Ne Zha 4K Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.5
Audio		5.0
Extras		0.0
Overall		3.5

Ne Zha 4K Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman March 11, 2020

Well Go USA has been slowly moving into the 4K UHD market, as evidenced first by their release of Shadow 4K and now Ne Zha , which Well Go USA is releasing in both “standard” 1080p and 4K UHD formats. But with regard to Ne Zha in particular and a number of other Well Go USA releases of Asian fare over the past few years, diehard fans of “another” technology may wonder why Well Go USA doesn’t ever deign to release 3D Blu-rays of films which were at least at times exhibited theatrically that way. Any number of fantasy laden Asian films that Well Go USA has released for the United States market originally screened overseas in 3D, but none of them (to my recollection, anyway) were granted 3D Blu-ray releases by Well Go USA (this is admittedly a phenomenon that is not limited to Well Go USA Blu-ray releases of Asian films released in 3D, as will be discussed in a moment). Even before I started doing background research in preparation for writing this review, I sensed that Ne Zha was yet another film that must have been released in 3D due to all the obviously “dimensional” effects the film offers (albeit in a “flat” presentation in either 1080p or 2160p). The character of Ne Zha (sometimes transliterated a bit differently as Nezha) has been in countless films, often but not always consigned to “supporting character” status, and kind of interestingly among the films where the character has appeared are some that were released in 2D here for the North American market, but which were granted 3D releases on Blu-ray in foreign markets, like The Monkey King: Havoc in Heaven's Palace (released stateside by Cinedigm) and The Monkey King 2 (which actually was a Well Go USA release). My The Monkey King: Havoc in Heaven's Palace Blu-ray review gets into some of my personal winding history with the various Monkey King films while also offering links to at least some of the 3D Blu-ray releases that are out there for those with region free players, but the bottom line is for those who feel that 3D Blu-ray is (to quote a certain famous Monty Python joke) “not quite dead yet”, the unfortunate lack of a 3D release of Ne Zha may offer some disturbing evidence to the contrary.

Note: Maybe a bit surprisingly, I haven’t been able to track down a complete list of voice actors on the English language version, and therefore I can’t authoritatively identify any performers in the following comments.

A narrator (who returns to elide things at certain moments) quickly gives an overview of a heavenly realm where two divinities, Taiyi Zhenren (who turns out to be the narrator), a drunkard who rides a flying pig, and his brother Shen Gongbao, whose snarling demeanor instantly identifies him as one of the film’s chief villains, are going into battle against a nefarious entity known as the Chaos Pearl. Both Taiyi and Shen fail spectacularly in their quest, leading “head honcho” divinity Yuanshan Tianzun to kind of encapsulate the Chaos Pearl and then to split it into two equal but opposite parts, a Spirit Pearl (the good part) and what in the subtitles here is called the Demon Pill (the bad part), though I’m wondering if someone misheard Demon Pearl. In any case Tianzun comes up with a preposterously complex “fate” for each of the pearls and/or pills, with the Demon Pill consigned to dying by being hit by lightning in three years, and the Spirit Pearl consigned to reincarnate as the third son of warrior Li Jing and his wife Lady Yin. Now there are a couple of funny things about even this basic setup: this is a patently insane amount of convolution that requires a “give up and just accept it” amount of exposition, but it’s also presented in the film in about 30 seconds, which may be a hint that some Chinese audiences are more familiar with the underlying mythology informing this film and so don’t need to be “schooled” as thoroughly as some Westerners may feel they need to be.

Because of Tianzun’s perhaps less than godly lack of prescience about Murphy’s Law (if such a thing exists in China), things of course do not go according to plan. Shen obviously wants the nicer Spirit Pearl for himself, even though it’s been put under Taiyi’s guardianship until Lady Yin can give birth (and she’s been pregnant for three years, which in and of itself seems to contradict the need to wait three years for the Demon Pill to be hit by lightning, but I digress). His machinations evidently end up with him in possession of the Spirit Pearl, which he ultimately delivers to the Dragon King, a kind of stand-in for Lucifer or Hades in this mythology, as the “keeper” of the “lower echelons”, in this case an underwater realm from which the Dragon King desperately wants to escape. It’s part of the Dragon King’s plot to have the Spirit Pearl incarnate as his son, thereby hoping to convince Tianzun to let all the dragons finally get out of their prison in the watery deep.

In the meantime, the Demon Pill ends up incarnating as Ne Zha, the son of Li Jing and Lady Yin. Lady Yin in particular, not unlike a certain Mrs. Woodhouse in Rosemary's Baby, feels she can influence her “demon child” toward the good side of his nature, and that sets up the central conflict of Ne Zha, wherein both Ne Zha and Ao Bing, the son of the Dragon King, have a whole “nature vs. nurture” thing going on, with the film perhaps making the obvious case that everyone tends to be a concoction of both positive and negative aspects.

This is an incredibly bright and colorful enterprise, but perhaps more importantly Ne Zha tends to capture more of the kind of traditional “Chuck Jones” anarchic flavor of some of the better American animated comedies from the likes of Pixar and DreamWorks, something that has tended to be sorely missing from some other overseas animated properties. That said, the film feels overpopulated with sidebars, several of which have been obviously designed with some visual overkill in mind, an aspect the film deserves some recognition for achieving. That said, there’s very little emotional connection to any of the characters here, something that is manifestly different from some of the better American animated comedies that may otherwise share some of Ne Zha’s design hyperbole and goofy humor.

Ne Zha 4K Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Note: Screenshots are sourced from the 1080p Blu-ray.

Ne Zha is presented in 4K UHD courtesy of Well Go USA with a 2160p transfer in 2.39:1. This is one presentation where the addition of Dolby Vision and/or HDR add an incredible new luster to the proceedings. As I mentioned in our Ne Zha Blu-ray review, the film is a riot of color even in its 1080p version, and the new highlights in this version are one of the most distinctive things about it, often rather amazingly so. I can't even begin to completely list the new ranges of hues as well as increased saturation that are on display, but among them were the blues and reds of the Chaos Pearl, some almost pea green tones that segue into burnished orange during the pregnancy sequence, Ne Zha's flaming debut, which here has some really interestingly vivid orange highlights, or some of the purples that suffuse the frame when Ne Zha is supposedly being held "prisoner" in his room. Fine detail also enjoys an uptick, though perhaps at not quite the level seen in the palette changes. Things like the herringbone pattern on a screen in the house of Li Jing, or even Ne Zha's hair resolve with really nice precision throughout. The rubbery aspect to many characters is sustained here, though some textures, as on the almost Mesoamerican looking "boundary beasts" are arguably improved. The banding I mentioned in the review of the 1080p version is still rather noticeable in the opening mastheads, but it seemed at least somewhat mitigated in other moments like some of the underwater material.

Note: I'm mentioning this in case anyone else encounters something like this, though a quick perusal of our Forum dedicated to this release doesn't seem to have any similar examples. The first time I watched this, playback froze at circa 53:03, and then after a second or two the disc skipped on to circa 53:06. The rest of the playback worked flawlessly. I looked at the disc after that first play, and even under a bright light I saw nothing that looked like dirt or a scratch, but I blew things off anyway, reinserted the disc, and it played fine the second time.

Ne Zha 4K Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Ne Zha features a really enjoyable Dolby Atmos track (in English) that provides some very fun overhead and general surround activity, along with some very forceful bursts of LFE, starting from the slew of production mastheads that gallivant by at the film's opening. But from the first "duel" sequence with the Chaos Pearl, a conflict that ends with a huge kind of metal urn descending to encapsulate the beast, there are clear wafting effects the help to establish verticality quite noticeably, along with regular engagement of the side and rear channels. Directionality is recurrent throughout the sound design, including a lot of ambient environmental effects but even simple placement across the soundstage as in one sequence where a young Ne Zha's playing with a kind of hacky sack type object leads to calamity. Dialogue and effects are both rendered with superb fidelity and without any problems whatsoever on this often pretty bombastic track.

Note: Amplitude definitely sounded hotter on the 4K UHD disc than the 1080p disc to me, though there weren't any issues with clipping or breakup.

Ne Zha 4K Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

The 4K UHD disc does not have any supplementary material. For the pretty meager pickings on the 1080p Blu-ray, please see our Ne Zha Blu-ray review.

Ne Zha 4K Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Ne Zha is certainly both an eyeful and an earful, which may be enough of a distraction to keep people from caring all that much about a lack of emotional connection to the characters. This story will probably resonate more with those who love the more fantasy laden kind of stories that are a regular component of Asian cinema. Technical merits are solid, and Ne Zha comes Recommended.