With a subtitle "conquering the demons", JOURNEY TO THE WEST is Hong Kong megastar-turned-filmmaker Stephen Chow's re-imagination of the Chinese proverbial fantasy story, almost two decades after his iconic incarnation of Monkey King in Jeffrey Lau's by turns infectiously funny and archly romantic two-parts pan-Chinese comedy apotheosis A CHINESE ODYSSEY (1995).
Here, strictly hewing to his onus behind the camera, Stephen Chow tactically visualizes an enlightenment-seeking adventure of the young Buddhist Tang Sanzang (Wen Zhang), an unorthodox demon hunter who inclines to chant nursery rhymes to elicit a demon's innate goodness, is under persistent courtship from a more practical-minded fellow hunter Miss Duan (Shu Qi), and the story basically pertains to how Sanzang tames his three unruly half-human-half-beast disciples, the Monkey King aka. Sun Wukong (Huang Bo), the Pig Demon aka. Zhu Bajie (Chen Bingqiang) and the Water Buffalo, aka. Sha Wujing (Li Shangzheng), a prequel of the quartet's journey westward to quest for Buddhist sutra.
It is unexpectedly riveting to discover that the most distinctive characteristic in the screenplay is Chow's U-turn stratagem of depicting the three disciples, in their most primordial and feral predator mindset, a pre-teen girl is swallowed alive by the Water Buffalo, whereas in the Pig Demon's restaurant, corpses are embedded inside the roast pigs served to entice unsuspecting clientele, as for the Monkey King, whose bumptious temperament and indiscriminately blood-thirsty propensity is magnified to an appalling scope that ludicrously disproportionate to his diminutive and ferocious animal form (played by child actor Ge Xingyu under special makeups), all of which are poles away from audience's entrenched preconception.
Conversely, Chow's trademark comedic bent is significantly pared down in service of his dramatic revelation (including an almost sadistically suicidal devotion which duly triggers the deus ex machina in the eleventh hour), a mid-section ploy arouses most laughter with Miss Duan's riff-raff, but this is fairly standard treatment for those who are au fait with Chow's track record (both as directors and top-notch comedian actors), not to mention a cringe-worthy reaction toward Prince Important's elongated important/impotent faux pas (played by Taiwan red-hot entertainer Show Lo).
The tenor of the story is more or less the same from A CHINESE ODYSSEY, no happy ending is preordained, only this time, the protagonist is the master Sanzang, after a belated confession of love to Miss Duan, he finally gets the satori that love should not be divided by "big" and "small", but it is equally banal and frustrating when one can only that through a tragic loss, also there is an uneasy feeling to watch a woman repeatedly debases herself to solicit her unrequited feeling from a man, especially in this day and age.
The cast is, for the most part, adept, although Wen Zhang is far cry from a hardened comedian, but Shu Qi compensates with her aptitude in making Miss Duan as fey as her own quavering singing voice and dance moves, however, the biggest boon is Huang Bo, who plays the Monkey King in human form, effortlessly shifting between obsequious and treacherous, and generates more spark with Shu Qi even in half-hearted improvisation, why it is not him in the center of the story is one's knee-jerking question to Stephen Chow's VFX-heavy crowd-pleaser arbitrarily cashes in on his audience's nostalgia for a bygone era.
Here, strictly hewing to his onus behind the camera, Stephen Chow tactically visualizes an enlightenment-seeking adventure of the young Buddhist Tang Sanzang (Wen Zhang), an unorthodox demon hunter who inclines to chant nursery rhymes to elicit a demon's innate goodness, is under persistent courtship from a more practical-minded fellow hunter Miss Duan (Shu Qi), and the story basically pertains to how Sanzang tames his three unruly half-human-half-beast disciples, the Monkey King aka. Sun Wukong (Huang Bo), the Pig Demon aka. Zhu Bajie (Chen Bingqiang) and the Water Buffalo, aka. Sha Wujing (Li Shangzheng), a prequel of the quartet's journey westward to quest for Buddhist sutra.
It is unexpectedly riveting to discover that the most distinctive characteristic in the screenplay is Chow's U-turn stratagem of depicting the three disciples, in their most primordial and feral predator mindset, a pre-teen girl is swallowed alive by the Water Buffalo, whereas in the Pig Demon's restaurant, corpses are embedded inside the roast pigs served to entice unsuspecting clientele, as for the Monkey King, whose bumptious temperament and indiscriminately blood-thirsty propensity is magnified to an appalling scope that ludicrously disproportionate to his diminutive and ferocious animal form (played by child actor Ge Xingyu under special makeups), all of which are poles away from audience's entrenched preconception.
Conversely, Chow's trademark comedic bent is significantly pared down in service of his dramatic revelation (including an almost sadistically suicidal devotion which duly triggers the deus ex machina in the eleventh hour), a mid-section ploy arouses most laughter with Miss Duan's riff-raff, but this is fairly standard treatment for those who are au fait with Chow's track record (both as directors and top-notch comedian actors), not to mention a cringe-worthy reaction toward Prince Important's elongated important/impotent faux pas (played by Taiwan red-hot entertainer Show Lo).
The tenor of the story is more or less the same from A CHINESE ODYSSEY, no happy ending is preordained, only this time, the protagonist is the master Sanzang, after a belated confession of love to Miss Duan, he finally gets the satori that love should not be divided by "big" and "small", but it is equally banal and frustrating when one can only that through a tragic loss, also there is an uneasy feeling to watch a woman repeatedly debases herself to solicit her unrequited feeling from a man, especially in this day and age.
The cast is, for the most part, adept, although Wen Zhang is far cry from a hardened comedian, but Shu Qi compensates with her aptitude in making Miss Duan as fey as her own quavering singing voice and dance moves, however, the biggest boon is Huang Bo, who plays the Monkey King in human form, effortlessly shifting between obsequious and treacherous, and generates more spark with Shu Qi even in half-hearted improvisation, why it is not him in the center of the story is one's knee-jerking question to Stephen Chow's VFX-heavy crowd-pleaser arbitrarily cashes in on his audience's nostalgia for a bygone era.