The child of Nezha is born：If fate is unfair, then fight with it to the end

When I was a child, I watched the legend of “Nezha Striking the Sea”, which was totally different from other myths. Besides sadness, I was more amazed and terrified. What an unfeeling father Li Jing really is! How to force a 3-year-old child to “cut the flesh to return the mother, eviscerate the bones to return the father”, and commit suicide… Although I’ll admit that the words “cut the flesh back to mother, bone back to father” are powerful and dramatic enough.

Later, the story of Ne Zhan has been retold in various movies and TV dramas. As a familiar legend, people can’t escape the drama and emotion. People use this myth to rebel against the patriarchy and praise the great justice. But I never felt satisfied. Nezha is a towering figure, but what about Li Jing? For a long time he was inhuman to me, not like a father, but a terrible symbol of the “general soldier of the town.”

But the more you grow up the more you know: life is not so simple, people are not so simple, is not black and white to say clearly, all black and white are not so easy, we more or less with a little gray.

Before I went to see Ne Zhan, I was also holding the idea of seeing a familiar legend again. Is there anything that people don’t know about this myth? The details are engraved on the List of Deities.

However, because the director is Jiaozuo, his previous Hit, Hit a Watermelon completely overturns my inherent thinking about domestic animation. Governing a country is like playing poker. A 16-minute short animation is unexpected, but it makes sense.

The first thing I subverted in Nezha was the “magic pills” and “spirit beads”. I always thought Nezha was a hero who had to be rooted in the right direction and could not really take the bad guy’s way, and the spirit beads would surely enter the body in the end! No, I was wrong. Mrs. Li Jing gave birth to magic pills… Where is this going?

Then Nezha grows up to one year old. Although he is shocked by the universe, he still has supernatural powers that do not match his age. The people of Chanting Pass are afraid of him. He was too B real people with the boundary day trapped in the home, occasionally sneak out of the mess, chickens fly dogs jump, people on the horse…… He’s a monster of a headache. But then we learn that the fear of Nezha is more of a stereotype. Yes, a stereotype. Because he was the reincarnation of the magic Pill, it was natural to think that he was a monster, logical to think that he would be evil, logical to think that everyone should be punished… Even if he goes to hunt monsters, people will think he is lying, he is evil.

So what can a child do in the face of such stereotypes? Was to fight back in the most primitive way he could, punching everyone who called him a “monster.” So, more people called him a monster… Vicious circle

So what is a virtuous cycle? Shuttlecock kicking, probably. Shuttlecock is an important prop in the film. Nezha’s mother plays a game with him. The only time Nezha relaxes when he is trapped in a high wall is when his mother and his son kick the shuttlecock together. Later, replaying Nezha’s childhood, he meets a young girl. She is so young and innocent that she invites Nezha to kick the shuttlecock together before she has any prejudice. Nezha smiled happily. Alas, the little girl was soon taken away by the adults “because Nezha is a monster”. Nezha got angry… Nezha and Aboding, his only friends, kick shuttlecock together at the beginning of their friendship, which is probably the most moving scene in the film. Even if misunderstood, rejected, abandoned by the world, there is still someone willing to believe in you, can play with you. The meeting of two lonely monsters

In my opinion, the most successful adaptation of Ne Zhan is that it uses a familiar story about how prejudice can destroy a person. The legend of Nezha is finally no longer about a rebellion against patriarchy. After hundreds of years of resistance, people should be tired of watching.

If it’s just repetition, it’s obviously not new. My favorite author, Li Bahia, wrote “Green Snake” and “Life Before and Life after Pan Jillian”, which are all about familiar legends, but they also tell a new story. What is more valuable is that through her retelling, we clarify the legendary human nature. When we watch the Legend of the White Snake, we only think Lady White is tall and affectionate, and Cu Xian looks mediocre and useless in her background. What attracts her to such a man? After watching “Green Snake”, we know that white snake is eager to be a man, while Cu Xian has all the advantages and disadvantages. From his point of view, see his wife from beauty into python, love to love, fear is really fear, have to cowardice.

After seeing Ne Zhan, we know that “prejudice in people’s hearts is a mountain”, which is hard to overthrow. Everyone in the film suffers from stereotypes, not to mention Nezha, even the villain Sheen Longboat, who fights against him because no matter how powerful he is, he cannot be promoted by his master, Yuan Shi, “just because I’m a leopard.”

There is also the dragon King, he wanted to rebel because even if he helped the emperor win the world, the result is still the sea demon beast, so the Emperor of Heaven has a prejudice against him, demon beast is demon beast, cannot go to heaven, was arranged to guard the dragon palace. To be guarded is to be imprisoned forever. The Dragon Palace is also a death prison.

“Prejudice in the human heart is a mountain,” immortals cannot move. Before I watched Ne Zhan, I saw the character of Ne Zhan in the animation. At that time, I couldn’t accept it because he was so different from the traditional image of a celestial being. Later I learned that this, in fact, is also a stereotype (if anyone has such a stereotype like me, and therefore missed the animation, did not understand the creator’s intention, let alone give up their stereotype… That would be a shame. Luckily I didn’t.)

What Nezha does is break this stereotype.

If a cartoon is just good and evil, fighting and killing, no matter how good the special effects are, I may feel dazzling at the time, but will not leave a deep impression. But apparently, Nezha leaves a mark on your heart, just as he did on Aboding’s. Why should Aboding’s birth be destined to be a pawn for revenge? Why should his dragon horn be ridiculed as a goblin because of the common prejudice? He has to be a goblin? Ne Zhan said: “My destiny is not heaven but myself!” When the so-called fate comes, some people succumb to prejudice, some people do not, and strive to fight is a hero.

Because, after all, we should all through the “demon” “villain” company commanders “in” the town of three prince “dragon king” the “magic pill” spirit “pearl” “fresh meat” “flow”… These label stereotypes, to see a living person, to see people, just right.

Later, Li Bahia’s “Green Snake” was moved to the stage by Tina Jinxing, who rewrote the role of Fad Hay. He was no longer the inhuman monk, who was frantically hunting demons and trying to break up White Snake and Cu Xian, but a monk who practiced with a heart of mercy and let people live everywhere. He is human. When White Snake and Green Snake came to Jinan Temple to ask for Cu Xian, in the previous “Legend of the White Snake”, Fad Hay refused to let Cu Xian go, and separated a couple of lovers, forcing the two snakes to flood the Jinan Mountain and destroy the lives. On the stage of Tina Jinxing, Fad Hay asked Cu Xian to go out of the temple to meet White Snake. It was Cu Xian’s cowardice and fear that made him refuse to go with White Snake… Here the Fad Hay, finally from a symbol, has been adapted into a man. And this, I think, is a good adaptation.

Nezha later learns that his father, Li Jing, does not send him to study and practice with Tamiya Zhan because he is afraid he will do evil on earth. Instead, I hope he can master more skills and live well on earth in the future. As the father, Li Jing already had a substitute for death symbol and decided to kill his son Nezha instead of body when God was about to kill the magic pill. This is not whitewashing, but restoring the humanity of Li Jing as a father. Li Jing is not a symbol, but a father and a person.

For once, Nezha does not have to “return his mother to his flesh and his father to his bones”.