1/8/2023 0 Comments Journey to the west![]() There's a preening royal known as Prince Important (clearly a friend of President Business from " The Lego Movie") and an elderly man known as the Almighty Foot, whose shriveled limb expands to an enormous size when the time comes for him to stomp on his enemies. With this new translation, the irrepressible rogue hero of one of the Four Great Classical Novels of Chinese literature has the potential to vault, with his signature cloud-somersault and unerring sense. They meet one eccentric character, then another, then another. Monkey King: Journey to the West is at once a rollicking adventure, a comic satire of Chinese bureaucracy, and a spring of spiritual insight. It is regarded as one of the Classic Chinese Novels, and has been described as arguably the most popular literary work in East Asia. Xuan and Duan have one adventure, then another, than another. Journey to the West (Chinese: pinyin: X Yóu Jì) is a Chinese novel published in the 16th century during the Ming dynasty and attributed to Wu Chengen. It's an awesome sight to behold.īut then "Journey to the West" has an episodic structure that saps it of much of the momentum it gains during those thrilling set pieces. As she flings the circles through the air like lethal boomerangs, her targets explode in a burst of dust. The rival demon hunter he keeps running into, a catlike creature known as Miss Duan ( Qi Shu), favors a more direct strategy: She takes them on through balletic physical battles with the help of a magical golden bracelet-"The Infinite Flying Ring"-which she can duplicate countless times. Xuan's preferred, absurd method of attack, per his mentor, is to tame the beasts by singing lullabies to them from a book called "300 Nursery Rhymes." The sweetness and innocence within Zhang's performance feels very Keanu Reeves circa "Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure," complete with a mop of wild hair. (Chow also directed the pleasingly cartoonish " Shaolin Soccer" and " Kung Fu Hustle.") But the choreography is undeniable: a breathtaking series of near misses and tricky balancing acts. ![]() The comedy has a Mel Brooks-like sensibility about it that's appealing it's playful in a deadly-serious situation. When we first see him, in the film's lengthy, tour-de-force opening sequence, he's helping a bunch of frightened villagers take down a giant, hungry fish that's leaping from the water and wreaking havoc. "Journey to the West" follows a goofy but sincere Buddhist monk named Xuan Zang ( Zhang Wen), a young demon hunter who must vanquish a series of foes en route to his ultimate showdown with the notorious, shape-shifting Monkey King ( Bo Huang).
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