How a Chinese animated legend turned our living room into a leadership classroom
The Pause That Tested Us
It started as a simple Sunday family plan. No leadership workshop. No framework. Just one thing.
Movie night.
We gathered the boys in the living room, snacks ready, lights slightly dimmed. The choice of the night was the 2019 animated film Ne Zha (哪吒之魔童降世), a Chinese blockbuster that somehow managed to outshine many Disney and Pixar titles at the box office and become the highest grossing animated film in China, with more than 700 million US dollars earned in China alone and over 740 million worldwide.
At that point, I did not care about records. I just wanted a movie that was fun, meaningful, and safe enough for my children. No zombies. No brain rot violence. Something that could feed imagination and still carry values I believe in.
Halfway through the movie, my wife went upstairs because the youngest was crying. As usual, my assumption kicked in. When she goes up, she normally does not come back down. So we continued watching.
This time, she did come back.
She walked into the living room, saw us glued to the screen, and her face changed.
“Seriously? You all continued without me?”
If this was a leadership meeting, I would say the room temperature suddenly dropped. I quickly paused the movie and asked, “Do you want us to wait and continue tomorrow?” She said yes.
Logical. Reasonable. Peace restored.
Except my three boys immediately exploded into tears. All three. At once. Over a cartoon.
They wanted to finish the movie now. Not tomorrow. Not “later.” Now.
And suddenly, I was not just a father. I was the facilitator of a very emotional family town hall.
In that moment, pausing a movie became a test of something deeper. Would we prioritise comfort or respect, self or togetherness, short term thrill or long term trust?
The answer that night had nothing to do with Nezha’s fire. It had everything to do with ours.
Fire, Pig, and the Living Room
If you have not watched the movie, Ne Zha is loosely based on the old Chinese classic Investiture of the Gods. It takes a familiar myth and gives it a modern spin. A boy born from a cursed demon orb, feared by his village, must choose whether to obey his “fate” and destroy the world, or fight it and become something different.
On paper, this sounds like any heroic “chosen one” story. In reality, the film feels very different.
First, the animation quality is world class. The production took around two years just to write the script and three more years to complete the film. It involved more than 1,318 special effects shots, over 20 Chinese effects studios, and about 1,600 people to create scenes like the Dragon King’s Palace and the epic fire and water battle.
That alone is quite crazy. A huge coordinated effort behind the scenes, just so my boys can argue with me in pyjamas about pausing it.
Second, the characters.
Nezha is fiery, rebellious, powerful, and a bit unhinged. Exactly the kind of character most children love. Somewhere between superhero and troublemaker. My boys were completely hooked.
Then there is his master. The big fat pig.
In the film, the pig looks foolish and lazy. He falls asleep mid teaching. He does not have the dramatic aura of a “legendary master.” But if you pay attention, he has one thing Nezha does not have.
Self control.
He knows when to stop. He can tell the difference between right and wrong. In the middle of chaos, he can say, “Enough.” He is not the strongest in terms of raw power, but he is the strongest in terms of inner discipline.
That night, our living room looked suspiciously similar.
Three little Nezhas crying because the “fire” of excitement was suddenly put out. One tired father trying to be the wise pig. And one mother who had just sacrificed her own comfort to soothe the baby upstairs, quietly asking to be included.
Disney and Pixar often follow a familiar arc. Hero, crisis, big rescue, happy ending. You can more or less predict the next scene. With Ne Zha, there was an element of surprise. The humour is sharper. The scenes twist in unexpected directions. This freshness kept my kids on the edge of the sofa.
Aden told me he loved how Nezha could transform into different forms, including a frog, and trick people. To him, that was peak creativity.
Evan loved the massive clash between fire and the water monster. Ice versus flame. Element against element. That whole scene is not only visually stunning, it is also technically complex, one of those sequences that took extreme effort for the animators to render, especially the fire and water effects.
Eann’s favourite part was not the fight. It was the mother.
“I like when the mom sacrificed for Nezha so he can be saved,” he said.
Three boys. Three lenses. Creativity, spectacle, sacrifice.
Somehow, the movie had become a mirror.
Nezha’s world of fire and fate was reflecting our little world of sofa and snacks. A boy with power but no control, and a family learning, live, how to put love above impulse.
Fate, Family, and the Fire Inside
After we finally calmed everyone, I sent them to sleep and sat back to think.
Why was this movie so powerful that my whole family, including my wife, was drawn in? Why did pausing it feel like cutting off oxygen?
A lot of people look at Ne Zha as just another animated hit. The numbers are impressive. It became the highest grossing animated film in China, the highest grossing film of 2019 in China across all genres, and at the time, the highest grossing non English language animated film in the world.
But numbers alone do not make three boys cry on a couch in Johor.
What really struck me was how deeply Eastern the values are, yet how universally they land.
There is a scene where Nezha’s father gives him a simple paper charm, a 平安符, on his birthday. At first, it looks so unimpressive. The master gives fierce fire runes and cool weapons. The father gives a little piece of paper. As a viewer, you almost feel disappointed.
Then the truth is revealed.
That “small” piece of paper represents the father’s life. He traded his own lifespan in exchange for Nezha’s. Suddenly the cheap paper becomes the most expensive gift in the whole movie.
Earlier, the mother had already risked everything to protect Nezha from being killed as a demon. She stood between him and the world. The father then takes another step and exchanges his life for his son’s.
This is not self expression. This is self sacrifice.
In Western stories, the climax often celebrates “being yourself.” In this film, the climax honours giving yourself. The parents do not lecture Nezha about values. They embody them, with their lives.
For a Chinese parent, this hits a deep nerve.
I see many parents today working hard, sacrificing sleep, comfort, even health, so their children can have better opportunities. They may not use words like “hero” or “destiny,” but they live like Nezha’s parents. Quiet, unseen, paying the price behind the scenes.
There is another thread that fascinates me.
One of the most quoted lines from the Nezha universe is “我命由我不由天,” which is often translated as “I am the master of my fate, not the heavens.” Scholars have noted how that line captures a modern desire for self determination within a traditional mythological framework.
Whether you watch the first film or its record breaking sequel in 2025, the heartbeat is similar. Fate may be written, but character is chosen. The fire inside you can destroy, or it can protect.
That night, my children were not saying, “I am the master of my fate.” They were saying, “I am the master of my movie.”
Still, the principle is the same.
If I allow my children to believe that comfort is king, then the “fate” they are mastering is very shallow. If I help them see that love sometimes means waiting, sacrificing, and including others, then the fire in them begins to burn in a different direction.
As a father, as a leader, my role is not to kill their fire. It is to give it a purpose.
Aden, at nine, summarised his lesson very simply.
“Use your powers wisely.”
Eann, at seven, said, “Sacrifice for family.”
Evan, at four, remembered the image. “Nezha touch the peak, then the fire come out.”
If I had written these as quotes from a leadership book, people might think they came from some high level mastermind retreat. Instead, they came from the back seat of my car, on the way to tuition.
Three mini coaches. Three STARS in training.
Turning Movie Nights into Leadership Labs
So what do we do with a night like this?
It would be very easy to treat it as “just a drama” about a movie. Another small domestic conflict. Kids being kids. Parents being tired. Next night, repeat.
But leadership at home grows in these ordinary scenes.
Here is what actually happened after the tears.
I told the boys, “Mummy is also part of this family. She went up to care for your sister. If we finish the movie without her, we are enjoying something she helped make possible, but we leave her out of the joy. So we will wait and watch together tomorrow.”
They continued crying.
I did not blame them. The movie had pulled them in completely. The animation was intense, the story unpredictable, the humour sharp. This is the same film that required more than 1,300 VFX shots, armies of artists, and years of work. That kind of excellence naturally captures attention.
But a family is not only about attention. It is about intention.
In that moment, my intention was to teach one thing.
We do not move ahead if someone we love is left behind.
So I held the line. We stopped the movie. We sent them to bed. And we reminded them again the next day, “We are waiting because mummy matters.”
It sounds small. It is not.
Children rarely remember our lectures. They remember our patterns. The pattern we are trying to build is simple.
- Power needs self control.
- Fun needs boundaries.
- Togetherness sometimes needs waiting.
If you are a parent or a leader reading this, here is a practical way to turn your own “Nezha night” into a leadership lab.
First, be intentional with what you watch.
Choose content that has layers. Kids should enjoy it. Adults should be able to mine it for deeper themes. Ne Zha does this very well. There is the surface level of action and humour. There is the deeper level of fate, choice, sacrifice, and identity.
Second, build a reflection habit right after the experience.
In our case, reflection happened in the car. I asked each child, “What is one thing you learned from the movie?” Not “What is your favourite scene,” but “What did you learn.” That single question shifted the whole experience from consumption to reflection.
Third, connect fiction back to family reality.
Nezha’s mother sacrificed her life. So I asked, “Who sacrifices most in this house?” That leads them to see their own mother differently. Nezha’s father exchanged his lifespan for his son’s. So I ask, “What do you think daddy gives up to work and be with you?” Now the story is no longer far away. It is right in the kitchen.
Fourth, tie the lesson to a simple action.
For us, the action was waiting. Respecting mummy. Watching together the next day. For another family, it might be saying thank you, or apologising, or sharing. But the key is to do something small and concrete that matches the lesson.
Over time, these small actions become culture.
And here is a final “real world” trivia detail that I find quite amusing.
The first Ne Zha film in 2019 was a landmark for Chinese animation. It was the first Chinese animated feature released in IMAX, and its success paved the way for an even bigger sequel in 2025 that has now become one of the highest grossing animated films in the world, beating major Hollywood titles and changing the global map of animation.
Somewhere between those record breaking numbers and the work of 1,600 anonymous artists, there is our little living room.
One family, one paused movie, three crying boys, one slightly annoyed mother, and one tired father trying very hard to be a wise pig.
Not glamorous. Not viral. But this is where our leadership really forms.
The Reverse That Redefines It All
Most people look at a hit movie and say, “What a powerful story.”
That night, I walked away thinking, “What a powerful mirror.”
Nezha is branded as a demon child. He has every reason to say, “This is just who I am.” Instead, through the love and sacrifice of his parents, the loyalty of his friend, and the uncomfortable guidance of his ridiculous looking master, he slowly discovers that his fate is not fixed.
He can burn down his world. Or he can burn for his world.
In the same way, our children’s fire can go in any direction.
We can let entertainment rule the house, and treat every protest as sacred. Or we can let values rule the house, and teach them that sometimes, love pauses the movie.
The world will always celebrate visible power. Raw talent. Loud success.
But that night, sitting between a furious wife and three crying boys, I realised something simple.
The real power in a family is not how fast we move. It is how willing we are to wait for one another.
In a world that keeps telling our children, “Follow your feelings,” leadership at home teaches a different script.
Follow love.
Because in the end, the fire that changes the world is not the one that consumes everything in its path.
It is the one that learns to stay, to wait, and to burn faithfully for the people it loves.
