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PaperclipPerfector  2mo ago (text post)   34887 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 17, 2025

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Is NeZha 2 any good ?

NeZha2 is China's first big blockbuster. It's being heralded as a 'Deepseek moment' for Chinese cinema and I'm confused.

I saw NeZha 1 with my Chinese roommates and I didn't like it. The animation was expensive, but had a stock footage-ness to all of it. The jokes were Minions-esque slapstick and the core story was straight out a children's book. The movie felt miles behind nuanced works like InsideOut or Up. Ghibli is on a whole another planet. Minions is probably the analogy I would go for. Note - I saw it in Mandarin with subtitles, with a PRC Chinese person explaining any nuance I might've lost.

Now, the Minions movies made a ton of money and the west's block busters have been especially bad post-covid. I get it, it's kettle calling the pot black. Normies have terrible taste, so I'm going to avoid equating commercial success with quality. My comment is from the perspective of taste.

And I am a China optimist. My best friends are PRC Chinese and they're smart. I don't doubt that Chinese companies can compete in global entertainment or automobile markets. But why is everything that comes out of PRC China so tasteless ? There is clear absence of nuance, craft and love in every industrialized piece of crap that comes out of there. Deepseek is special because it feels inspired. DJI & Nothing also have a spark within them. But elsewhere it feels competently executed but empty. Nezha is no different. Great execution, no soul.

Is this hype organic ? Am I just a hater ?

I haven't seen that movie, but in general I feel the same was you about most modern Chinese media exports. It's shockingly bad. It almost seems like everything is made by an AI rather than by professional artists. And I say that as someone who likes China- I grew up loving the old Hong Kong kung fu movies, and I really respect their ability to do high-tech manufacturing. But the Hon Kong movie industry died once the PRC took over, and there just doesn't seem to be left to replace it. It's scary how the PRC just kills that kind of creative energy.

Then again, Hollywood movies are also mostly crap these days, so maybe it's a worldwide problem. Could be smarthpone addiction or something else.

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