Die Reise nach Westen

Pay no mind to the 'serious' detractors of a whimsical fantasy-based tale. This is a family-friendly and lighthearted take on the legend. The acting may not be big-screen caliber, but it's decent enough and I am happy to support new and budding talent. If you go into it knowing what it is, a fantasy-comedy-action show (and not an accurate account of history or serious portrayal of an ancient legend), you wont be disappointed. Great fun for the whole family.

I really enjoyed this series. Sure, it's not epic like Game of Thrones, but for me, not everything has to be epic all the time. Sometimes, a series can simply be entertaining, and that's what "The New Legend of Monkey" did to me: It entertained me, and that's good enough for me.

One of the few aspects I didn't like was the modern touch on some characters like Davari and Raxion. In an otherwise medievalish setting, something like this always pulls me out of the story, so I didn't enjoy their scenes very much.

Apart from that, there's really only good things I can say about this series. The weapons look sharp, the costumes look dirty, the make-up is adequate, the soundtrack adds to the atmosphere, the story is exciting, and the dialogues are great, often hillarious (in a non-ridiculous meaning).

Most of all, the castdelighted me! I heard people complaining about whitewashing because the legend of the Monkey King is a Chinese legend, and there are not only Chinese people on the show, but seriously: I've rarely seen such a diverse cast, can't you people be happy about this? I haven't looked all the actors up, but apart from "white" people, I've definitely seen Chinese, Thai, Polynesian, Maori, and some others I don't trust myself to define without accidently placing them in a wrong country. ;-)

Chai Hansen did a fantastic job to portray Monkey as a bigmouth with some hidden layers under his proud skin. Rachel House was as much a joy to watch as she is in every movie and series I've seen her in. Luciane Buchanan is a talented young woman I had never seen before, she portrayed Tripitaka very well. Josh Thomson portrayed Pigsy as a gentle giant with a heart as big as his shoulders, he was real dearie. My favorite performance of all came from Emilie Cocquerel, another actress I had never heard of before. Her performance reminded me so much of Alice in 'Once Upon a Time' season 7 that I had to make sure it's not actually her. I LOVE how she portrayed Sandy, and this scrubby goddess was by far my favorite character.

Conclusively, I think I can say that the exciting script, the clever dialogues and overall the great chemistry among the main cast is what made 'The New Legend of Monkey' such a joy to watch. I'm very much hoping for season 2 - 4 as the plot indicates!

I started watching the first episode, and thought it was pretty terrible. Hollywood type brash nonsense (even though it's Australian-made), cliches, takes itself too seriously, one-dimensional etc.. For some reason, I kept watching. It gets much better. It's funny and camp, slightly pantomime, and is knowingly so.

The characters also develop and become more real and sympathetic. They develop relationships with one another. I suppose this is partly actors growing into their roles and also the director/writers seeing nuances.

Some of the story lines are also quite interesting and it touches on some dark themes, as well as ideas of friendship and love. The last episode I actually found very moving, and also convincing based on how the characters had grown together up to that point.

Watch past the first two episodes.

Good memories of old times watching Xena. They should have a cameo by Lucy Lawless or Renee O'Connor (but I think she is in the US).

Having grown up watching Monkey (or Monkey Magic as I call it) I have lots of fond memories running around singing the song as a child/ So when I saw this advertised I quickly went to abc iView and put up with the horrendous low quality and went to watch it.

At first I was disgusted with it. The series didn't match anything what I was expecting and all I could do was pick fault at all the differences. I kept thinking about how crappy it was and nothing like the original story line, where monkey hatched, but rather in this version he was imprisoned by other gods in a mountain.

Monkey isn't very monkey like, he doesn't have his playful / curious / cheeky personality, and whilst the actor isn't bad, the character doesn't embody what monkey is.

Sandy being a woman was a little different, and at first I didn't like it, but the actor does play the role well and she became one of the better parts of the TV series.

Pingsy... isn't very pigsy like, once again, I doubt this is the actors fault, as the character does really grow on you after a while and his acting is particularly good, but they miss out on all his vices (as they did with monkey) no womanising, greed...etc except in a very very mild downplayed way that would be easily missed if you didn't know to look for it.

Tripitaka was a good choice in actor and suits the role well, without her I doubt I would have liked the series as much as I ended up.

After getting through the first 3 episodes, which where honestly really bad, the story line improved and I found myself overlooking the differences and started to really enjoy it.

After watching episode 10, I was disappointed that it had ended, and wanted more episodes.

If you are from the generation who would watch Monkey after school every day like me, It will be really hard to get past the differences at the start, but if you do manage to get past the first 3 episodes I'm sure you will enjoy it.

Three last things,

1.) I wish I had not watched it on iveiw \ Australian free to air TV. The broadcasting quality is really bad. I would recommend people wait until its out on Netflix and available in at least 720p or higher, instead of that ever stupidly low resolution crap we Australians are given on free to air.

2.) The makers should have really come up with an iconic intro song, like the original.

3.) Being that it is a Chinese story, remade in japan in 79-80's and obviously with strong Asian theme's, It would have been nice to see a few more Australians / Kiwi's with Asian decent playing at least one of the leading roles.

Overall its really good if you can get past the first 3 episodes and realise it will never be the same show you loved as a child. It's an interesting interpretation and its good seeing Australian \ kiwi actors play roles very different to what you would usually see.