Yao: Chinese Folktales — the film Nobody (2025)
At a glance118 minutes
Nobody (浪浪山小妖怪) is a 118-minute animated film released in China on 2 August 2025. Directed by Yu Shui, who also made the episode A Little Demon's Summer, it continues the story of the little pig demon of Mount Langlang.
Production and behind the scenes
After the episode's success, the Shanghai Animation Film Studio launched a feature film, co-produced with several partners including Maoyan and China Film. The film keeps the episode's hand-drawn style, with more than 2,000 painted backgrounds and a team of more than 600 people.
How it differs from the donghua
Where the episode was a short, bittersweet chronicle, the film becomes a road movie. The little pig teams up with a toad, a weasel and a great ape. To become somebody, the four little demons disguise themselves as Tang Sanzang and his disciples and head west, crossing paths with other demons and a few heroes of Journey to the West.
Reception and success
The film passed one billion yuan at the box office and became the highest-grossing 2D animated film in Chinese box-office history, ahead of Makoto Shinkai's Suzume. Audiences praised its humour, its beauty and its message about the "little people" who will never be heroes.
Trivia
- Sun Wukong, Zhu Bajie, Sha Wujing and Tang Sanzang make appearances.
- A sequel, Nobody 2, has been announced.
My take
Nobody is a real success: funny, tender and gorgeous, with painted backgrounds that recall the Shanghai studio's classics. It pulls off the hard task of turning a short into a feature without losing its poetry.
Who is it for?For everyone who loved the episode, and anyone who has ever felt very small in a big organisation.
— Spidermas, for Donghua Fan