Jiang Ziya

This is China's attempt to set up a film universe like what Disney's done with Marvel. Last year we were introduced to Nezha, a popular character inspired by the 16th century Chinese classic novel "Feng Shen Yan Yi" (loosely translated as Investiture of the Gods). This year a quasi sequel to Nezha is brought to us in the form of another important character from the Investiture of the Gods universe - Jiang Ziya. Based on a real historical figure who helped overthrow the mad emperor of the Shang dynasty (King Zhou), Jiang Ziya is fictionalized here, yet true to the novel, as a deity-in-the-making who's already gifted with supernatural abilities and magical skills to help him rid the world of demonic beings.

Jiang Ziya is an intelligent take on the fictional tale from the Feng Shen fantastical universe. The movie remains somewhat loyal to the Feng Shen story in that it sets Jiang Ziya up as a divine celestial god from Heaven who was sent down to the mortal realm here on Earth to capture an evil fox spirit, Nine Tail, who possessed a young innocent but allegedly extremely beautiful maiden named Su Daji on the day she was heading off to become King Zhou's consort. Nine Tail and Daji shared an unbreakable bond (bound together by an ankle bracelet) since that fateful day as this pair of fox and human spirits became intertwined and destined to be together for eternity.

This film follows Jiang Ziya's journey to capture Nine Tail all the while attempting to release Daji from her unfortunate fate. Along the way, viewers are treated to beautiful rendering of colorful depictions of ancient China and cutesy character designs with top notch animations featuring fast paced kung fu fighting.

The storyline features elements and plots from the novel with added bonuses like the adorably cute heavenly fawn that acts like a puppy called Four Alike (whose Chinese name, "Si Bu Xiang", actually means the exact opposite - "Four Not Alike"). As in the novel, after the fall of the Shang dynasty, here too King Zhou is deified as a deity who manages the marriage affairs of mortals. And like the novel, the promise of deification to the nine tailed fox spirit for successfully completing her mission to seduce and overthrow King Zhou was not fulfilled as promised, thereby causing Nine Tail a lot of resentments and a desire for vengeance on the perpetrator.

I really enjoyed this film and that's maybe because I'm a big fan of "Investiture of the Gods". I find this much more enjoyable than last year's Nezha. I can't wait for it to release in 4k so that I can watch it again and certainly looking forward to next year's entry in this glorified Fengshen Cinematic Universe, "ErLang Shen" (God with Three Eyes). Until then, we still have the the live action version of this epic tale to look forward to (Director Wuershan's "Fengshen Trilogy")