As the most anticipated animated blockbuster of 2025, Ne Zha 2 has grossed more than $2.2 billion since its release in China earlier this year, ranking as the fifth-highest-grossing film in global box office history. Yet its English-language version, which opened in North America last Friday (August 22), failed to sustain that momentum. Despite a robust promotional push by A24, a voice cast led by Michelle Yeoh, and a wide rollout across 2,228 theaters (including IMAX), the film earned only $1.5 million in its first three days-placing 13th at the box office. By contrast, Netflix's KPop Demon Hunters, opening the very next day in just 1,700 theaters, pulled in $18 million.
When news first broke that Ne Zha 2 would premiere in the U. S., some outlets heralded it as a "litmus test" of American audiences' appetite for Chinese storytelling. In retrospect, the results are sobering. The film's performance underscores a persistent reality: the more deeply a work is rooted in Chinese cultural elements, the harder it becomes for it to cross over in the U. S. market. Recent Chinese stage productions and cinematic blockbusters have encountered similar challenges on American soil.
Unlike the familiar narrative templates of Disney or Pixar, Ne Zha 2 leans heavily into its "mythic Chinese texture." It picks up directly from the 2019 original, with characters drawn from the 16th-century novel Investiture of the Gods and centuries of folk mythology. There is little handholding for new or unfamiliar audiences-the film plunges straight into large-scale battles. For Chinese viewers, this continuity feels seamless; for American audiences without prior knowledge, it can be alienating.
At 150 minutes, the film is epic in scope and brimming with spectacle, but its length far exceeds the typical attention span of children and, arguably, adults conditioned by TikTok. At the same time, its mix of emotional beats, slapstick humor, and shonen-style battles places it closer to Japanese anime such as Naruto or Dragon Ball Z than to Hollywood's family-oriented animated features. To viewers raised on Pixar's emotional formula or Disney's fairy-tale adventures, Ne Zha 2 comes across as "too complex" while still "not fairy-tale enough." Even a star-studded English dub cannot erase this cultural divide.
The film's rapid pacing compounds the issue. After only a brief recap, it drops viewers directly into its fantastical reimagining of ancient China, with the resurrected spirits of Ne Zha and Ao Bing immediately swept into massive battles. For those unfamiliar with the original film or the mythological references, it can feel overwhelming and disorienting.
Still, the weak North American box office should not be mistaken for a dismissal of the film's artistic or cultural value. Rather, it highlights a deeper challenge for Chinese cinema: the true barrier to "going global" is not quality, but whether its cultural language can be understood and embraced across borders.
The chilly reception to Ne Zha 2 in the U. S. points to a crucial question: how can Chinese films remain true to their cultural roots while also building more effective bridges for cross-cultural communication? The key may not lie in dubbing or casting international stars, but in finding universal emotions and narrative frameworks that resonate beyond cultural boundaries.
Of course, like Ne Zha 2 and several other record-breaking Chinese productions, these films remain enormous successes at home. The rise of large domestic studios has enabled blockbusters such as Hi, Mom and Wolf Warrior 2 to gross hundreds of millions-almost entirely from Chinese audiences. For many filmmakers and investors, overseas box office now seems increasingly secondary, if not altogether irrelevant.
