On the evidence of Jiang Ziya, Li Wei gives mythological animation visual care and a serious moral purpose. We welcome the ambition, but the tangled storytelling makes our recommendation a cautious one.
Fi1m perspective
In Jiang Ziya (2020), the widescreen compositions and Su Daji’s vivid design hold our attention even when the story becomes hard to follow. Li Wei and co-director Cheng Teng give the pictures room, with rich colour and ink-wash influences contributing to the film’s atmosphere. We were absorbed by the images, then frustrated that untangling the plot left so little attention for the characters. Li is worth watching for that visual care, but this is a qualified recommendation for those interested in animation.
His route to feature directing runs through other people’s animated worlds: a contribution to Kuiba (2011), then an assistant-director credit on Big Fish & Begonia (2016). Jiang Ziya was his feature debut as co-director, and the later co-directing credit on Edge of Time (2025) continues that collaborative pattern. We should not pretend to know which decisions on Jiang Ziya belong to Li alone. Our interest rests on what he and Cheng achieve together, and on the gap between the care taken over the images and the difficulty of following the story.
What we welcome in Jiang Ziya is the seriousness of its central promise that no soul should be denied salvation. Its protagonist questions divine authority, giving Li and Cheng something more demanding to work with than a contest of strength. We would rather animation attempt that question than assume its audience only wants another fight. But Xie Xiying’s screenplay makes the story too difficult to grasp for the choices to carry their full weight. We need to understand what matters to the person at the centre before we can worry about the cost of a decision.
Raymond Wong supplies the music, but musical emphasis cannot clarify what the drama has left uncertain. We would not want Li to abandon the difficult questions or the care taken over the pictures. We would want him to make the choices easier to understand, so that the characters can matter as much as their surroundings. Start with Jiang Ziya for the animation; do not expect an effortless introduction to its mythology.
Biography
Li Wei is a Chinese animation director, also credited as Wei Li, Lee Wei and Wei Lee. He co-directed the 2020 animated fantasy film Jiang Ziya with Cheng Teng. The film, a follow-up to Ne Zha (2019), is loosely based on the 16th-century novel Investiture of the Gods.
Li Wei has worked in animation and art department roles on projects including the television series Carmen Sandiego (2019) and the feature Inside Out 2 (2024). He directed a segment of the 2024 anthology series Taisu Xilie.
