''Nezha Conquers the Dragon King'' () is a 1979 Chinese animated

fantasy film Fantasy films are films that belong to the fantasy genre with fantastic themes, usually Magic (paranormal), magic, supernatural events, mythology, folklore, or exotic fantasy worlds. The Film genre, genre is considered a form of speculative fic ...

produced by

Shanghai Animation Film Studio Shanghai Animation Film Studio (), also known as SAFS (), is a Chinese animation studio based in Shanghai, China, as part of the Shanghai Film Group Corporation. Shanghai Animation Film Studio was officially established in April 1957, led by pi ...

. It was screened out of competition at the 1980 Cannes Film Festival, listed under the English title ''Prince Nezha's Triumph Against Dragon King'', and it was released dubbed into English in the United Kingdom as ''Little Nezha Fights Great Dragon Kings''.

Plot

The film is an adaptation of a story in

Chinese mythology Chinese mythology () is mythology that has been passed down in oral form or recorded in literature throughout the area now known as Greater China. Chinese mythology encompasses a diverse array of myths derived from regional and cultural tradit ...

(in particular, the epic fantasy novel ''

Investiture of the Gods ''The Investiture of the Gods'', also known by its Chinese titles () and is a 16th-century Chinese novel and one of the major Written vernacular Chinese, vernacular Chinese works in the gods and demons (''shenmo'') genre written during the Min ...

'') about the warrior deity

Nezha Nezha (, Nézhā) or sometimes Nezha the Crown Prince (, ), is a protection deity in Taoism, Buddhism, and Chinese folk religion. His official Taoism, Taoist name is "Marshal of the Central Altar" (). He was then given the title "Third Lotus Prin ...

. After a gestation period of three and a half years, Lady Yin, the wife of General Li Jing, gives birth to a flesh ball, which becomes a lotus flower, from which Nezha is born. Nezha is born able to walk and talk, and is taken on as a student of the immortal Taiyi Zhenren. The Dragon Kings of the

Four Seas The Four Seas () were four bodies of water that metaphorically made up the boundaries of ancient China. There is a sea for each for the four cardinal directions. The West Sea is Qinghai Lake, the East Sea is the East China Sea, the North Sea is ...

, tired of being peaceful, have become cruel and destructive, plaguing China with destructive storms and a drought. The people beg for rain, but the East Sea Dragon King Ao Guang ignores them, telling the

yaksha The Yakshas (, , ) in Mythology are a broad class of nature spirits, usually benevolent, but sometimes mischievous or capricious, connected with water, fertility, trees, the forest, treasure and wilderness. They appear in Hindu, Jain and Bud ...

Ye Sha to go and find children for him to eat. Ye Sha captures one of Nezha's friends as he is bathing by the ocean, and Nezha confronts him, injuring him badly. Ao Guang sends his third son, Ao Bing, next. Ao Bing is killed by Nezha, infuriating Ao Guang. A variety of confrontations ensue between Nezha and Ao Guang. Ao Guang and the other Dragon Kings wreak havoc on the people, causing storms, floods and all manners of natural disasters. Seeing this, Nezha takes his father's sword, tells his parents that he is returning their flesh and bones to them, and calls out for his master before killing himself by slitting his throat. He is reborn with the help of his master, again from a lotus blossom, and is given new weapons and abilities. After breaking into Ao Guang's underwater palace, he confronts Ao Guang and the other Dragon Kings again, and is finally triumphant.

Release

In the United Kingdom, the film was broadcast on

BBC Two BBC Two is a British free-to-air Public service broadcasting in the United Kingdom, public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's second flagship channel, and it covers a wide range of subject matte ...

in England in the early evening on 23 December 1984, in an English-language version, directed by Louis Elman and produced for the BBC by Leah International, which retitled the film ''Little Nezha Fights Great Dragon Kings'' (rendered in the ''

Radio Times ''Radio Times'' is a British weekly listings magazine devoted to television and radio programme schedules, with other features such as interviews, film reviews and lifestyle items. Founded in September 1923 by John Reith, then general manage ...

'' listing as ''Little Nezha Fights Great Dragon King'', in the singular). The voice of Nezha was provided by actress and voice artist Rosemary Miller. As well as replacing the dialogue, it also replaced Jin Fuzai's score performed by the Shanghai Philharmonic Orchestra with one by Ivor Slaney. This version was released on video by

BBC Enterprises The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...

in 1986 and rebroadcast earlier in the day for a few times during 1988. The film was released on

DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for digital video disc or digital versatile disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any ki ...

with the original Chinese audio English subtitles in 2005, with ''Nezha Conquers the Dragon King'' as its English title. The original-language version of the film was premiered in the UK and Ireland in its 2K digital restoration in an online Chinese Cinema Season which ran from 12 February to 12 May 2021.

Awards

1980 Film Hundred Flowers Awards for Best Art Film ''Ministry of Culture'' 1979 Outstanding Fine Arts Film Special Award, Metro Manila Film Festival, Philippines,1983

Impact

On 30 May 2014, the first Google Doodle (Google Doodle listing) featuring Nezha was displayed on Google's Hong Kong and Taiwan homepages: the 35th anniversary of the release of ''Nezha Conquers the Dragon King'', with the word "Google" wrapped around Nezha's silk and an animated image of Nezha wielding a fire-tipped gun on the sea. In August 2021, "Animation -''Nezha Conquers the Dragon King''" special stamps were issued in a set of 6 stamps with a face value of RMB 6.40, and 6.9 million sets are planned to be issued.

Japanese version cast

* Banjō Ginga as Li Gen * Daisuke Gōri as Li Jing – Nezha's father * Junko Hori as Little boy 1 * Ichirō Nagai as Master Taiyi / Li Jing's chancellor * Masako Nozawa as Nezha *

Nachi Nozawa was a Japanese actor, voice actor, narrator and theatre director from Tokyo. He was affiliated with Office PAC at the time of his death. His real name was . Nozawa was the official dub-over artist of Al Pacino and Alain Delon, and also dubbed th ...

as Ao Guang's chancellor * Mari Okamoto as Little girl *

Chikao Ōtsuka was a Japanese actor, voice actor and narrator. He was most known for the roles of Captain Hook ('' Peter Pan: The Animated Series'' and '' Disney's Peter Pan''), Dick Dastardly (''Wacky Races'' and ''Dastardly and Muttley in Their Flying Machine ...

as Dragon King * Tomiko Suzuki as Little boy 2 * Norio Wakamoto as Ao Bing

Other appearances

On 30 May 2014, ''Nezha Conquers the Dragon King'' was featured on

Google Search Google Search (also known simply as Google or Google.com) is a search engine operated by Google. It allows users to search for information on the World Wide Web, Web by entering keywords or phrases. Google Search uses algorithms to analyze an ...

's homepage as an animated

doodle A doodle is a drawing made while a person's attention is otherwise occupied. Doodles are simple drawings that can have concrete representational meaning or may just be composed of random and abstract art, abstract lines or shapes, generally w ...

References

External links

* {{Fengshen Yanyi, state=collapsed 1979 films 1979 animated films Animated films about dragons Chinese animated feature films 1970s Mandarin-language films Animated films based on Investiture of the Gods Nezha Chinese fantasy action films Chinese fantasy adventure films Chinese animated fantasy films