blue subtitle

“In our society, in the stories we tell about ourselves, we often emphasize and celebrate masculine strength — the strength of constant action, of winning, of innovating and expending. In ‘Eternals,’ we wanted to explore the feminine strength in all of us — the strength that comes from vulnerability, love, forgiveness and ‘actionless action,’” said Zhao.

“All the characters in ‘Eternals’ are trying to find the harmony between the masculine and the feminine sides of them, the ‘yin’ and the ‘yang,’ and only when they find the balance do they become whole,” she explained.

The director referenced, for instance, how at the film’s climax, Eternals Sersi (Gemma Chan) and Ikaris (Richard Madden) were, despite their opposing ideologies, able to “choose not to act and to embrace vulnerability and love.”

“To be able to have these moments in a superhero film was deeply meaningful to me,” said Zhao.

When developing the story, Zhao wanted to challenge ideas about absolute good and evil by adding more nuance to the relationship between the Eternals and the Deviants, the latter of which she envisioned as a sort of ecological allegory representing the Apex predators exterminated by humans over the centuries so that humanity could flourish.

“Unlike the classic Western representations of demons, the demons in Eastern religions are often powerful ancient spirits of nature. Instead of exterminating them, we should acknowledge and appease them,” explained Zhao. “There is no such thing as absolute evil. Only energies that have to be redirected with understanding and compassion.”

While Chinese viewers have gone so far as to read the film as a modern take on the 16th century classic text “Journey to the West,” comparing the Eternals to the epic’s main character Sun Wukong, the iconic immortal monkey king tasked with protecting a monk on his pilgrimage, any perceived parallels weren’t active choices, explains Zhao.