I Am What I Am 2
I Am What I Am 2 is a 2024 Chinese animated martial arts comedy-drama film directed by Sun Haipeng. It is the sequel to I Am What I Am.
Following the events of the previous film, Gyun leaves his hometown in Guangdong in search of work to pay for his sick father's healthcare. While the first focused on lion dancing in a traditional rural setting, the sequel depicts martial arts culture in the modern city of Shanghai.
The film was released in China on December 14, 2024. It received positive reviews, but was a box-office bomb, earning less than half of its production budget.
Plot
Gyun's father is injured in a construction accident and falls into a coma. He eventually wakes at the end of the first film, following the victory of Gyun's team at the lion dance competition in Guangzhou.To earn money to cover his father's medical treatment, Gyun travels to Shanghai to look for work. He is recruited by the declining Chuanwu Kung Fu Gym to be its representative in the "Shanghai Fight Night" martial arts tournament, where he must face competitors and techniques from around the world.
Voice cast
- Li Xin as Gyun
- Chen Yexiong as Mao
- Guo Hao as Gou
- Cai Xinran as Xiaoyu
- Wang Yilang as Zhang Wate
- Zhang Jie as Jin Muyang
Production
Development
Director Sun Haipeng had not initially planned on creating a sequel to I Am What I Am, but following positive reception after its release, he began development on the second film in March 2022.Although Shanghai was initially chosen merely to take Gyun out of familiar territory, Sun later realized that it had a "strong martial tradition, despite its modern veneer demonstrated by its association with figures like kung fu master Huo Yuanjia". The Guangdong-based creative team visited Shanghai seven times through all four seasons, photographing textures and details to accurately recreate its atmosphere.
The team took visual cues from landmarks such as the City God Temple, the Oriental Pearl Tower, Waibaidu Bridge, and Nanjing Road. Places the characters live in were based on traditional Shanghainese shikumen architecture from the late 1800s and early 1900s, and "Workers' New Villages", public housing built by the Shanghai municipal government from the 1950s onwards. Sun's visit to a soon-to-be-demolished building inspired the cramped apartment shared by Gyun and his friends.
According to Sun, the script development process was challenging, undergoing three major revisions over a six-month period. A key difficulty lay in illustrating the relationship between the characters Gyun and Xiaoyu, and depicting their motivations for their involvement in martial arts.
Visual effects
Production started by the end of 2022, with the crew being allowed greater creative freedom compared to the first film.Martial arts masters, including Zhang Peng, a shaolin specialist and national bajiquan champion, were hired as action choreographers, blocking scenes and providing motion capture for characters. The director additionally trained under Zhang for several months during production. Screenwriter Shen Cheng provided advice on the film's portrayal of wushu, having been a practitioner for twenty years, competed in tournaments, and written several wuxia novels.
Post-production
The film's sound design, dialogue recording, and mixing was done in Beijing under the supervision of POW Studios, a New Zealand-based post-production facility.Music
The soundtrack was composed by Luan Hui, then edited and mixed in Dolby Atmos by POW Studios in Wellington, New Zealand. It integrates the traditional tanggu, a type of drum used in lion dance, with elements of Chinese hip-hop and rock music. The soundtrack album was recorded at AIR Studios in London and released by Sony Music on January 15, 2025, containing 21 orchestral tracks and 6 songs by guest artists.The theme song, "Nameless Man", was again sung by Angela Zhang, reprising her role from the first film. Twenty-one year old rapper Cas14 composed the ending theme, titled "Youth Power", with lyrics inspired by Classical Chinese poetry.
Release
Theatrical
The first footage of I Am What I Am 2 was shown at the 25th Shanghai International Film Festival on June 11, 2023. Production company Beijing Splendid Culture & Entertainment announced it would be part of "China's Teen Universe", a new series of films about China's youth, and set a release date for 2024.The film was shown at advance screenings across 18 cities on December 7, 2024. It received a wide release in China in regular, Dolby Cinema, and IMAX formats a week later on December 14, 2024.
Streaming
The film was released on Chinese streaming platforms, including Tencent Video and Youku, on June 1, 2025, coinciding with the Dragon Boat Festival.Reception
I Am What I Am 2 earned CN¥57.54 million in its opening week and CN¥74.04 million in its first month. It ultimately made CN¥81.22 million, less than a third of the first film's CN¥250 million gross. As production and marketing costs were estimated to be CN¥200 million and CN¥80 million respectively, higher than the first's, the film's release resulted in a loss of roughly CN¥200 million.In January 2025, the film was named one of the top ten Chinese films of the past year at the 31st Shanghai Film Critics Awards.