San Francisco Frontiers - Chinese mega-hit 'Ne Zha II' enlists Michelle Yeoh to woo US audiences

A24, the trendy indie studio behind "Everything Everywhere All At Once," is releasing a redubbed English-language version in US theaters this Friday, featuring a voice cast including Michelle Yeoh.

The hope is that a fantastical tale of warring dragons, demons and immortals -- rooted in Chinese mythology, but reimagined with flashy battle scenes worthy of a Marvel movie -- can translate to Western audiences.

Speaking on the red carpet of a Los Angeles premiere this month, Yeoh described the movie as a "cultural exchange."

"I had seen 'Ne Zha II' in Chinese, and even at that time I thought, 'I hope they do an English version, because you want little kids to be able to see it and understand,'" she told People magazine.

The sprawling fantasy film centers on Ne Zha, a tiny child with fearsome magical powers, who sets off on a quest to save his best friend after his hometown is attacked by dragons.

The movie is already an astonishing box office success.

"Ne Zha 2" has grossed around $2.2 billion worldwide -- a source of great patriotic pride in China, even if the vast majority of those receipts came from domestic audiences.

For context, since the Covid-19 pandemic, only one other film has passed $2 billion worldwide: "Avatar: The Way of Water."

"This is probably the most talked-about non-US film of the year," said Comscore box office analyst Paul Dergarabedian. "$2.2 billion puts it in the pantheon."

Chinese audiences have also pointed to the movie's special effects as evidence of the country's film industry catching up with, or even surpassing, Hollywood's offerings. Some 4,000 Chinese animators worked on the 3D fantasy epic.

- 'Globalization of content' -

Still, the movie's initial, subtitled launch overseas failed to set box offices alight. It took $20 million in the US, and generated similarly solid but not spectacular figures in other markets like the United Kingdom and Australia.

The movie is based on the 16th-century Chinese novel "Investiture of the Gods" which itself draws heavily on millennia-old folklore and characters.

It features an at-times bewildering array of shape-shifting heroes and villains who will be unfamiliar to viewers with no knowledge of traditional Chinese stories or the film's 2019 predecessor, "Ne Zha."

That said, A24 is hoping that an international voice cast, delivering the film's irreverent humor in a style reminiscent of Hollywood superhero fare, can help bridge the cultural gap.

It comes at a time when Western audiences are increasingly flocking to works rooted in Asian cultures, such as last weekend's US box office top 12 featuring two Indian films ("Coolie," "War 2") and one Japanese movie ("Shin Godzilla 4K.")

And the shift has been even more pronounced on streaming platforms.

Summer smash-hit "KPop Demon Hunters" is rapidly on course to become Netflix's most-watched original film ever, and the debut season of "Squid Game" remains its most-watched TV show of all time.

"There's definitely been a globalization of content, in terms of people all around the world enjoying cinema from different countries," said Dergarabedian.

N.Wilson--SFF