Yang Yu, director of "Ne Zha 2", an animated feature film that recently became China's all-time top-grossing film, said in an interview with China Media Group (CMG) that he makes every film as if it were his last.
By Thursday, “Ne Zha 2” had taken in more than 5.77 billion yuan (about 804.84 million U.S. dollars) in box office revenue, achieving the milestone in just eight days and five hours, according to ticketing platforms Maoyan and Beacon.
Surpassing 2021 war epic "The Battle at Lake Changjin", the film has become the highest-grossing film of all time in China.
The animated feature is the sequel to the 2019 animated blockbuster "Ne Zha", drawing inspiration from the tale of a mythological figure of the same name from the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) novel "Fengshen Yanyi", or "The Investiture of the Gods".
The first "Ne Zha" generated an impressive 5 billion yuan in box office revenue, while also winning numerous accolades.
Yang said that making "Ne Zha 2" following the huge success of the first movie brought rising expectations from the audience and pushed the creative team to set high standards for the sequel.
"[The huge success of the prequel] gave us momentum, pressure and anxiety. The prequel was a big surprise to the audience, because they had no expectation for it, but 'Ne Zha 2' was produced amid rising expectation, which put us under pressure and kept pushing us forward. So, we set high standards for 'Ne Zha 2' and pushed ourselves to the limit," said Yang.
Noting that Ne Zha is anxious about his appearance, Yang said he introduced this feature purposely to present the character's inner struggle and avoid depicting a flat character.
"The human nature is complex. One will gradually start to doubt himself after being told 100 times he is wrong. Ne Zha is no exception and he will experience the same inner struggle as everyone does. We did this to avoid building a flat character," Yang said.
Yang said the rise of China's animation movie industry and the excellent works of his fellow filmmakers have been encouraging him to do his best in making masterpieces.
"The Chinese animation movie industry has produced many excellent works over recent years, and I think the trend does exit and I have no doubt about this. Over recent years, animation film makers have been encouraging their colleagues and have been witnessing the release of a slew of masterpieces, which also encouraged me to make more breakthroughs. I produce every film as if it were the last work in my lifetime, leaving no space for further improvement, but I will still try to make breakthroughs in my next work," said Yang.
I make every film as if it were my final work: "Ne Zha 2" director
Agreements signed between China and Kyrgyzstan at the 2026 Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) Summit in Bishkek are expected to inject fresh momentum into Kyrgyzstan’s growing technology sector, especially in digital economy, artificial intelligence (AI) and clean energy, an expert said.
The summit, held Monday and Tuesday in the Kyrgyz capital, ran under the theme "25 Years of the SCO: Together Towards Sustainable Peace, Development, and Prosperity" and brought together leaders from more than 20 countries.
In an interview with China Global Television Network (CGTN), Chubak Temirov, deputy director of the High Tech Park of the Kyrgyz Republic, said the SCO’s 25 years of trust now pave the way for joint technology ventures beyond Kyrgyzstan’s domestic market.
"The SCO spent 25 years building relationships and trust between our countries, between China and Kyrgyzstan and all other members. And I believe the next stage should be about building things together, in relation to technology; technologies, companies, research, products, and maybe new markets. Today, technology company in Bishkek doesn't necessarily think only about our domestic market, which is only 7.4 million people. We think broader, in relation to all SCO countries, or even global market," Temirov said.
In his meeting with Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov on Monday, Chinese President Xi Jinping said China and Kyrgyzstan should work together to build the Belt and Road Joint Laboratory and strengthen cooperation in areas including AI.
Echoing President Xi's words, Temirov identified local-language AI applications as the most immediate opportunity for Kyrgyzstan, while emphasizing that the best form of technology transfer lies in building local capacity to develop future products independently -- a partnership model that could deepen bilateral collaboration following the summit.
"I think the immediate practical opportunities for Kyrgyzstan in AI would be the local language AI. For example, let's imagine just a farmer in rural area, in some remote mountain in Kyrgyzstan, as you know, Kyrgyzstan is a mountainous country, could speak to an AI assistant in Kyrgyz language and receive information about weather, maybe agriculture. A student could have an AI tutor, for example, in his own language, in native language. Or a citizen could interact with digital public services, right? Digital public services now, in every country, are becoming a major trend of digitalization. Everyone now, just sitting from home, can get any public service s and get different things to make his life easier, right?" he said.
"China has a big scale from infrastructure and a mature AI ecosystem. The best technology transfer is not when you receive any finished product. As I said, it's when your people gain capability to build already the next product themselves, right? This is the kind of China-Kyrgyzstan technology partnership I would see as a really good example. I truly believe that after this summit, we can go to a new layer of friendship and collaboration. And I see more opportunities between China and Kyrgyzstan in AI in general, and in other technologies," he added.
China, Kyrgyzstan double down on tech innovation at SCO Summit
