This director is vindictive.

Chapter 478 The Sequel's Guaranteed Dark Law Activated!

Many people found that the negative reviews of the "marketing bubble" seemed unfounded and began to shift their focus.

Negative reviews are starting to focus on the movie's plot.

For example, phrases like "values," "the people of Chentang Pass," and "bad people who have done all sorts of bad things have never been punished."

A well-known film critic wrote an article criticizing: "Recently, 'Ne Zha 2' swept the Spring Festival film season, but after watching it, I only felt that this is a tragedy for Chinese-language films."

The film's values ​​are completely distorted, and the director shows no concern for the lives of ordinary people!
The plot of "Ne Zha 2" is simply outrageous! It's understandable that the protagonist is manipulated by villains, but in the end, he can't even distinguish between basic good and evil?
The groundhog spirit, Lady Shiji, and Shen Gongbao's father—all were wrongly killed! Especially Shen Gongbao's father, an honest village schoolteacher—what did he do to deserve this? Just because the screenwriter needed a "tragic plot twist," he was inexplicably killed off. The director's indifference towards the vulnerable is blatant: ordinary people's lives are meaningless, merely tools to advance the plot!
The character design of Nezha is also a complete failure, consisting of mindless shouting throughout the entire story.

This version of Nezha is just a noisy brat. Aside from yelling "My fate is in my own hands, not in the heavens," he shows absolutely no character growth. Action scenes rely on shouting, emotional scenes rely on shouting, even explaining the plot requires shouting—it's so loud it gives you a headache! Does the screenwriter think "excitement equals a loud voice"? Compared to the subtle transformation of Nezha in the previous film, this one completely regresses to a childish, feel-good movie formula, devoid of any character charm.

The movie was outrageously drawn out! The entire middle hour was just filler: pointless fights, repetitive dialogue, and forced slow-motion shots... The guy next to me was snoring away, and when he woke up, Nezha was still shouting the same line. Did the director think the audience had too much money and too much time? Cutting 40 minutes would be considered lenient!

This film broke records using the same formula as "Wolf Warrior 2"—precisely tapping into patriotism and the passion for Chinese animation! Before its release, the entire internet was marketed with the slogan "The Rise of Chinese Animation," Chen Mo predicted a box office of 10 billion yuan, Douban locked scores and controlled reviews, and theaters gave it crazy screenings (all prime time slots of other movies were cut to give to "Ne Zha 2").

The actual quality didn't match the box office, but the capital kept them silent: negative reviews were drowned out, and any criticism was labeled as "kowtowing to Hollywood." To put it bluntly, the audience wasn't watching a movie, but a collective frenzy created by capital!

In conclusion: This is a marketing product with distorted values, flawed characters, and excessive padding; its explosive popularity is entirely due to the contrast with its competitors and emotional manipulation.

Many people agreed, saying, "Same here. It's exactly the same as Wolf Warrior 2. The fact that this movie has such high box office and so many people are praising it only shows that Chinese people are stupid and have too much money. It's not as good as the first movie, or even as good as Monkey King: Hero Is Back from ten years ago!"

"In the end, Chentang Pass was massacred, and Li Jing and his wife did not protect the people in the city, but instead hid. This is really inconsistent with the character settings and values."

"Moreover, the film's humor mainly consists of toilet humor, and some of the jokes even felt quite inappropriate to me. For example, when the seafood monster is sealed in a large jar, it eats itself. Well, at least that eases the tension and horror a bit, considering there are so many children in the audience."

But I genuinely couldn't laugh at the post-credits scene's jokes about the main villain. What's so funny about that wicked old man who treated the city's inhabitants like dirt, who disregarded demons' lives, and who committed countless evils, only getting a couple of blows from his own apprentice?

"No problem. The most disgusting thing is the Easter egg. A heinous villain, in this playful little punishment, his evil seems to have received the punishment he deserved and been forgiven and disappeared. Everyone's laughter represents a certain degree of 'forgiveness' and forgetting evil. It deconstructs evil into a kind of forgivable, approachable, playful, and disappearable joke."

However, this also quickly drew rebuttals from many people.

"I'm puzzled. What they said seems to make some sense, but in reality, they're just blatantly hypocritical!"

What about the groundhog spirit, Lady Shiji, and Shen Gongbao's father—all wrongly killed! What about treating the people of an entire city like dirt?

I just want to ask, why are you so upset about *Ne Zha*, thinking it's morally wrong and has incorrect values? But look at Hollywood's Iron Man, Tony Stark, he's an arms dealer! How many innocent people has his weapons harmed? Yes, you might say he didn't know! But did Ne Zha know?

"Haha, I was just about to say that at first glance it seems like, oh right, that makes sense, but when I think about it carefully, something's not right. According to this logic, shouldn't all superheroes be executed?"

The three villains in Iron Man harbored resentment towards Tony because he stood them up, and then created the Extremis virus, which caused some people to explode and killed several people. I would like to ask if this is also Iron Man's fault?

"Captain America and his Winter Soldier destroyed several vehicles and planes and killed many people while chasing Captain America. Can I completely blame Captain America for all these deaths?"

"It's not uncommon in other works for the protagonist to cause the villain to kill someone, but ultimately it's the villain's fault!"

Why blame the protagonist? And why keep saying the massacre of Chen Tang Pass was entirely Nezha's fault? Isn't it possible that the massacre was because Wuliang Xianweng wanted to frame the Dragon Clan, and had nothing to do with Nezha? Besides, could Nezha have even made it back in time? He didn't know about the massacre, so why would he have rushed back?

"I also find it very puzzling. As a superhero fan, I am also speechless at this way of criticizing Nezha. If we criticize Nezha in this way, then most superhero movies would be morally corrupt!"

"Yes, you have to use a microscope to watch Nezha, otherwise you'll be speechless when talking about other works!"

However, these negative reviews do have one effect: they're purely disgusting.

"Are all these people fans of other movies?" Liu Yifei asked curiously as she scrolled through movie reviews.

Without needing Chen Mo's answer, Zhao Liying stated directly, "No! As long as the movie does well at the box office and becomes popular, these people will definitely show up!"

"That's right, and I've come to an interesting conclusion: if a popular movie is a sequel, the first thing these people will do is comment that they're fans of the first one, and then start saying that the second one is worse than the first. That was the case with 'Wolf Warrior 2' back then, and it's the same with 'Ne Zha 2' now!" Fan Binbin said with a smile.

"It really is true! Look at this 1-star review, 'This is a sequel that shouldn't exist, but Ne Zha is just too, too successful, what can we do?'" "And this one, 'The first movie changed Ne Zha's rebellious image of cutting off his own flesh and bones, turning him into a child with both his father and mother's love, and the parental love is so touching—although this is controversial, I personally don't dislike it.'"

"The last one was about fatherly love, this one amplifies motherly love. Cry, everyone cry! You're not allowed to leave the theater if you don't cry!" Zhang Yuqi said with some surprise as she read the negative review.

"That's normal! After all, it makes you seem more objective! As for praising the first one, it's because the first one has already been settled and it's been so long that people's memories of it aren't that deep. As long as you say you're a fan of the first one, you can see that I'm not just criticizing for the sake of criticizing, I'm being very objective! From fan to critic, understand?" Gao Yuanyuan couldn't help but say with a smile.

"Well, this one, the ending bonus scene does seem to make a lot of sense!" Liu Yifei couldn't help but look at Chen Mo.

They could refute and understand the other negative reviews, but they also felt that the one in the final bonus scene made some sense.

Chen Mo calmly picked up his coffee, took a sip, and then said slowly, "This was an inevitable outcome! There's nothing more to say!"

"First of all, from a business perspective, this Easter egg is to set up the next movie! Moreover, the so-called forgiveness is just playing with words!"
Look, someone here is saying that Thanos wiped out half the world with a snap of his fingers!

But Marvel later used several movies to bring these people back to life!

So here's the question: "Ne Zha 2" is only the second installment; who says this is the final punishment? Can't we have a third or fourth film to deliver the final blow?

The women were somewhat taken aback by Chen Mo's words.

Because they never expected Chen Mo to explain it from such a unique perspective.

"Actually, you might think what the other side says makes sense, and that's true. In fact, what the other side says does make sense! But that's just how movies are!" Chen Mo said with a smile.

"It's very simple. You're watching a movie released during the Spring Festival, not a movie that makes you hate or love anyone. You say the God of Longevity is the villain, but is he the villain from the perspective of the Chan Sect?"

But from the director's perspective, why is this plot point an Easter egg instead of the actual ending?

Because this is not the end, but rather an Easter egg, indicating that the story does not end here!

The scene in the post-credits scene where the two apprentices beat up their master—is this foreshadowing the changes in the two apprentices in the third movie? Is it meant to enrich the characters' personalities? Is it meant to bring the two cold-blooded guards closer to the audience?

So, I say this is a word game. Isn't it too arbitrary, hasty, and subjective to simply call it a "punishment"?

In fact, including the harm that Wuliang Xianweng inflicted on the people and the persecution by the demon race, the punishment for his mistake as a gatekeeper was only "sleeping". Doesn't this also enrich the image of the so-called "villain"?

"What's the point of this 'good guys and bad guys' distinction? It's just a matter of different perspectives. In the eyes of Lady Shiji and the groundhog, isn't Nezha also a villain?" Chen Mo asked again.

"Actually, we don't need to pay too much attention to these things; they won't affect the overall situation!"

And that's exactly what happened. Although there were quite a few negative reviews, the rating wasn't lowered much.

The box office was not affected.

With the complete explosion of "Ne Zha".

It could break 30 billion, 40 billion, or even 50 billion at the fastest, and finally break the record for Chinese-language film box office.

The media frenzy has reached its climax, with all sorts of reporting angles emerging!

各大媒体用头版用动态数据可视化呈现：“《哪吒2》以日均7亿票房狂飙，刷新《战狼3》保持的‘破50亿最快纪录’（原18天），仅用一周即达里程碑！院线经理透露：部分影院已出现‘三刷家长’带娃包场，亲子特惠套餐销量同比暴涨200%。”

Film and Television Industry Observer published an in-depth analysis: "'Nezha Effect' subverts the traditional release schedule: For the first time, animated films during the Spring Festival have achieved 'appeal to all ages,' with their family-friendly appeal overwhelming star IPs. Data shows that young viewers aged 25-35 accounted for 41%, breaking the stereotype that 'animation = children.'"

An article by a columnist for "Entertainment Review" states: "Is Chen Mo's 'prophetic negative reviews' backfiring? Fans of 'Fengshen 2' and 'The Legend of the Condor Heroes' launched a joint campaign to 'save traditional blockbusters,' accusing the excessive pursuit of animation of causing industry imbalance. But the data contradicts this: the animated film 'Boonie Bears' grossed over 12 billion yuan during the same period, proving that the market has diverse choices and is not 'exclusive to Nezha.'"

(End of this chapter)