Add new blog post about Ne Zha 2

src/blog/posts/2025-03-19-ne-zha-2-impressions.md

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+---
+articleTitle: '"Ne Zha 2" Impressions'
+desc: I accompanied my parents to watch "Ne Zha 2" in cinema out of curiosity. Did I end up liking the film?
+date: 2025-03-19T19:10:47+0800
+categories: ["films"]
+---
+
+On the afternoon of 18 March 2025, my parents and I went to the cinema to watch  {% cite "Ne Zha 2" %} ([哪吒之魔童闹海]{lang=zh}), an animated film produced in mainland China.
+
+To be honest, my parents were more excited about watching this film than I was. After finding out that {% cite "Ne Zha 2" %} was a massive box office success in China, my parents were looking forward to its release in Malaysia. As soon as {% cite "Ne Zha 2" %} started to be shown in cinema in Malaysia, my parents talked about their plans to watch the film, and even watched its predecessor, {% cite "Ne Zha" %} ([哪吒之魔童降世]{lang=zh}), at home the night before watching {% cite "Ne Zha 2" %} to do their homework.
+
+As for me, I have never paid close attention to mainland China's entertainment industry, especially when compared to my teenage years when I followed Hong Kong and Taiwan's entertainment industry closely to the extent of being described as an expert by my mother. Therefore, I accompanied my parents to see {% cite "Ne Zha" %} merely out of curiosity and a desire to see what the hype was, and what made the film such a hit and the highest-grossing animated film in the world.
+
+As a result, after sitting in the cinema for more than two hours and watching {% cite "Ne Zha" %} for myself, my first impression was that the animation and visual effects of the film are truly stunning and full of action as well as tense and dramatic moments. However, I am not a fan of the film's portrayal and treatment of its female characters.
+
+A [Ne Zha 2 review by circularuins on Douban (in Chinese)](https://movie.douban.com/review/16499182/) explains my issues with the portrayal and treatment of women in the film well. If you do not mind spoilers, I highly recommend reading the entire article. Even if you are unable to read Chinese, I would still suggest trying to read it with a machine translation.
+
+I deeply relate to the author when they talked about how beginning to strongly identify as an Asian woman, and realise what that identity means in society, and thus starting to look at films' portrayal of women in a critical eye. This is a big part of why my taste in entertainment media has changed drastically as an adult compared to when I was a teenager. As an adult, I began to learn about the concept of media representation, and how the portrayal of different groups of people—including women—in the media reflects and influences the audience impression of those demographics.
+
+As for the portrayal of women in entertainment media such as film and television, I am particularly tired of and disgusted by the trope of women characters existing mainly or only as sacrifices for the development of male characters. There is even a name for this trope, [women in refrigerators](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_refrigerators). This is one of the reasons why I despise the 2023 Hong Kong film {% cite "One More Chance" %} ([别叫我“赌神”]{lang=zh}), which I also saw in the cinema with my parents, and regard it as a major stinker of a film. Unfortunately, the woman in refrigerator trope happens in {% cite "Ne Zha 2" %} as well. Honestly, it is embarrassing and insulting to see these tired old sexist tropes in a hit film in the 2020s.
+
+All in all, while I can understand, to a certain degree, how the animation and visual effects of {% cite "Ne Zha 2" %} are a reason for the film's success, I cannot recommend it wholeheartedly, especially if you have high standards for the portrayal and treatment of women in film.

src/changelogs/logs/2025/2025-03-19.md

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-date: 2025-03-19T11:28:25+0800
+date: 2025-03-19T19:10:52+0800
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-* In the website's RSS feed, changelog items are now linked to their anchor links on the changelog pages, instead of the website's home page.
+* In the website's RSS feed, changelog items are now linked to their anchor links on the changelog pages, instead of the website's home page.
+* New blog post, ["Ne Zha 2" Impressions](/blog/posts/2025-03-19-ne-zha-2-impressions).