China's animated blockbuster ‘#NeZha2’ claimed the global animation crown Tuesday night, its 12.32 billion RMB ($1.7 billion) gross revenue dethroning #Pixar’s ‘Inside Out 2’. Having outpaced ‘The Lion King’ (2019) and ‘Jurassic World’, it now stands eighth in all-time global box office rankings.
One of the film's breakout characters is Ao Guang, the #Dragon King of the Eastern Sea. This shape-shifting character alternates between his primordial white dragon form and a human avatar armed with the Longya Dao (Dragon Teeth Blade). Forging the weapon is no small feat, as a closer look reveals its archaeological fingerprints from dynasties thousands of years apart.
The blade’s general form features an upturned tip, serrated spine, and a slightly tapered belly, all characteristics of Shang Dynasty (1600-1046 B.C.) bronze knives. A jade knife from the same era displayed at the #Yinxu Museum in Henan Province also has a similar spine featuring decorative ridges.
Meanwhile, its base features a dragon-head motif (long tun kou), a signature element of the yanyue dao (crescent blade) from the Song Dynasty (960-1279). This "dragon swallowing the blade" design symbolizes authority - a perfect match for the Dragon King's regal bearing.
It’s worth noting that the crescent blade gained legendary status through the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) novel ‘Romance of the Three Kingdoms,’ where Chinese military general Guan Yu wields a mythical weapon named as ‘qinglong yanyue Dao’, or green-dragon crescent blade.
According to Xinhua, a #Shandong-based animation studio handled the production of several key assets in ‘Ne Zha 2’, including the Dragon King’s knife. Project lead Sun Liangtian recalled, "The knife alone took around 18 months to perfect. We went through two or three major revisions with the director’s team, creating over 200 iterations." The film's phenomenal success proves this painstaking attention to detail has paid monumental dividends.
#NeZha2HiddenGems #NeZha2 #weapon #history #archaelogy #ChineseCulture
