Le Roi singe 1 : La Boîte de Pandore

This is one crazy movie, with martial arts monkeys, ladies who become giant spiders, and all sorts of devils and other supernatural characters wandering around causing trouble. It's fun, funny, and wacky.

One interesting thing is that it's a movie full of strong women and weak men. You don't see that too often. True, love slows the women up, but outside of that they are tough as can be.

I saw this movie with badly-done subtitles I downloaded off the Internet, so I was sometimes a little unclear as to what was going on, but the movie is such crazy fun that I barely minded.

This is the first of a two part movie series adapted from the classic Chinese novel,Journey To The West.I would consider this as the more comedic one,while the second is more action-packed,with a little sense of art-house in it(if you watch the two together it forms a perfect balance).In this movie,Stephen Chow's character had not yet transformed into the all invincible Monkey King,hence not much action here.It was also extremely loosely based on the novel,so fans of the book might not really like this.The comedy level in this movie is so extreme...you can't even stop laughing for a minute,so if necessary,watch it bit by bit to catch some breath.Watch this solely for the humor,and you'll see a masterpiece.Sing-yeh's best film of the nineties.

Rate:****

A Chinese Odyssey Part One: Pandora's Box is a fantasy martial arts extravaganza like A Chinese Ghost story. Just to give you an idea what to expect. The main character is Stephen Chow. He plays The Monkey King and Joker. Joker is The Monkey King reincarnated who doesn't know of his past life. It is through these roles where Stephen Chow shows his versatility as an actor. If you have seen some of his movies than you know what to expect. He always tries to combine humour, martial arts and drama. Maybe for some the humor will be a bit over the top. But Stephen Chow's humour is very visual and will appeal to many viewers. A few scenes made me laugh so hard I almost choked. I even dare to say that some scenes in this film outclass Kung Fu Hustle when it comes to comedy. And that one was hilarious. I liked how during these scenes the actors maintain straight faces and are very serious about what they are doing. You know like they did in the Naked Gun film series. To me that makes all of it even funnier. Another thing I liked that the comedy does not come at the expense of action. Of which you will have plenty of. Most of the martial arts is done with wire works though and in combination with fighting demons this is done beautifully. The special effects may look a bit cheesy compared to CGI to some, but are very enjoyable because most of the effects are used creatively. I personally prefer effects done this way since it shows that sometimes all you need is a little imagination to create movie magic. And Pandora's Box certainly is magical. In fact it's a fairytale you can enjoy over and over again.

Don't expect this movie to be the typical comedy/adventure/action HK movie. In fact it's a very well written tragedy, not only about love, but life in general. The acting is excellent, especially for Stephen Chow and Karen Mok. Since the story is split into two movies, you must watch them both to fully understand the whole story.

Even though the characters are taken from the classic novel "Journey to the West", however, it has nothing to do with the original. I surely will not even consider it as an adaption... a REINVENTION is probably the correct word.

If all you are looking for is a few good laughs, the movie has plenty. But this movie definitely have more to offer, so enjoy!

This is a nice movie, including the second part.You can really appreciate the imagination and some twisted sense of humor. Decent fighting scenes, pretty woman and impressive art design. The story is, well, kind of freaky, so all this together make this film very surreal, but entertaining enough. Stephan Chow, genius as usual, is very helpful.

You can see that Jeffrey Lau got a lot on his mind. In this movie he presents identities in crisis, internal struggles, personal development and learning, some religious, cultural and social issues, including sexual problems. All this presented to the viewers through fantastic story, while completely ignoring the laws of Fisics.

But the way he chooses to make his statements or opinions looks strange, simplistic and not complete, at least to Western culture cynic like me. There a lot of movies dealing with the same stuff in another way, more realistic and, that's why, more powerful.

So, it's great Mr Lau are talking and presenting this sort of themes in his personal and interesting own way, but the movie is not for everyone. His extreme fantasy takes the viewers far away from reality, it's all very distant, like some alien world. The plot and the characters are very confusing sometimes, this unbelievable environment seems artificial and doubtful, so the movie has no real impact, no meaningful influence, it's like grabbing water with hand. You know you felt something, but there is nothing left.