The Lost Empire

This movie is a contemporary take on the classic Chinese novel "Journey to the West," which is a fictionalized account of the legends around the Buddhist monk Xuánzàng's pilgrimage to India during the Táng dynasty in order to obtain Buddhist religious texts called sutras.

The ministers have imprisoned the writer of the book, and are attempting to destroy it to reverse time back to traditional Chinese life, i.e. before any modernization. The modern world will be destroyed unless The Scholar From Above (Thomas Gibson) can enter the underworld and save it.

Don't make any mistake. Gibson would not have taken one step except for the fact that he was following the luscious Bai Ling, who anyone would follow to the gates of Hell.

He rescues Sun Wukong the Monkey King (Russell Wong - Romeo Must Die), and is joined by Zhu Bajie(Pigsy)(Eddie Marsan - 21 Grams, Vera Drake) and Sha Wujing (Friar Sand) (Kabir Bedi - Octopussy) to save the book and save the world. It is almost a Wizard of Oz adventure, as they all have personal issues to resolve in addition to the mission.

Of course, Kuan Yin (Bai Ling) appears any time he utters a prayer. Thankfully, for the many appearance of Bai Ling make this film worth watching. She is usually in another spectacular costume each time she appears.

Besides spectacular costumes, the sets were lavishly decorated. The special effects were magnificent, and the martial arts displays exciting.

It was overly long, but most great adventures are. Anyway. that is more time to watch Bai Ling.

Well, this mini-series was the straw that broke the back for producer Robert Halmi with NBC. The faults of his previous rating disaster, "The 10th Kingdom" have not been heeded in this production. The screenplay is overloaded with over the top characters and situations that never let up. But, to me, the failure of "The Lost Empire" falls in three categories. The total miscasting of Thomas Gibson, who gives a tired and stiff performance. Gibson seems to barely be able to walk, much less perform martial arts, and his delivery is unbelievably stilted. The music score is among the worst I've heard in a production like this. There is little thematic melody and even less of the score reflects the rich culture depicted in the story. Third, the director chose to shoot most of the frequent martial arts action from the waist up, so much of the visual impact of those scenes is lost. Indeed, only Bai Ling retains her dignity in the production. The only other redeeming feature is, that the film did cause me to look into the classic book, "Journey to the West."

The Lost Empire is a excellent updating and play off a an ancient Chinese novel entitled "Journey to the West".

For viewers who have some knowledge of Chinese myths and stories this movie is a real treat. It brings back all the wonderful characters of one of the most beloved novels of childhood.

On the other hand if you don't have a clue who the Monkey King was, let alone the celestial Kingdom and the Jade Emperor, than you might not get the underlying story elements, but the movie should still be a great deal of fun simply as a great adventure story with wonderful special effects and some very amusing characters.

This movie can be enjoyed by young and old. Think of it as an Asian version of Wizard of Oz, Ben Hur and Indiana Jones all rolled into one.

The Lost Empire, or The Monkey King, as it was called when I saw it on the Hallmark Network, is a silly film, but a very enjoyable one. It attempts to put a new spin on the Chinese classic, Journey to the West, which tells the story of how a monk went on an epic journey to recover some sacred scriptures, aided by the mischievous Monkey King, the gluttonous Pigsy and the sombre Sandy.

In this modern version the companions are the same, but the monk is replaced by a modern American sinologist, and the "scripture" is the original manuscript of Journey to the West itself, which is about to be destroyed by the "five traditional masters", who represent the forces of conservatism. Confused? It gets worse; if the book is destroyed, all the human progress that has taken place since the book was written will be reversed and the world will revert to feudalism. To cap it all, the Jade Emperor, Confucius and Kuan Yin, the goddess of compassion, are all weighing in.

With a scenario like this, the film cannot help but being absurd in places, but the absurdity, intentional or otherwise, is part of the fun, as it was in the original Journey to the West, which is a comedy as well as an analogy of the spiritual journey. Viewers who have read Journey to the West will enjoy the references to it; others can sit back and enjoy the visual richness, which as well as some spectacular scenes and SFX, includes Bai Ling as Kuan Yin, looking far more sexy than a goddess of compassion ought to (but then that's one of the twists in this tale as well).

Surprisingly and shockingly awful. There are a lot of significant events, but no story. Constant stickfights that all look the same, aren't very exciting, and all the good guys win far too easily so no tension is created, do not make a movie action packed. Constant scenes of giant whirlpools or people flying do not make a movie magical when the scenes are poorly done and completely unmotivated by character. Watching two people kiss and express their love for one another does not make a movie romantic unless the two characters have some chemistry and interaction. The problem isn't that this movie is cheesy and formulaic. The problem is that the cheesy formula is unbelievably poorly executed. The characters are never developed, the special effects (especially the tiger) are often second rate, the story is not only derivative of every fantasy movie ever but derivative of itself (two separate villages that have had their children kidnapped by bad people), at least don't repeat your own ideas in the same movie. Dialogue is awful and cardboard, and the acting is pretty much lousy. This is everything the typical, paint-by-numbers approach to movie making yields. This movie is so bad it's insulting to it's audience. Horrible. Save yourselves and don't go near this worthless mess of a mini-series.