With Money-Making Written All Over Their Faces, How Did the Eight Immortals Become This Summer's Dark Horse?

“Perhaps the first thing creators ought to figure out is the question of the ratio between fiction and reality in a ‘new mythology.’”

With the summer season more than halfway through, the animated film The Eight Immortals! directed and written by Mou Zhengyang has become this month's dark horse. Ten days after its release was moved up, box office revenue has already surpassed 900 million, with Maoyan predicting a final total of over 2 billion.

Such a dazzling result is bound to draw plenty of attention from inside and outside the industry — especially since reactions were already polarized during the preview screenings, and the controversy has only intensified as the box office climbs and the audience grows.

At first glance this looks like yet another round of the eternal “critically acclaimed vs. commercially successful” debate, but perhaps it also marks a turning point worth discussing in the creation of domestic mythology-themed animated films:

On one hand, drawing classic elements from a vast database already validated by other entertainment markets and reworking them means the finished product's basic form is predictable, and the box office response is usually satisfying;

But on the other hand, how to fully and appropriately present original, auteur-like characteristics on screen, while also answering the hopes of that other portion of “ideal viewers,” remains an unsolved creative challenge.

If we dissect The Eight Immortals! in detail, its strengths and weaknesses are a complete illustration of this very challenge. In a traditional myth whose ending was written long ago, in what form can the importance of human effort be presented? And after walking out of the cinema, what are those things that leave us wanting to speak yet hesitating?

01 Immortals and Mortals Are Different — And Then?​

To summarize the main storyline of The Eight Immortals! in one spoiler-free sentence: it is a “new” myth about how Lü Dongbin, Zhongli Quan, and the other “Eight Immortals” outwitted the heavens to save all living beings.

The traditional framework from A Journey to the East (written by Wu Yuantai of the Ming Dynasty) — the Eight Immortals crossing the sea in a contest of powers and battling the Dragon King — has almost nothing to do with this film, and the characters' master-disciple relationships and appearances differ greatly from the original tales. As for “Penglai,” from the line “a reed boat blows me away to the Three Mountains,” it mainly serves as a backdrop for an otherworld. So, simply put, like all the previous “new mythology” series, The Eight Immortals! is a giant mythological fanfiction (.)

With that premise in mind, let's look more closely at the film's main structure — the most prominent, arguably foundational issue is clearly the discussion of the relationship between immortals and mortals.

Although the film does not elaborate on the distinction between “gods” and “immortals,” judging from its established setting, humans and gods (immortals) are the two clearly distinct races in The Eight Immortals!, and the characters and dialogue (Donghua Dijun mentions the Jade Purity Vase as a symbol of peace between Buddhism and Daoism) reveal a worldview blending Buddhism and Daoism, cultivation and enlightenment. Throughout history, the immortal-mortal relationship has been the most effective and direct perspective for mythology-themed storytelling. Without separately discussing “yao” demons (indeed, no “yao” race appears in this film; the “Three Realms” mentioned by the immortals is only vaguely touched on), the immortal-mortal relationship in practice means a binary power structure in which immortals look down on mortals and mortals look up to immortals — and The Eight Immortals! is no exception.

Except that in The Eight Immortals!, the “intermediary space” is Penglai, an ambiguous space that looks like an enclave but is in fact where immortals and mortals live mixed together. Both the released trailers and the main storyline deliberately highlight this.

The giant statues of the Three Gods of Fortune, Prosperity, and Longevity in Penglai (Yanjiao reality walks into an animated dream (not) and the near-future fantasy-style set design seem intended to emphasize that Penglai fits another sense of “a realm beyond the world.” Of course, this also serves to set up the protagonist group's extraordinary performances later in the story, and implies a creative trade-off: the very fact that mortals can reach Penglai embodies a kind of screening process. As for how one gets there, the creators only offered a brief explanation with a line from Extensive Records of the Taiping Era: “Only those fated to this land may arrive.”

When “immortals and mortals are different” becomes a premise even the audience tacitly accepts — in other words, when “why are they different” is no longer a question the film needs to answer — then telling the “and then?” well becomes extremely important.

The Eight Immortals! once again chooses the safest, but also the greatest-common-denominator path: using a barrage of gags to dissolve the protagonists' discomfort upon first entering the upper echelons of power, and thereby keeping the story's pace in a state of rapid development with no time for anything else.

For example, at the start of the story, the audience's perspective is completely synchronized with Lü Dongbin's, both facing “Noah's Ark”-like Penglai in a state of unknown. The immortal rankings interface and the smiling, baby-faced God of Wealth, the dialect accent of the cloud traffic driver, a certain immortal paying tribute to the classic image of Mao Ri Xingjun complaining at the Immortal Management Bureau, and so on — behind Penglai's flourishing spectacle lies the abilities and power of the immortal race far exceeding mortals', and Penglai's law, “every request granted,” must hold precisely under this premise: mortals worship the immortals, immortals shelter mortals — the former is the foundation guaranteeing the efficacy of the latter's privileges, because the power gap between the two is an unbridgeable chasm.

But a non-equal power relationship inevitably breeds resistance, and the audience naturally expects the film to portray it — the first half of The Eight Immortals! indeed focuses on this. The swindling “lowly underclass” rises up, blazing into something like Now You See Me (Now You See Me) and Guardians of the Galaxy (Guardians of the Galaxy), and the special guest who appears for less than a minute in the battle-of-wits segment steals the show. In terms of cinematic effect, it works quite well.

At this point, the story of mortals “outwitting the heavens” told through the shell of “the Eight Immortals crossing the sea” can largely be considered self-consistent: under a “Great Flood” disaster narrative, the superiors who should have borne the responsibility of protection become corrupt privilege-holders, so all the resistance made by the lower class to survive is self-rescue — and moreover, in Lü Dongbin's words, “the right thing” — even if “all living beings” is just a vague, faceless pronoun.

02 Good Deeds Are Rewarded — Really?​

That said, even though most audiences have long since grown used to the logic of immortal-mortal narratives mixed with political cynicism in recent mythology-themed animated works, a necessary character motivation remains the touchstone.

Looking at the whole film, only four characters in The Eight Immortals! have complete motivations: Lü Dongbin, Yang Jian, He Xiangu, and Zhongli Quan. The storylines of the rest of the protagonist group are comparatively fragmented. It's understandable that this was a trade-off the creative team had to make for runtime, but it's not without regret.

Here, this author will offer one interpretation: the four above together form a closed loop of “good deeds being rewarded,” and none of them can be removed. Because the film not only shows Buddhism and Daoism merging in its dialogue and worldview — the relationships between characters also embody this combination.

Buddhism speaks of karma, Daoism of this life. The core thread of “good intention” originates with Zhongli Quan: the “cause” he sowed brings forth Lü Dongbin's “effect,” which in turn leads to He Xiangu's wanderer's journey and righteous deeds — this is the karma of the three. And Zhongli Quan, though cursed by Donghua (i.e., the fate-decreed verdict), still breaks free of his “fate” in this life — because a variable appeared in his destiny: first, Lü Dongbin, with whom he shares a karmic bond; second, their respective immortal connections, Yang Jian and Sun Wukong.

Therefore, understanding Yang Jian's motivation becomes especially crucial.

Is Yang Jian good in this film? Different answers to this question directly caused some viewers' dissatisfaction after watching, because from a standpoint perspective, Yang Jian is clearly opposed to the protagonist group and the “common people.” But combined with He Xiangu's line, “For your one mother, you would sacrifice everyone else's mothers,” all of Yang Jian's actions in the film stem from one utterly pure purpose: saving his mother. This is a motivation whose purpose is just; what is unjust are the means Yang Jian employs.

Furthermore, if we set aside our emotional standpoint as viewers, Yang Jian is hardly an “evil” figure in this film. What the story of The Eight Immortals! emphasizes is only that “good deeds are rewarded,” not “good and evil are both rewarded” or “evil deeds are punished.” When the eight struggle against Yang Jian, the childlike smile he gives while watching Xiaotian the hound being “forced” to carry Zhang Guolao, and the password voiced through Lan Caihe, are in their way effective portrayals of Yang Jian's “non-evil” side.

Combined with the film's early candor about “immortals and mortals being different,” a fixed, no-longer-struggling hierarchy appears more and more frequently in “new” myths, and creators' attention has shifted more toward rendering relationships between characters, especially emotional bonds. (For more on this topic, see the Academy's earlier article: Why Can't Chinese Animated Films Do Without “Demons and Monsters”?)

Or, put another way, when mythology-themed creation consciously dilutes grand narratives, it inevitably moves toward discussions of emotion and ethics. In The Eight Immortals!, this trend is accompanied by another technical device: the skillful appropriation of the “superhero.”

Even though the protagonist group are nominally mortals, judging by their feats and combat skills, they are already superhuman “heroes” with immortal connections, not truly ordinary people. Because in an unshakable hierarchy, neither grand narrative nor small-person narrative can hold; only a superhero who “reaches heaven and stands on earth” can “bridge” that chasm.

— Severing the passage between heaven and earth, yet in Penglai, the “Eight Immortals” are the ladder.

Of course, The Eight Immortals! ultimately offers a plain, kind-hearted ending: we can still save something — whether as Lü Dongbin and Zhongli Quan, or as the ordinary people being saved — because in this world, good deeds being rewarded is true, and it remains the highest governing law.

03 Plenty of Twists — Surprising?​

Compared horizontally with recent domestic animated works, The Eight Immortals! is fairly similar in actual effect to last year's modest hit Child of Time. Simply put, both enjoy narrative tricks, keenly grasp market sentiment, and the official side will “ship along” (here meaning that the emotional clarity and intensity of the original work far exceed the emotional portrayals in fan-created secondary works).

Thus, for viewers with a decent amount of viewing experience, a sense of “déjà vu” (having seen it before) after watching is hard to avoid — but not to the point of being hard to swallow. It's like a meal that doesn't taste great but passes food-safety standards: a matter of taste, not quality.

So, will the narrative tricks of The Eight Immortals! wear the audience out?

If treated as a popcorn movie, the several important twists currently designed in the film all serve the logical needs and pacing, and do stir up audience emotions to a degree, as can be seen from some social media discussions. But if during viewing one realizes that the film's central clue is concentrated entirely on Lü Dongbin, then when the biggest twist is revealed, viewers may feel somewhat speechless — as if “wrapping a whole dumpling just for that dish of vinegar.”

And this “speechlessness” ties into another major discussion around the film: Are the ships in The Eight Immortals! worth shipping?

Though shipping tastes vary endlessly, the film's direction is fairly clear: the big triangle of Yang Jian / Lü Dongbin / Zhongli Quan, and the ship lines involving He Xiangu. No matter how the big triangle is arranged, seasoned fangirls can always find their most satisfying flavor in it. But with an implicit “canon pairing” feel, the master-disciple ship in the film never seems quite potent enough — and in a daze, it really does carry the air of an old flame.

Instead, certain “crossover ships” given little screen time in the main plot grow more flavorful the more you savor them — for example, the Yang Jian-related and He Xiangu-related ones.

On one hand, this returns to the old question that only sufficient blank space gives fan derivatives vitality. On the other hand, although Yang Jian is set up in the film as the absolute superior and He Xiangu's storyline isn't fully developed, both of their images within the ship are “inverted” relative to the above, full of contrast — He Xiangu, with a brief past, bursts forth with astonishing power in battle scenes, and her effective screen time greatly supplements her character arc; while Yang Jian's certain fragility of “staking everything” just to save his mother softens his sense of superiority, giving him a charm point open to interpretation in fan works.

As such, the master-disciple ship isn't hard to ship or prefab, either — it's just that it's “good” in every way to the point of being too complete, once again presenting a certain facelessness.

This resembles the feeling given by the film's highly saturated entrance captions and soundtrack: within the fast-paced context of the film, they are fitting and natural, but when you step out of the cinema and try to chew it over, (some) viewers can't help feeling a sense of confusion: as if something smooth slipped away — the twists, the tricks, and the bonds all washed away together in the heavy rain, like beads and pebbles drifting into the sea with the waves, leaving no trace.

04 Epilogue: The Eastern Sea of Clouds, Empty Once More​

On the whole, although The Eight Immortals! bears the legend of “the Eight Immortals crossing the sea,” its story's core is still the same old trio of mythology-themed animation and superhero narrative — conventional, complete in plot (the master-disciple two-man show is even a bit drawn-out), with occasional brilliant touches in design, and no vulgarity or ethical gags — earning it the title of a “good student.”

To be more optimistic, with its relatively smooth and complete narrative, The Eight Immortals! has indeed brought some new breakthroughs to the creative direction of mythology in domestic animated films. For instance, the villain (at least the apparent one) is no longer a venerable one disguised as a “great benefactor,” nor does it simply use “the will of heaven eroding” as a deus ex machina to uphold justice (the monkey counts as an Easter egg, yes); when facing an enemy far more powerful, the protagonists no longer rely on teammates being sacrificed or self-sacrifice to force a power-up, but essentially carry through the film's “outwitting the heavens” theme of battles of wits to a narrow victory.

Although all of this makes the protagonist's battle highlight in the final showdown turn out to be a con, it better fits the logic of how the objective world runs, and thus delivers a different emotional experience. Longing to shake a tree as an ant through self-sacrifice, thereby achieving an artistic effect one might call “catharsis” (catharsis) — this is a reliably effective creative formula, but also a self-destructive, utopian, beautiful expectation. The Eight Immortals! ultimately gave up that direction.

Thus, in this summer season — a rare window of potential for domestic animated films — The Eight Immortals! is not a bad cinema choice, and it once again validates the box-office viability of greatest-common-denominator creation.

However, since it borrowed Penglai and the “Eight Immortals,” some viewers naturally came for the narrative possibilities of ethereal legends and tales of the strange. Yet from the moment they set foot on Penglai, the protagonists face a highly modernized world (leaderboard rankings, highways, renovations, video conferencing……). One could say that to fit modern audiences' lives (or to express a certain surrealism), The Eight Immortals! abandoned many imaginative possibilities of classical literature.

As stated at the beginning of this article, this may be said to be a current creative pain point for mythology-themed domestic animated films: besides borrowing a shell for reincarnation, are there other “new” mythology creative approaches that are both critically acclaimed and commercially successful?

Domestic animated shorts like Goose Mountain and Stealing the Peach certainly offer a “critically acclaimed” approach of breathing new life into classics and making the old serve the new. But translating this into feature-length animation is not easy — with the box office returns of Lanre Temple and The Siege of Luoyang as precedents, the effects of faithful adaptation are clearly less than ideal. Perhaps, for creators, the first thing to figure out is the question of the ratio between fiction and reality in a “new mythology”:

If it is a new symbolic language, what is it meant to convey? And if it is a spiritual plea yearning for resonance, then the gaze you cast from the screen — who is it looking toward?