Chinas Base FX has just shared with AWN their work on NeZha 2, which was released in China during the nations Spring Festival holiday and has broken the Mainland box office record with an US$800 million haul in its first nine days. The film, directed by Jiaozi (Yang Yu, who also directed 2019s NeZha), continues the odyssey of one of Chinas best-known characters.The film has advance screenings in the U.S. on February 12 and a national release on February 14.The studio handled a considerable amount of the shows most complicated work, taking on a set of sequences involving large fluid simulations and crowds, along with several sequences of character animation. Overall, the company delivered more than 230 shots on a challenging 12-month schedule, working in partnership with the production and key vendors.According to Base Supervisor Tang Bing Bing, NeZha 2 was maybe our biggest challenge to date in terms of the scope of the work, and the speed at which it had to be done. 18 months sounds like a long time, but with scope of the VFX work and the high production quality demanded, it always felt like we were behind and had to push.Shows like this, by nature, are always moving the goalposts to make a better film, said Base Producer Xu Han. The scale of the shots made hitting deadlines a real challenge. As usual, the team responded to the challenge, and we were able to complete the work at high quality.When we first saw the storyboards, we thought impossible, but once the director shared his vision we worked out a plan that could be achieved on the budget and schedule, shared Tang. We had shots with a thousand creatures jumping through lava with chains attached to them inside Tianyuan Cauldron. There werent any easy shots in the sequence. Each one tested the team.Most of our work post-pandemic has been for U.S. clients and our own IP, so this was an exception for us, added Base CEO Chris Bremble. It was hard to turn down, given the directors vision for the film and our ambition to tackle big, challenging sequences. Were thrilled with its reception in China, and that we were able to make a meaningful contribution to the film, which had 138 Mainland vendors contributing to the final picture. NeZha 2 is produced by Chengdu Coco Cartoon Co., Ltd.; Beijing Enlight Media Co, Ltd.; Beijing Enlight Pictures Co., Ltd.; Chengdu Zizaijingjie Culture and Media Co., Ltd.; Beijing Coloroom Technology Ltd.; and distributed in China by Enlight Pictures and in the US by CMC Pictures.Source: Base FX Dan Sarto is Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of Animation World Network.