Why I'm Watching China's Biggest Movie NE ZHA 2

the highest grossing animated film of all time is now from China but what does this mean for diplomacy I got some hot takes guys welcome everybody to the Hot Pot boys oh man we got to talk about nuds to it has broken box office records across the globe not just from the Chinese market but it is now reaching almost $2 billion in the box office it is now being shown in theaters in America there's a theater down the block Regal six I might go there this weekend definitely by the end of this week I'm going to watch it but in this video I'm here to talk about why this became such a big hit what were the mechanisms or the things about this movie or how it was being promoted that allowed it to be such a massive massive hit and also what are the implications of that because obviously this is just another thing uh to put on the list of Chinese soft power recently whether it was AI stuff it's the gadgets it's the robots it's the food it's now the movies so we got to talk about it please hit that like button check out other episodes of the hot pop boys if you're into it I mean the number speak for itself popcorn meter it's 99% obviously there's raving reviews all over the internet on Reddit uh not just from Asian people and definitely not just from Chinese people so a lot of people love this movie let's talk about why it's such a massive hit as far as like the financial success of it and also how does that actually even beget more financial success as it has a halo effect because generally people who believe something you know they believe more in it when it's already financially successful right so anyways number one okay the number one reason why this is such a big hit is the production and the graphics and the fight scenes are incredible I mean there's a lot of other reasons but basically you can go across the internet and comb through people's comments and they're pretty much like hey nutu it's doing a bunch of stuff that these Pixar movies are not doing obviously the color the fight scenes the massiveness of the fight scene all the different animals it's probably somewhat remnant of like a Kung Fu Panda or Shrek times like five you know what I mean and here's the thing um about a lot of American movies that I noticed after consuming American movies for my entire life is that a lot of the animated movies they kind of take place a little bit more in sort of reality even inside out it's taking place in reality or at least in body Toy Story you know so it's kind of depicting real life but in an animated sense but this a lot of the Chinese films they are basically mythological and so basically you can take it to so many different levels with all the different creatures mythology the colors the powers the it almost looks more like a Shang CHI with the 10 rings but there's a historical context for that because if you look at kung fu movies over the decades they were the first ones to put actors on wires and and then send them through the air like they're doing you know bicycle kicks in the air and that was something that obviously America is not doing America's more based in like Clint Eastwood or like John Wick you know where it's a little bit more in reality versus you know flying through the air and stuff like that so I think also another thing about the production here that people point out is that they use professional top tier voice actors like they don't just try to grab celebrities to do the voice acting because voice acting surprise surprise is a little different than regular acting and the Hollywood actors that are good with the face may not always be good with the voice so voice acting is a little bit different so maybe nza is able to save money on not signing the biggest Chinese stars to voice it and then they just get really good voice actors so anyways also a lot of people point out that there's a lot of fart and piss jokes along with a lot of like serious tones so they're just saying like it's definitely more fart jokes than you know American movies would had um Point number two national pride obviously this is a sense of national pride so once uh noza one was already a pretty big success but nza 2 is considered a better movie and is a bigger success so shout out the sequel did better this time but yeah I mean just the success of this film is going to spark a lot of national pride and I think it's funny when people think about like Chinese National Pride they generally think it's like for the CCP or something like that's what they think when they think oh Chinese people are being nationalist ISC but we're talking about soft power here and media and entertainment which is a lot easier and should not be as politicized you know what I mean cuz China has always had hard power but now with the soft power combined it becomes smart power that's the term that I learned but I do want to point out that there this Rutter's article that they were talking about how uh you know the Chinese internet is very big but across certain parts of the Chinese internet there's kind of like a backlash to not watching the new Captain America movie Brave New World you know um with Anthony Mackey and it's like they're like don't they're like no Captain America when we could watch nza 2 in China feel better about our domestic product or do we got to watch this very American movie that were're kind of tired of these themes about like oh America's so great the Captain America's so great they're like maybe n too is better you know maybe nza is our captain China you know uh Point number three you know it supports the there's a lot of support from domestic Enterprises this is something that I mean is that I heard a lot of other companies are also promoting n too like companies are getting in on it or maybe there's possibly some rich people who did buy out theater buyouts this is something that has happened in America crazy Rich Asians for example did benefit from early theater buyouts where basically somebody with money is like yo I'm going support this movie I'mma buy out this entire theater so that's going to count to the the box office and I will invite my friends but whether or not every single seat is filled up it's going to boost the numbers and once the numbers are boosted then more people will watch it because it'll get more talked about because they'll be like oh my gosh look at the numbers so whether or not there's actually butts in the seat doesn't actually always matter and it and is that fudging the numbers you could say so I mean movies do that all the time to be honest you know to fill the seats um whether or not they're actually humans watching maybe they're I don't know um but uh yeah so Point number four the resonance with traditional mythology now N is a traditional Chinese mythology I'm not super familiar with it but it has to do with like the Chinese demon pill and stuff like that which you know I don't know I don't know if it's related to the Chinese zombies that go like this you know that hop but I got I got to look more into it because I'm not going to lie me being an ABC American Born Chinese uh I'm not really into Chinese mythology movies a lot of them some of them I am but not like I'm not watching wo shaen like these Chinese dramas with the wigs like I'll pop up the pictures here like hero is cool obviously I watch some of those epics of you know the Waring States and ancient China and stuff like that I think that is pretty cool but I don't love how like I didn't always love how every single like Chinese movie had to take place like 2,000 years ago you know what I mean now OB obviously China has Rich history and so not everybody you know uh not every culture or Society has a history that illustrious right where you can make all this content about it and it's so developed and and you know there was so so many Advanced systems back then but I think it's cool that when I look at the trailer of nuts 2 I'm like yo I could watch this movie like it looks fun like it just at at a base I'm an adult and it looks fun you know yeah color-wise I think you know um there's themes kind of like you know like I said earlier shangi shout out to simu by the way I just saw seu in New York he's promoting his new movie Point number five the shifts towards domestic Productions and um this is just kind of like China saying like and and again this is a big Flex for China where they're like hey America like we have a good AI companies now we have good EV electrical vehicle companies now we have good drone Services now we have good phones now now and then we also have our own movies so maybe if we keep making good movies like nuts are too we don't have to need to release so many American movies in China and so that we don't need to always keep buying into this image that America is so great again guys soft power for major countries is so important and America has had soft power for so long and it's been so good everybody loved us across the world or at least thought we were cool no matter what the American government was involved in right people thought Americans were cool and yeah I mean you know I I think this movie is just one step into soft power for Chinese people um and again I'm not talking about the Chinese government it's separate it's separate separate but anyways let's talk about the implications of it being such a big hit we kind of talked about the mechanisms of how it became such a big hit you let me know in the comments down below if I missed any uh reasons but let's talk about the implications so number one what is Disney and Pixar thinking right now like are they like oh crap like look at these numbers whoa look at these colors like do we got to put out our fantastic like fantasy Thriller action comedy uh Pixar movie you know like is Despicable Me still cutting it guys is uh in inside out too still cutting it guys and I what I did think was funny was like some people in the comments were like oh like nza too uh I love this is just giving us what Disney's not because like Disney's trying to be too preachy and like trying to teach us so much and you know nza to I wouldn't say it's a shallow storyline but it is more about like your typical Defiance hero you know um you know family Dynamics which are pretty common but uh I do think it's funny how Nera too ner are in the film is is a boy but it's voiced by a woman a voice actor woman so I wonder in America in 2025 if this was an American movie if there would be a slight backlash against that being like why is a woman voicing a boy you know even though that has happened in the past but I just feel like recently it hasn't been they'd probably get like a young boy to do it I guess number two could it make young people or people in general more interested in learning Mandarin this is just another soft power hit just like a lot of people going to red note AKA sha hongu from Tik Tok is it going to make people actually want to learn Mandarin n like even just looking at nza you would obviously think it's more like n n or something like that but it's nza n that's that's kind of a harder um syllable to say for uh people who only speak English I guess I would say um but maybe n becomes another nickname on the playground like maybe in a not bad way kind of like ni how Kyon was uh kind of became um so Point number three I have a thought number three is like could it make Disney and Pixar kind of like tweak their films to try to attract the Chinese market since the Chinese Market's so big I feel like usually when companies do that it doesn't always play out that well so I'd probably take it easy if I was Disney or Pixar but it's possible they're having these conversations in the boardroom I will tell you this they're sitting in a boardroom being like hey guys we got to talk about this uh Nisa 2 movie and it is such a big hit what can we learn from this is there anything we could take away could we tie it into to the next Lion King maybe maybe we have Chinese mythology with the Lion King there's lions in China right they do the lion dance maybe we do the uh and uh my last thought is just like I guess as Chinese culture and Chinese pop culture become more and more popular especially amongst the younger generation as in like under 25 um I do think it's going to make it a lot harder for consumers and the average citizen to simultaneously view China in such a Negative adversarial way of course China and America are competing of course they are definitely in some type of fight I believe it's been a cold war for decades to be honest I think it's been going and it's still going to go but you know I don't think it's going to pop off to anything crazy but yeah obviously there's a lot of people who when they hear the word China they're like H spy wear spies are like ah like you know what are they trying to do to steal our IP but yeah no I mean you know it's entertainment like this that kind of blurs the lines and again you know America has had soft power for so long and and everybody's loved American culture Osama Bin Laden liked American culture uh Kim Jong Un loves American culture so some of America's biggest enemies still actually like the culture it's kind of interesting um not saying that China is viewed on the equivalent of North Korea and you know Al Qaeda or whatever but obviously you know some people view China pretty negatively so I think this movie helps especially it's for the younger audience and the younger kids are a little bit less like uh they're a little bit more open to Chinese culture now they grew up with it longer um but yeah anyways I'm watching n too who's watching it who's watching it it is in theaters in America right now this is not an ad for it but I am going to go watch it um the trailer looks amazing reading about it it's got me hyped um so yeah I mean I don't go out to the theater and watch every animated film okay but yeah obviously me hearing that this movie made $2 billion also makes me want to go see it so anyways guys let me know in the comments down below are you going to go watch nutu um yeah who am I going to watch it with huh until next time we out peace