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")

Beautiful art and graphics imbued with Chinese culture. Theme is philosophical and a long time ethical question. Character development is awesome and the story is very touching. You would understand many of the aspects better if you know about Chinese culture and history. The story is based on a 16th century novel called The Investiture of the Gods (Feng Shen Bang), which is set in the era of the decline of the Shang dynasty (1600-1046 BC) and the rise of the Zhou dynasty (1046-256 BC). It intertwines numerous elements of Chinese mythology, including deities, immortals and spirits.

This is not a story driven movie, so for those who go to the cinema expecting a complex and well crafted plot, they might be disappointed. In fact, the story is rather simple for such a deep lore and grand setting. But this is a character driven movie, and there is only one character that matters here, the title character: all the rest are there as devices to emphasis his arc. Some will argue it's a bad choice to make a movie in such way, and indeed, maybe commercially it might be. But for those like me who enjoys slower paced movie with a strong focus, this movie managed to grab my attention every second. I feel for the main character, I feel his emotions, I understand his motivations. Well done over all, not to mention It's masterfully and magnificently animated!

This film is the follow-up to 2019's acclaimed Ne Zha, though the link is not clear until the very end and the connection is more thematic. This film also draws on Chinese mythology with surprisingly good animation and energetic action sequences. The designs, colours and lighting are quite masterful with lots of stunning scenes like the dead souls or the (literal) stairway to heaven. I would say it's on the level of Kubo and the Two Strings, wherein any frame could be a stunning desktop wallpaper. The animation of the characters (as in, the expression and movement) is more action-oriented and less comical than that of Ne Zha. The story concerns the titular Jiang Ziya who is trying to solve the mystery of the Nine Tailed Fox and end his banishment. While engaging, it suffers from a lot of choppiness and jarring transitions - many of the flashbacks intrude quite suddenly, a lot of things are not explained and some scene transitions happen without warning (like the one spanning ten years!).

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)