Journey to the West (2014)

Tsai Ming-liang returns with this latest entry in his Walker series, in which his monk acquires an unexpected acolyte in the form of Denis Lavant as he makes his way through the streets of a sun-dappled Marseille.

Director:

Ming-liang Tsai

Writers:

Cheng'en Wu (novel) (as Ch'eng-En Wu), Ming-liang Tsai (adaptation)

Stars:

Kang-sheng Lee, Denis Lavant

1 nomination.

Cast

Cast overview:
Kang-sheng Lee	...	Monk
Denis Lavant	...	Dragon

Storyline

Tsai Ming-liang returns with this latest entry in his Walker series, in which his monk acquires an unexpected acolyte in the form of Denis Lavant as he makes his way through the streets of a sun-dappled Marseille.

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Plot Keywords:

no music | long take | marseilles france | marseille | no dialogue | 

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Genres:

Drama

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Details

Official Sites:

Neon Productions [France]

Country:

France Taiwan

Language:

None

Release Date:

24 April 2015 (Poland)

Also Known As:

Journey to the West

Filming Locations:

Marseille, Bouches-du-Rhône, France

Company Credits

Production Co:

House on Fire, Neon Productions, Résurgences

Technical Specs

Runtime:

56 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Connections

Version of Journey to the West (2013)

User Reviews

What a pretentious, tedious, shallow, meaningless, moronic boring crap!

I think the director Tsai got a very serious identity problem. The first thing we have to ask about this monk's presence in Marseille, France. If this crazy monk walking like a slow-motion being half frozen in time in the streets of Marseille, we should ask director Tsai a basic logic question: With such snail-like walking, pretending wrapped in Zen, how this monk arrived in this city in the first place? By train? By bus? By airplane? By....what? You think the bus, the train and the airplane would have to wait this sucker step by step in slow motion to reach the train, the bus, the airplane. Just because of this sucker's religious belief, all the schedules of the train, the bus, the airplane or whatever transportation means would have to be scrubbed to accommodate this sucker to aboard?

If this monk doing this journey as a die-hard believer, why he wanted to choose a big and busy city to walk? How he crossed all the streets in a busy city? The traffic lights would have to await him to pass the crossroads, all traffic would have to stop, awaiting his crossing? Why he didn't choose a countryside to walk instead? Trying to attract more people to take notice of him? So if this sucker purposely chose a busy city instead of a countryside, a wildness without people around, then this sucker is a phony, still craving fame and notification. I don't think people in Marseille would give a damn to this monk, if without reminding people in the streets that they were shooting a film about a sucker monk in bright orange-red color robe, a traffic accident might not be avoided. There were more sad scenes met the eyes, lot of parts of Marseille didn't look or feel like French, more like the Middle East or some Muslim cities in Africa.

I don't know what Tsai wanted to express in this stupid film, I am at least not that pretentious to say, "Wow, what a piece of art!" "What a unique achievement!" to pretend that I really got something out of this nothingness. I am NOT THAT DEEP as those two reviewers, because this film by this phony director is a typical living example of one of the Anderson's stories for the children: "The Emperor's New Clothes". This film is actually like the emperor's clothes, because there's nothing under that clothes, the film was a totally NAKED joke! I'd like Tsai's next movie project will make this monk running naked or, still dressed in that robe and snail walking in North Pole and, THAT WILL BE MUCH MUCH DEEPER! : )