New Gods: Yang Jian evaluation: Chinese language gods, meet Cowboy Bebop

Followers of Ji Zhao’s terrific 2021 CG animated Chinese language film New Gods: Nezha Reborn would possibly count on one thing related from his follow-up, New Gods: Yang Jian. They’ll get a part of what they got here for, by way of epic god battles, massive operatic feelings, and elaborately lovely visible design. However in each different sense, the second movie is a large departure from the primary — not a lot an enlargement of the setting as a largely unrelated story in a totally totally different style.

Nezha Reborn units up a construction that appears designed to repeat endlessly, with limitless variations: A struggling human protagonist learns that he’s the reincarnation of a mythic god. Zhao (director of the fascinating donghua film White Snake) and screenwriter Mu Chuan give that story spectacular specificity, with a sci-fi-tinged postapocalyptic setting and a number of problems round bringing historical powers to a contemporary world. It’s simple to image a sequence of New Gods motion pictures as a Marvel Cinematic Universe-like setup for an eventual crossover, as outdated gods return to the mortal realm, begin to reshape it, and finally come into battle.

However Zhao and Chuan’s follow-up largely leaves the mortal world behind, and as a substitute hangs out within the realm of the gods, whose considerations really feel a lot much less related to a presumably human viewing viewers. Yang Jian is a way more conventional Chinese language fantasy epic. Its solely noticeable hyperlink to sci-fi is available in its opening setup: a weirdly thorough pastiche of the anime sequence Cowboy Bebop. That’s a bit little bit of a disappointment.

From the second Yang Jian introduces its titular protagonist, who’s taking part in a melancholy bluegrass harmonica riff over a close-up of his sky-ship’s engine powering down for lack of gasoline, Cowboy Bebop followers are more likely to have déjà vu. Yang Jian (voiced by Wang Kai) is the chief of a four-person workforce of down-on-their-luck bounty hunters who can barely afford to chase their newest goal. Like his Bebop counterpart Spike Spiegel, Yang Jian is a deceptively younger man who seems to be sleepy and checked-out more often than not, till somebody threatens him to the purpose the place he has to bust out his startling battle abilities.

Picture: GKIDS

His crew additionally appears suspiciously acquainted: a cumbersome, muscular engineer with a scruffier model of Jet Black’s spiky beard; a hyper, scrawny red-haired child who yells loads and runs round on all fours; and a canine that’s smarter than it lets on. (The latter two have a humorous connection that’s finest skilled within the second.) Solely the fourth crew member, a generic pirate sort who’s barely within the film, doesn’t match the mould.

Just like the crew of the Bebop, this foursome runs down leads and will get into bother, piloting their ship from place to position by wormhole gates that appear like high-tech sky-hoops. Not like the Bebop workforce, although, this crew is led by a god. Yang Jian — also referred to as the standard Chinese language folklore determine Erlang Shen — was a mighty energy among the many gods at one level, earlier than his third eye closed and his powers light. The gods and demons of folklore have typically fallen on arduous instances after a struggle for supremacy among the many gods. On this story, the Immortal Realm the place the spirits dwell seems to be like a sequence of retrofuturist cities and run-down manner stations. The identical cities maintain luminescent flying dragons and grubby, dripping alleys stuffed with refuse, however the latter clearly outnumber the previous.

One of many greater oddities in Yang Jian is how rapidly the script abandons this intriguing setting and all the Bebop motif. After only one bounty run, Yang Jian’s crew principally disappears, the tone shifts, and the setting drops away. (The lonesome harmonica riffs stick round, although.) When a girl begs for Yang Jian’s assist in recovering a strong artifact, he revisits his previous, drops in on his outdated mentor, and learns some new issues about his household, all of which brings him into battle with different gods, and takes him again to the broadly misunderstood sequence of occasions the place he misplaced his third eye — and sealed his sister beneath a mountain perpetually.

Nezha Reborn is equally involved with household ties and characters navigating how they’ve disillusioned their kin, however that film spends way more time with its relationships, and with exploring the value of energy. Yang Jian feels way more surface-level, with a good bit of images constructed round household ties, however not sufficient time truly constructing them. This can be a film that spends a number of lengthy, agonized scenes on male characters wailing “Mom! Mom! Mom!” again and again at dim, disappearing visions of their mothers, however doesn’t spend any time on truly creating these relationships, or letting the characters communicate to one another.

Picture: GKIDS

And there’s loads of god-on-god battle, a good bit of it involving extraordinarily colourful and distinctive folklore figures just like the 4 Mo Generals, or Investiture of the Gods star Shen Gongbao, right here portrayed as a bitter drunken grasp within the conventional martial arts film type, hanging out with an enormous white tiger. Every of those gods has their very own agenda, however the characters are drawn broadly, as defenders of custom or seekers of vengeance — very a lot as gods of fantasy slightly than individuals the viewers can relate to or root for.

There’s loads of incident and motion in Yang Jian, centered on the title character’s pursuit of that magical artifact and the prison who took it. However too usually — at the very least in GKIDS’ English translation — that motion comes with out a lot context upfront, and viewers are left to observe a heist or a struggle first, then piece collectively the gamers and stakes later. It makes for a reasonably indifferent viewing expertise, even when the heist or struggle is brisk, intense, and thrilling.

Visible thrills are the primary attract Yang Jian. Simply as in Nezha Reborn, when gods get severe a couple of battle, they manifest large, glowing avatars that mirror their actions. Each god has a unique preventing type and broadly various fight instruments, from conventional weapons to musical devices to large animal companions, which makes every battle distinctive. Weapons that ship an enemy right into a dream state or a phantasmagorical world give director Zhao all the chance he wants to seriously change animation kinds, or fill the display screen with wild fantasy photographs. This can be a film value seeing on the largest display screen obtainable.

However little or no of it lands with emotional affect, regardless of all of the characters screaming one another’s names throughout fraught moments, or yelling at one another about varied lies and betrayals. There’s extra feeling in a brief, silent sequence mimicking the treetop face-off in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon than in all of the fight put collectively. The true battle right here is between individuals who need change, in a large summary sense, and individuals who need to maintain all the world in stasis. That’s a relatable battle, in a manner, on this politically tense second or some other age. However right here, it nonetheless isn’t drawn in a manner designed to make viewers care about whether or not specific characters dwell or die, whether or not they get what they need or fade away, or whether or not they ever make it again to their Cowboy Bebop journey in spite of everything the large god antics are achieved.

For Western viewers who need to do some homework afterward, New Gods: Yang Jian does serve a number of the identical function as Nezha Reborn: It’s an accessible introduction to a number of the most memorable characters in Chinese language historic epics, and a recasting of these epics in a contemporary gentle. And like the primary film, the second New Gods movie considers the issues and prices of rebirth, and the way arduous the limitless historic cycles of change might be on particular person lives. It simply lacks a human face to placed on all these issues. The gods’ squabbles could also be our squabbles as nicely, but when a 3rd New Gods film is on the best way, it’d be higher off bringing the motion again all the way down to Earth.

New Gods: Yang Jian is presently taking part in in restricted nationwide theatrical launch. This evaluation is of the subtitled model of the movie. Examine the movie’s web site for particular theaters, and test together with your native theater to see whether or not they’re taking part in the subtitled or dubbed model.