The Monkey King (TV Series 2002– ) Poster

(2002– )

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Goofy but Good
Wyrmis3 May 2004
The only review I see for this series right now is one which talks about how they could not possibly fit too much stuff in a 2 hour movie. Since this is a series of one hour episodes, I am not sure what the complaint is. I have not read any but a small portion of a Journey West, so I cannot say how true it is staying, but of what I do know it is actually sort of close.

The acting style is mixed, sometimes being dead on and sometimes being jester-like. I really enjoy it on a cross between an inner-child level and a martial arts level, though I have to admit that it does not satiate more mature watching interests. It is great stress relief though.

Special effects are not that bad, in fact they are comparable to an american sci-fi series. It is not low budget nor high budget, but they manage to do a good job with what they have. The one main exception is everyone but the monkey' kings monkey outfit, which are often just obviously clothes. And you have scenes like in the first one where you can see a camel being lead by an obvious rope. I do not know if they are only trying to invoke an image (much like a stage show in which you are trying to have the setting suggested a lot of the time) or if it is just poor editing.

Story line is great, and the acting it out is good if a little goofy. American audiences might dislike the way it jumps from scene to scene, but those used to asian cinema and tv should be used to a slightly different respect for time.

Watch the first 10 minutes of the first two episodes. They show a wide variety of the physical and visual humor and the drama involved. The scenes overall work. They are funny when they mean to be and introspective when they mean to be. I recommend.
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9/10
A new and excellent interpretation brilliantly acted
adt1257 June 2010
Dicky was a breath of fresh air and was able to display the irrepressible nature with the gradual learning and understanding of buddah as he progresses.

Most enjoyable, easy to watch many times. Lots of fun, and some brilliant work by dicky cheung.

All the characters fit together extremely well. There is only one episode where it uses a local celebrity really to appeal the younger HK audience.

Time goes quickly, it is never boring.

It is probably the best of all the versions for its all round coverage and understanding.
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terrible terrible version
jadyte99117 July 2005
A much anticipated miniseries from HK, this turned out to be a huge embarrassment and cheesy attempted remake of Xi You Gi, the Journey To the West, a novel which as been wonderfully remade with the original mandarin version decades ago. First off, it is completely inaccurate. The Monkey King befriends people he's supposed to be enemies with, stuff is out of chronological order, and it's filled with HK teenybopper pop stars in roles that didn't even exist in the book. The fight scenes look exceedingly cheesy, and the special effects used can be seen in any other HK miniseries of the sort. Dicky Cheng is one of my favorite comedy actors in HK, but the whole inaccuracy of this miniseries really got to me. I would recommend Shao Nian Zhang San Feng if you want to see a genuinely funny HK miniseries. Don't waste your money on this unless you are some obsessed fan of Twins.
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worst movies on this topic
zzmale26 April 2004
Based on 'Journey to the West', one of the three famous ancient Chinese novel written in the Ming dynasty, this movie is definitely not good as other.

In fact, it is the worst, mostly because of time. Obviously, the movie cannot be several hours long, but each single episode in the ancient novel can be made into a movie of two hours.

The film crew tries to cover as much episodes/chapters as possible, while in reality, such attempt if futile, and as a result, the quality obviously suffered greatly, and when compared with other movies that only describe a single chapter in the novel, the failure of this movie is obvious.
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Yes
dundhupgyalpo22 May 2022
Warning: Spoilers
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