Online propaganda backs Chinese blockbuster film 'Ne Zha 2’
Breaking all records at the Chinese box office, the animated film has enthused online communities, including the “Industrial Party”, which praises technological progress as a means to achieve China's cultural supremacy. With innovative special effects and a strong nod to tradition, the film is part of a new wave of entertainment products that seek to push China's creative industry on the international stage.
Beijing (AsiaNews) – A Chinese animated film has set a record in terms of box office receipts, grossing eight billion yuan (US$ 1.15 billion) in 10 days during the Lunar New Year week.
Although helped by the holiday, the movie’s success may have been amplified by online communities. Ne Zha 2, which tells the story of a mythological character committed to fighting demons with magical powers, is the first animated film to break the one billion dollar barrier in a single market and from next week it will be screened abroad.
On the Chinese microblogging platform Weibo, many users expect overseas Chinese “to contribute” to the film box office success, while others hope to see it beat James Cameron's Avatar.
Local commentators were surprised by the film’s success in China, a sequel to a 2019 film. Some attribute this to the growing popularity of two-dimensional drawings, such as anime and comics, on social media, or to the growing interest of young people in traditional Chinese culture.
Others think that the great hype around the film reflects an online niche, that of the so-called Industrial Party (gongyedang in Mandarin Chinese), where the character "dang" does not indicate a political party in the strict sense, but a group of people who share elements of their identity.
This online intellectual current views industrialisation, technological progress and scientific rationality as the real engines for the country’s development and renewal, key tools to allow China to assert its supremacy.
Emerging in the late 1990s and early 2000s, the community initially brought together people with a scientific background outside Chinese academia, and then turned into a fandom related to science fiction, an increasingly popular genre in the country.
Today it has morphed into a group of nationalist and patriotic young people who, although without a clear political vision, consider the Marxist and Maoist parties fragile and composed of people who are too "sensitive".
According to a comment that appeared in Sixth Tone, Ne Zha 2 apparently has no connection to the "Industrial Party”, but filmmaker Jiao Zi embodies many of the ideas promoted by the online “gongyedang” subculture.
A graduate in pharmaceutical studies, he taught himself animation in his spare time, until he devoted himself totally to filmmaking. Thanks to the success of the first Ne Zha, Jiao Zi had the freedom to make a sequel as he saw fit, focusing everything on special effects.
Just one scene, for example, took a year a work by his team, which, as Jiao Zi pointed out, was exclusively Chinese. In some interviews, he reiterated the importance of making Chinese artists stand out on the international scene without having to depend on foreign experts.
Focusing on technological innovation and the creation of Chinese cultural products capable of competing globally, Jiao Zi is probably an unwitting advocate of the "Industrial Party" current, together with Guo Fan and Feng Ji, who are defined online as the "three pillars of Chinese entertainment" or the "three gods of fantasy".
Guo Fan made The Wandering Earth, a film based on a science fiction novel by the same name published in 2000 by Liu Cixin, one of the best internationally known Chinese authors of the genre.
Feng Ji, on the other hand, is the CEO of GameScience, a video game company, and producer of Black Myth: Wukong, a hugely successful video game inspired by a classic, 16th-century Chinese novel.
The enthusiasm of Chinese gamers and users towards the video game has been overwhelming. Many see it as a symbol of the growing influence of Chinese culture on a global scale.
Chinese reviews have given the game very high scores, while foreign commentators, while praising its quality, have pointed out that it is a product strongly rooted in Chinese cultural tradition.
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12/02/2016 15:14
18/04/2016 13:25
