This film is one of the inclusions in Harry Medved's "The Fifty Worst Films of All Time" and seeing all the very positive reviews is odd in light of this. However, I noticed that MANY of the positive reviews are from people who saw it in their childhood and such after the fact reviews are of somewhat limited value. It is base on recollections almost 50 years old AND it's true that children are often not the best at discerning classics. Heck, when I was a kid, I thought cartoons like "Deputy Dog" and "Huckleberry Hound" were classics--little did I know. My advice is to see the film again and then ask yourself if kids today as well as their parents would enjoy this film? Another important thing to keep in mind is that this film is highly bastardized. When American-International bought this film from Japan, they literally cut the film apart and changed it so much that it's hard to adequately rate the film. Many times in the 60s, this studio bought films and cut and pasted them into "new films" by adding some American actors in short snippets. In this case, Frankie Avalon and several other "hip" voice actors were used, names were changed, story lines were changed and songs were added. My review is ONLY for the Americanized version.
Alakazam is a monkey and after passing a test, he becomes king of the animals. However, after a while, this new king shows himself to be a total jerk--arrogant and thoroughly unpleasant. In fact, he's so arrogant that he thinks he's smarter than humans (in some case, this could easily be true) and goes to Merlin the Magician to learn all he can. Naturally, he uses all this knowledge to make himself even more annoying and fat-headed. And so, of course, the rest of the film is about Alakazam learning humility through many trials and misfortunes brought about by his haughty manner. Fortunately for him, his good friend and sweetie, DeeDee, is on hand to assist him.
This all occurs in a portion of the film that is a magical land and it's a strange amalgam--with Merlin, Hercules, the McSnarl Brothers, various gods from Buddhism and Buddha himself! Apparently, it's very loosely based on a Chinese tale from the 12th century, "Journey to the West", though the story and structure are quite unlike live action versions of the tale that I have seen (such as "Pan Si Dong", though the characters are the same--the monkey king, pig and Xuánzàng). Merlin and Greek gods, naturally, were NOT part of the original Chinese tale! It's a shame, as the original story is a lot better than this confusing film.
As far as the technical aspects of the film go, it's pretty typical of animation from about 1960--and that's NOT a good thing. This was a new era for cartoons and simpler backgrounds, lower frame-rates and simpler drawings were the norm. For 1960 this looks pretty good. Compared to today or the golden age for cartoons (1940s-50s), however, it's pretty shabby. This is NOT to be confused with a Miyazaki film or Walt Disney!! Voice acting was decent--especially with Frankie Avalon doing a better than expected job. Oddly, however, Jonathan Winters has a great knack for voices, but his character sounded way too much like his Grandma Frickert--and that's pretty weird.
The story itself is probably very confusing for most kids and has too many splashy musical numbers. Perhaps Japanese kids were already familiar with the original story and the original version of the film might have stuck closer to it, though I think they, too, would have quickly tired of the musical interludes (like the one that occurs at about 70 minutes into the film). However, for a non-Chinese or Japanese audience, this film will probably be a bit strange. If the audience is people with some knowledge or appreciation for Asian culture, then the film would most likely be appreciated much more--especially if you can find it in its original form. Boy, would I love to see this in its original form with subtitles--it might have been a lot better and couldn't have been much worse!
Alakazam is a monkey and after passing a test, he becomes king of the animals. However, after a while, this new king shows himself to be a total jerk--arrogant and thoroughly unpleasant. In fact, he's so arrogant that he thinks he's smarter than humans (in some case, this could easily be true) and goes to Merlin the Magician to learn all he can. Naturally, he uses all this knowledge to make himself even more annoying and fat-headed. And so, of course, the rest of the film is about Alakazam learning humility through many trials and misfortunes brought about by his haughty manner. Fortunately for him, his good friend and sweetie, DeeDee, is on hand to assist him.
This all occurs in a portion of the film that is a magical land and it's a strange amalgam--with Merlin, Hercules, the McSnarl Brothers, various gods from Buddhism and Buddha himself! Apparently, it's very loosely based on a Chinese tale from the 12th century, "Journey to the West", though the story and structure are quite unlike live action versions of the tale that I have seen (such as "Pan Si Dong", though the characters are the same--the monkey king, pig and Xuánzàng). Merlin and Greek gods, naturally, were NOT part of the original Chinese tale! It's a shame, as the original story is a lot better than this confusing film.
As far as the technical aspects of the film go, it's pretty typical of animation from about 1960--and that's NOT a good thing. This was a new era for cartoons and simpler backgrounds, lower frame-rates and simpler drawings were the norm. For 1960 this looks pretty good. Compared to today or the golden age for cartoons (1940s-50s), however, it's pretty shabby. This is NOT to be confused with a Miyazaki film or Walt Disney!! Voice acting was decent--especially with Frankie Avalon doing a better than expected job. Oddly, however, Jonathan Winters has a great knack for voices, but his character sounded way too much like his Grandma Frickert--and that's pretty weird.
The story itself is probably very confusing for most kids and has too many splashy musical numbers. Perhaps Japanese kids were already familiar with the original story and the original version of the film might have stuck closer to it, though I think they, too, would have quickly tired of the musical interludes (like the one that occurs at about 70 minutes into the film). However, for a non-Chinese or Japanese audience, this film will probably be a bit strange. If the audience is people with some knowledge or appreciation for Asian culture, then the film would most likely be appreciated much more--especially if you can find it in its original form. Boy, would I love to see this in its original form with subtitles--it might have been a lot better and couldn't have been much worse!