Three thousand years after a boy-god humbled the Dragon King, that same figure walks the earth as an ordinary man searching for purpose in New Gods: Nezha Reborn, a Chinese animated fantasy from director Ji Zhao.
What is New Gods: Nezha Reborn about?
Long past the mythological age when the young god Nezha defeated the Dragon King and vanished from the world, his spirit lives on inside Li Yunxiang, a courier working a hard, unglamorous job to get by. Racing through the streets on his motorcycle, Li Yunxiang has no memory of the legend he carries, and no reason to believe his life will ever cross into myth again. New Gods: Nezha Reborn follows what happens once that buried identity starts to surface, pulling an unremarkable man into a conflict shaped by gods, memory and destiny. The film reframes a story most audiences know as ancient mythology into something closer to a modern action fantasy, set among motorcycles, city streets and the kind of everyday grind its hero shares with anyone watching. Directed by Ji Zhao, it belongs to a run of Chinese animated features that have taken classical mythological material and rebuilt it with contemporary animation and pacing, aimed at audiences who grew up on the original legends as much as newcomers meeting Nezha for the first time.
About the cast
The Chinese-language voice cast includes Tianxiang Yang, He Zhang, Xuan Xiaoming, Li Shimeng, Keer Zhu, Zhenhe Ling, Ruoban Liu and Yaohan Zhang, lending their voices to a story that moves between the mundane life of a delivery rider and the mythological weight he unknowingly carries.
Context & significance
New Gods: Nezha Reborn released in 2021 as part of China's ongoing reinvention of its own mythological canon through animation, following the same Nezha figure that has appeared across multiple retellings in different eras and styles. Rather than retelling the boy-god's original legend directly, the film picks up the story generations later, using a present-day setting to ask what a mythological identity would mean to someone who has no idea he carries one. At 118 minutes, it sits in the action-fantasy-animation space, built around motorcycle chases and stylized combat as much as mythological spectacle.
Watching New Gods: Nezha Reborn on Ktime
New Gods: Nezha Reborn is available to watch on K-Time with a free account login, and the platform's Farsi-language interface makes browsing and discovery easy for Persian-speaking audiences.