New Gods: Nazho Reborn

 Recently, Noshi and me sat down one evening and put on this film from Netflix.

A chinese animated movie, it aired in february this year initially.

Donghai City is ravaged by a great draught, and has been like that for decades.  Lin Yunxiang, a courier and smuggler, tries to make out a living in these harsh conditions.  When one day he runs into the third son of the largest crimeboss, he becomes embroiled in affairs beyond his understanding.

It turns out he is the recent incarnation of Nazho, a mischievious god and slayer of demons and dragons.  He gets the power to use fire, to great extend, but suddenly finds himself and his friends and family the target of attacks by otherworldly creatures.  The crime boss is in reality Ao Guang, leader of the dragon clan and wanting to overthrow the old gods to create a new pantheon under his rule.

Aided by a mysterious masked man, believed to be the Six-Eared Macaque, but in reality the Monkey King himself, Lin takes on the challenge to bring back peace to the land and overthrow the evil machinations once and for all.  In doing so, he looses his father, while his best friend gets heavily wounded in the whole affair.  He blames himself, because while not being the cause, he finds himself responsible for the bad things happening as it is fall-out for the hunt on him.

An entertaining film with a nice turn on a classic story, this was a good watch for a lazy saturday evening.  A sequel is planned for 2022, but the end credits also show some various other gods "hinted at" so perhaps this might turn into some sort of chinese Avengers universe franchise?

Some more research seems to be required on that part!