The Monkey King

Greetings again from the darkness. Adapting literary works for the big screen is common practice; however, the stakes are a bit higher when dealing with a beloved classic Asian work that is more than 400 years old. "Journey to the West" was initially written during the Ming Dynasty and no original author has ever been confirmed. The stories were re-imagined for an English audience in 1942 by Arthur Waley and published as "Monkey", and now director Anthony Stacchi and co-writers Steve Bencich, Ron J Friedman, and Rita Hsiao have brought their vision to the screen ... focusing on one specific segment of the story.

Now, if that first paragraph sits a bit heavy, you should know this is an animated movie targeted at kids. It's action-packed, colorful, and funny ... all while packing a message or moral that most parents will appreciate. Much of the Chinese spiritual and philosophical and cultural aspects are included, but never so heavy-handed as to lose the attention of kids. In fact, if any aspect is somewhat overboard, it's the martial arts fighting and action sequences ... of which there are many. Possibly too many for some kids and some parents, and if the messages somehow get lost, it's likely in the crash-boom-bang overdose because the action, while well done, is relentless.

Monkey King (voiced by comedian Jimmy O Yang) is birthed/sprung from a rock and has special powers. Unfortunately, he is not accepted by the local clan of monkeys, even after saving them from a threat. Instead, he turns his attention to being accepted into The Immortals (Gods of the animal world). To prove his worthiness, he sets out to defeat 100 demons, but along the way, we witness an oversized ego and lack of humility. Monkey King is simply not very likable. On this journey, he gains an assistant in his number one fan (not in a MISERY way) Lin (Jolie Hoang-Rappaport). Monkey King even treats her poorly.

The next best character, and Monkey King's nemesis, is the underwater Dragon King (SNL's Bowen Yang). Their exchanges and ego-wrangling are some of the best in the movie, and the underwater scenes provide a welcome CGI change of pace. With no family and his only friend being his magic stick, Monkey King is an outsider with special powers and the kind of attitude that gets junior high kids sent to the Principal's office. No matter how many heroic feats he turns, his lust for power and lack of humility win him no points with The Immortals.

The Dragon King gets the best musical number, while Monkey King's journey leads him through Buddha (BD Wong) and literally into both heaven and hades. The film's big question is how long it will take Monkey King to learn humility and show kindness to others. As has been stated, an ego trip is a journey to nowhere ... it's a lesson this talented Monkey King must learn.

Opens on Netflix beginning August 18, 2023.

The movie looks decent enough but why oh why did they make the monkey such a self centered egotistical character. A certain amount of arrogance can be okay but some humor needs to be added if that character needs to be likable. This monkey is just completely unlikable. He doesn't care about anyone but himself. He's useless without his staff and everything is just way too easy for him.

Storywise it's okay. Never read the original story so i can't compare that. Lots of flash fightscenes with a metal soundtrack. I'm guessing this movie is targeted toward kids/teens. The kids liked the movie. The adults hated it.

As someone who has read the actual Journey To The West novel, I cannot be more disappointed with this characterization of Sun Wukong. It is embarassingly unfaithful to his overall personality, like the writers for this movie glanced at his Wikipedia page and decided to make a movie about him. In the original novel he was well liked by his fellow monkeys and was deemed the king FAR before he had obtained his staff. He is not an underdog, nor was he ever an underdog. I don't know where the idea that he had to overcome some kind of hurdle about being "different" because he was born from stone. Heck, the first two chapters of JTTW are about how he made friends with every animal in the forest, and was generally wiling his days away playing with other monkeys. He's not an outcast. He was loved and I dislike that this movie made it a point of contention to try to make it seem like he became egotistical as some kind of crutch because he was SOOO lonely. No, he became egotistical because he was IMMORTAL and INCREDIBLY STRONG, and even then he only got THOSE powers by SPENDING OVER TEN YEARS training under a legendary monk, defeating the Demon King of Havoc with his bare hands, and by then and only then did he find himself worried that he could not defend his subjects that he decided to get a weapon- which happened to be his staff (which, by the by, is not sentient and Wukong had to actually learn how to use it instead of the thing doing everything for him). I also find the East Dragon and the Jade Emperor's depictions to be alarmingly terrible. They were not the villians of Monkey King's story. There are no villains in his story other than his arrogance. The Jade Emperor is wise and capable, he was not lazy nor rude as he appears in The Monkey King (2023), and the East Dragon was noble and without vain. In fact, they were both tricked and ruffled by Wukong, who threatened them as he pleased. The whole reason the Jade Emperor had him imprisoned is because he was upset that his job wasn't high ranking enough so he fought his way out of Heaven in a massive temper tantrum and upon returning to earth declared himself heaven's equal. The Jade Emperor, The East Dragon, and Wukong are not without flaw- but even this movie stretches too far to try to make a terribly written underdog story of a character who was never meant to be an underdog.

The humor is what I can only describe as being "Netflix Humor", the type of joke that tries too hard to make you laugh. By the third line spoken by Monkey King I was already sick of him. He's not funny. He's boring, one-note, and painfully egotistical, and not in a way that lends to him being any sort of three dimensional.

My only positive is the animation is fluid and clean, but even that is not without it's flaws. The character design is terrible, the texturing worse. I applaud Wukong's face design being a reference to his appearance on stage but he looks like he should not reasonably be able to exist with a lower body the circumfrence of a pole with the upper body resembling the shape of a curled dorito. His head is shaped somewhat like a dinosaur, the best example being something like a Parasaurolophus, complete with the most unreasonably pointy and long swoop of hair I have ever seen. Having to look at him during the run time of this movie was painful. As an artist myself, it was like having cardiac arrest. I'm not dissing stylized animation at all, in fact, I approve of it. A better example of a stylized, eye-pleasing design of a monkey is Monkey from Kubo and the Two Strings. In fact, that movie is just better. Go watch Kubo and the Two Strings instead.

If you're still looking for a Journey to the West themed show aimed at children, watch Lego Monkie Kid. It is beautifully animated and the fight scenes are WELL done. It's overall funnier, better-looking, and offers a more faithful yet still original adaptation of the original JTTW.

I liked this movie, it is about a rebellious, selfish and lonely monkey who tries everything to become a deity aided by a stick and a little girl, but he will have several enemies to face.

I loved the animations in this film (especially the one in 2d at the beginning of the film), with a perfect choice of colors that fit to better represent the various scenes, and really amazing and functional camera movements.

For the soundtrack we have excellent music accompanying all the sequences in the feature film.

The acting is excellent does its job, believable voices.

This is an excellent film for those who love the legend of the Monkey King.

Set in a world overseen by Budha (BD Wong) consisting of Heaven, Hell and the world between, a monkey is born from stone (Jimmy O. Yang adult, Dee Bradley Baker baby) who is endowed with extraordinary powers but is an outsider from the rest of the monkeys. The monkey hones his abilities and after vanquishing a demon using his a stick stolen from the Dragon King (Bowen Yang) he is given the title of Monkey King. Convinced he's meant for a place in Heaven, the Monkey King sets out to conquer 100 demons in the hopes Heaven will extend an invitation to him. Along the way Monkey King has many encounters including from a young girl named Lin (Jolie Haong-Rappaport).

The Monkey King is a 2023 animated film for Netflix co-produced by Reel FX Animation and Pearl Studio. The film is an adaptation of the 16th century Chinese novel Journey to the West (in part anyway) which is no stranger to adaptations with many Chinese or Hong Kong productions having been produced in the past 10 years alone as well as having served as inspiration for other stories such as Dragonball Z. While The Monkey King doesn't stray to far from prior adaptations, but it is an impressive animated effort in its own right that does adequate justice to the story.

In terms of the central character, the movie does a solid job of establishing The Monkey King as an arrogant character who while powerful is lacking in wisdom or humility and is brought to life quite effectively be Jimmy O. Yang's performance. The medium of animation works very well for this story with a strong sense of freedom of movement among the characters and fantastical environments. While the Monkey King is positioned as an arrogant prideful character, the movie does a solid job of keeping him in check from becoming too grating by counterbalancing him with his Stick weapon (who despite not talking is also a character) and Lin who work well against him. While the movie sticks pretty closely to its source material, it also does feel like it plays up some parts of silliness up a little more than it should. While I have no problem with Bowen Yang's performance as the Dragon King who's the primary antagonist, the movie follows a trend of European and Asian animated productions where the overplay the comedic sides of their villains at the expense of treating them as threats.

The Monkey King is a decent animated film that isn't especially ground breaking in its rendition of this story, but it's an agreeable experience with some engaging setpieces and performances and assuming the producers decide to continue this incarnation with a follow-up I'd be interested.