A Magnificent Cactus Growing in China's Cultural Desert: Reflections on "I Am What I Am 2"

I watched a Chinese film "I Am What I Am 2" in Beijing on New Year's Day 2025.
It was a masterpiece.

(This image is from I Am What I Am 1)

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My Chinese wife calls China a "cultural desert." She often reads Chinese novels, but they're all from the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644). She says no novels worth reading have emerged in China since then. In Chinese dramas and movies, actors are often cast for their looks and lip-sync their lines. The Cultural Revolution's destruction of traditional tangible and intangible culture is clearly one factor. I too tried to find engaging Chinese entertainment while learning Chinese, but couldn't find anything truly captivating.

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China's current technological capabilities and social implementation are impressive. Cashless payments being widespread even among street vendors is well-known, but additionally, EVs (Electric Vehicles) now make up about half of all vehicles in major cities. The experience combining advanced software and EVs is vastly different from car experiences in Japan, and whenever I return to Japan, I feel like I've "gone back in time." When ordering delivery at hotels, robots bring it to your room. (These robots generally don't yield to others and move ruthlessly in and out of elevators, which can be irritating, but I think it's okay for technology to be rough around the edges during its introduction phase.)

Observing this, I thought, "While China is technologically advanced and Japan will likely fall further behind, Japan has culture. There's no other country like Japan where new manga are constantly created, numerous anime are broadcast quarterly, and an ecosystem including merchandise and games is generated. Even if Japan's auto industry collapses in the next 10 years, China won't easily catch up to Japan's cultural industry level, and Japan will win here." Seeing the recent success of PokePoke (I'm actually a heavy user playing daily - can't beat Gyarados), I became more convinced that "first nurturing IP through manga and anime, then developing it into games to earn foreign currency" would be Japan's path to survival.

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I was naive. I underestimated the Chinese. While China might have been a cultural desert for several decades or more, my wife said this "I Am What I Am 2" was "the best Chinese visual work I've ever seen." (She's a content enthusiast who has seen many works) I feel the same way, and there's a strong sense that this film, which I saw on New Year's Day, will take the top spot among my 2025 movies. This is clearly a sprout in the desert. No, being able to create a 3D CG feature-length animated film of this scale with top-tier visuals, screenplay, music, and acting is already a proper cactus(?).

According to my wife, since the great success of "The Monkey King" released in 2014, there's been a boom in similar 3D CG animated films in China, and "I Am What I Am" follows this trend. Director Tian of "The Monkey King" reportedly spent 8 years making the film despite financial struggles. In other words, this sprout started growing in 2006. After 18 years, everything has blossomed with "I Am What I Am 2," and China's 3D animation culture will likely flourish greatly from here on.

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Throughout this film, what I felt was the Chinese people's perseverance. China has very few holidays. There are only about two long breaks per year, with hardly any other holidays, and people often work weekends. They do tremendous overtime. While this black company culture has become normalized nationwide and individual happiness might not be maximized, it becomes a source of overwhelming output as a collective. Even after their cultural foundation built over thousands of years was intentionally destroyed, even through struggles with economic growth and difficult living conditions, even while facing various ethnic and political challenges, and even when the future beyond their finally achieved economic growth looks dark, they continue their efforts without giving up and can produce works like this. "I Am What I Am 2" is a story about poor protagonists confronting overwhelming powers, and I saw the Chinese people as a collective reflected in this.

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Based on all this, I'm not trying to say "China is amazing" or "Japan needs to hurry up." I'm simply moved and want to praise the achievement of the group involved in making this film. Furthermore, China's 3D animation movie scene will likely become even more exciting, and this will probably expand to other cultural areas in China. I'm looking forward to that. Japan should take this as positive stimulation and be happy about the birth of a worthy rival. As a consumer, I'm very excited to experience the new works and culture born from this competition. As a producer, I want to remember that even if the macro situation is tough, success is possible if you keep going without giving up at the micro level, and conversely, success is clearly impossible without continuing.

Perseverance isn't just a Chinese talent - it's something we should all value as humanity.

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I hear "I Am What I Am 1" was shown in Japan in May 2024 (I haven't seen it). As of January 2025, I don't think "I Am What I Am 2" is available in Japan. I hear it hasn't done well commercially, so I'm not sure if it will be shown in Japan. While the box office performance is unfortunate, the foundation that has grown shouldn't easily crumble, so let's look forward to the future.