struggle of a powerful god is difficult, and this movie has only done a mediocre job. But I'm perfectly happy to see my beloved god readapted on the big screen.

U going to be disappointed if u using Nezha standard to watch this movie. Slow pace but beautiful scenery to let u enjoy.Nice topic about sacrifice one to save all.Ending a bit rush.overall it's beautiful done.

It's evident from the very beginning that this movie intends to be not just epic, but cosmic. You don't need to be familiar with Taoism or Chinese mythology to grasp that Investiture of the Gods is in a long Chinese pop-culture tradition of reworking foundational stories of the gods: in this case, Jiang Ziya, who rises to become their king, but was seemingly a mortal first, and even banished from the heavenly court for some time. The film succeeds in conveying a sense of majesty, especially in the depictions of heaven, which combine a sort of astrophysical violence with digital-inspired vector graphics. The animation is in a particularly Chinese style, I think, distinguished by its speed (sometimes it's hard to follow the motion of characters) and video-game like aesthetics in the action sequences. But it's even more difficult to follow the story line - it seems the creators wanted to work in a lot of different materials without giving much background. By the end, the film is especially hard to follow. Despite that, both kiddos really enjoyed it, even if it was a bit scary, including for Sienna (turning 9 in a few months)

I gave Ne Zha, the prequel to this, more stars, but the storyline at times was a bit confusing & lacked a clear explanation on some of the main characters from gods to mortals & other creatures (i..e. Roles & relations to one another). In other series I've seen about the nine tailed fox it has been portrayed as good; disappointed in its portrayal here.

Otherwise storytelling was intelligent, sardonic, humorous, poignant. English voicing, often shaky in Asian films, was quite modern Western & culturally appropriate. Above all, the animation quality was good lacking only in individualized detail, e.g. In animals/humans the hair, skin subtleties were missing as well as detail in background objects.