Rating of
3/4
Conquering Demons the Stephen Chow Way
Chris Kavan - wrote on 05/22/14
There is no other director quite like Stephen Chow. I consider Kung Fu Hustle to be one of the most original films I have seen - a mixture of comedy, action a little bit of romance and having faith in yourself. Journey to the West takes a lot of those same themes and just gives it a bigger budget and bigger stage - but make no mistake, even though Chow doesn't act in this one, his spirit is alive and well and it doesn't surprise me this became a massive hit in his home country of China.
I'm not a scholar of Eastern mythology, though names like The Monkey King are not unknown to me. What Chow has done is taken a very popular Eastern legend and put his own unique twist on it. We open on a small river village - a father attempting to scare (and then cheer up) his daughter it violently attacked - a wandering monk manages to stop the "demon" in the form of a giant stingray, but a shabby-clothed and unkempt wild-haired Buddhist declares the real demon has yet to show himself... and is immediately strung up. The people celebrate by jumping in the river - only to be met by the real demon - a massive (and hungry) fish. Chaos ensues involving a baby basket, more sudden death, a fat woman and a book of 300 Nursery Rhymes.
The Journey to the West begins with a bang and never lets up - when there isn't some crazy battle going on (be it with a Pig Demon, sand monks or even fellow demon hunters), you'll be laughing your butt off at the various jokes - both physical and otherwise - going on. The cast is fantastic - popular actress Qi Shu takes on a much more exaggerated, physical role as the demon hunter with her "infinite rings" - while Zhang Wen (who is Chow in spirit, really) is the kind-hearted Buddhist who wants to win over demons with his rhyme book, rather than destroy them like all the other demon hunters. Unsurprisingly, he gets beat up a lot (by friends and foes alike). Shu and Wen go back and forth between fighting and falling in love - though he wants to stay true to his vows.
Eventually this journey leads the The Monkey King (Bo Huang), who has been trapped under the mountain for 500 years - as he is very dangerous. But, of course, he escapes, leading to one of the greatest on-screen battles (Fist of the North Star, The Almighty Foot and Prince Important - three of the greatest demon hunters all try to take down the demon king - guess who wins?) in recent memory. As with Kung Fu Hustle - Chow knows just how to balance good characters, humor, action and heart - and if the ending is any indication, hopefully we'll see some more before too long.
The film is not without fault - the CGI can't compare to the AAA blockbusters we're used to seeing (most involving super heroes) - while it's not terrible, it tends to bring you out of the movie. I also with some of the secondary characters has been a bit more fleshed out - you get to know a fair bit about the main players, but there are so many interesting characters, I wanted some more than just broad strokes here and there. There are also quite a few over-the-top moments - but this is totally Chow's style - those looking for some kind of historical epic will be disappointed, but those looking for a hysterical epic - go for it.
I can see how general audiences might be a bit bewildered about the outcome - but coming from a Chow fan - this is another home run. You'll laugh, you'll cringe, you might even shed a tear - but you won't soon forget it, as there's nothing else quite like it out there.
