Sai yau gei: Sin leui kei yun

It is unfair that there is no thorough review on this masterpiece: Chinese Odyssey I-II (1994).

Someone would dare to say this is THE BEST movie ever, to me it is certainly clear that there is no other movie can compete with this in making tearing eyes of audience at the end of movie on which they really don't know whether the tears came from too much laughing or from the pathos of epic love story. As many other great cult movies this one also has difficulties to deliver its greatness to audience especially to non-Asian (due to lack of background and missing points in translated caption etc.), however this difficulties can be overcome and I strongly recommend trying this movie since it is worth your time and effort. One simple way to overcome the plot complexity and its hidden meanings is to watch repeatedly, this way will work on this movie just as it does upon the movie like 'Mulholland Drive (2001)'. These two movies belong to completely different genres but they have one thing in common that you have to watch multi-full time to get it.Let's get into the detail of Chinese Odyssey I-II, it has at least four aspects to discuss,

(1) Background story and its twist of Chinese great classic novel 'Journey to the West'; You don't need to read the book thoroughly and you can get information from internet,Or you may only need to know that the novel was written basis of the real event of a Chinese monk Xuanzang (602 – 664) who went to India to get the Buddhist bible and get it to the Chinese King in order to bring justice and peace/love in the world. The author gathered folk tales and even mingled with traditional fantasy mythology into a classic.

The content of novel includes 81 episodes of adventures while the protagonist Son WuKong (Monkey King) guides Xuanzang with two friends. This story generated many modern versions of twist such as the international big hit of Japanese Manga "Dragon Ball" The movie Chinese Odyssey I-II covers Wukong's troubled mind between earthly desires and righteous job (getting the scripture) with nice mixture of romantic love story.

(2) Peculiar sense of humor; The first thing the audience can notice on this movie may be the unusual sense of humor some times goes behind the tolerance of normal people. It is because Stephen Chow (Shaolin Soccer 2001, Kung Fu Hustle 2004) once you get his sense of humor you will really enjoy it, this is same for Mike Myers, Steve Martin, Eddie Murphy and Jim Carrey. He is as good as these American actors for comedian and romantic hero so it is fair to say that without him this movie would be impossible, but this movie has more than just Stephen Chow.

(3) State of martial art; From the typical Hong Kong martial art style, well known by legendary Woo-ping Yuen (who worked in Matrix and Kill Bill series), you can enjoy fantastic fighting scenes in this movie. Woo-ping Yuen has worked with actors; Jet Li, Stephen Chow and director Hark Tsui (if you don't like Stephen Chow's style it will be worth to check 'Chinese Ghost Story (1987), and The Legend of Zu (2001)). By the way the director covering martial art of this movie is the other legend Xiaodong Cheng.

(4) East-West culture confliction (Christianity vs. Buddhism); One of the reasons that those great Chinese movies such as 'Chinese Ghost Story (1987)', 'The Legend of Zu (2001)' and 'Chinese Odyssey I-II (1994)' don't get right reputation in western world is they have basis of reincarnation which is from Buddhistic or generic eastern idea. As for me I regularly attend church and follow guidance of Jusus, but I have no problem with reincarnation idea in movies. Many American movies also have imposed reincarnation idea such as in 2001 A Space Odyssey (1968), The Big Chill (1983) and The 13th Floor (1999).

(snake legs) : The plot of Chinese Odyssey I-II is very complicated which is different from normal Hollywood movies, I recommend to watch two parts (I and II) straight..

Someone may think it is a love story while someone may think it is a comedy.But I think it is a sort of tragedy full of sarcasm.I think it is the best Chinese movie I've ever seen.It is totally worth watching.If you really give it a time to think about this movie,I promise you can gain a lot from it.It is way better than Journey to the West.

Sometimes you will feel lonely even when you are successful.Sometimes you have to accept the fact that you cherished and loved is gone because they didn't belong to you any more.Sometimes when you finally got what you've always wanted but it doesn't matter now because the one you loved is gone,so what's the point of all these efforts?Sometimes in order to succeed,we have to give up something that may seemed unimportant in the first place but after we made it,you would be painful to find out that all things you once gave up has been always important,you just got blind and didn't notice that.

If you really catch the meaning of this movie,well,congratulations. Cuz you are really grown-up .ENJOY IT!!!!It's full of joys and tears.

More Chinese Odyssey - at least according to the english title of the movie. Recently and after 20 years of the first two another movie has come out that has been titled A Chinese Odyssey Part 3. I haven't seen that one yet, so I can only talk about this and a little bit about the very first one. Yes this is a sequel and it begins without any callback or flashback to the previous movie.

Having said all that the movie starts off pretty "normal". Now that is for the first minute or so and then fighting ensues. After that it is a bit of romance and the first character callback from the first movie. He knows things that the woman he's talking to has no idea about. So "comedy" ensues. And a lot of physical pain and beating up (mostly to make audiences laugh, but there are also real fights with death and blood and violence and all).

There is also a moment where the male individual (our main hero of the story I guess you could call him), retells events from the first movie ... by using random characters who play or rather replay characters from the first part - including someone watching who ... Oh boy I don't even know how to describe this. It's kind of epic as are the fights, if you don't mind people flying around and kicking others while doing so. Also Magic, Demons, Lovers, Body switch comedy and so much more ... it's insane. Will you like it? Depends on your taste, but it really never lets up and it never changes its tune

When you know you're in love with someone, but you can't tell them, when you decide to tell them, they're no longer there. Life breaks up love (three sounds). When Goku wakes up, he finds that it's time to go to work again, and everything is normal again. When I watched the excitement before, I didn't think it had anything to do with me, but when I saw this pair of hypocritical men and women today, Wukong felt that he should be hypocritical, so he temporarily went out of his body and had a mind. Then I went to work. If we stay the course, will we be able to end up married? If we give up, we will meet.

After watching Part 1, I immediately had to see Part 2. Like the first movie, it is fast, crazy and funny. Unlike the first one, it's also somewhat touching, although reviews on this site that seem to find the last part an overwhelming emotional experience puzzle me.

I did not like Part 2 as much as Part 1, simply because I couldn't for the life of me figure out what was going on. Part of this was certainly the bad subtitles I downloaded from the Internet. Part of this was that I am somewhat face blind, so that I had difficulty telling two of the principle women apart. But in spite of that, I think a lot of the issues are with the movie itself. Things just suddenly happen without introduction, and there's a body switching bit that seems just designed for confusing people.

In spite of being frequently confused, though, I enjoyed it a great deal.