O Rei Macaco - Confusão no Paraíso

I saw it two times as a 7 year old boy, and still remember it. Great animation, creative combat, and a story you can get without understanding a single word.

A goofy and great animated film about an anarchic Monkey King -- Sun Wukong -- who spends his days playfully directing millions of monkey children in martial arts training and bouncing around the beautiful waterfall forest they inhabit. After twice being deceptively lured into heaven by the Jade Emperor, so that he may be controlled and watched over, the Monkey King begins dismantling the Confucian hierarchies around (and above) him. Using spontaneous, creative, and subversive magic the Monkey King consistently undermines the Jade Emperor and his many minions and henchmen.

It's full of colorfully wild sequences replete with animal transformations, hilarious caricatures of military/political leaders, and jubilant, drunken rambunctiousness. The version I saw -- with English storytelling-narration leaving the Chinese dialog in its original Mandarin -- goes on forever. And the Chinese-opera styled music is a bit overwhelming at times. But the offbeat comic timing, ponderous caesuras, wavy movements, and truncated ending all make it a bizarrely entertaining experience.

Based on the early sections of the classic Chinese novel "Journey to the West", most commentators see the Monkey King in the film as representative of Mao wreaking havoc in China. Yet, with Mao's Cultural Revolution effectively eliminating the creative film industry the very next year, one may alternatively equate Mao with the oppressive Jade Emperor and his advisors desperately trying to destroy the liberated spirit of the Monkey King. Those of us born in the year of Monkey might be able to relate on a more universal level.

I also seen it a long time ago (I think more than 15 years ago when I was ten or so) in German TV (I think the language was German). I loved it !!! My brother and I were so enthusiastic about it! But I never got the chance to view it a second time since then. I also think I missed the beginning, so I searched for it on the internet. The only site I've found was the website of the Sydney Asian Pacific Film Festival, where it was shown. There I've got the website of the Animation Studio that produced the Film:

http://www.ani-sh.com (SHANGHAI ANIMATION FILM STUDIO)

But they don't have published a DVD yet I think, although it was there first major success and they used the Monkey on there logo since then... Does any body know where to get it ???

LoganSan

P.S.: There is also a semi-sequel called "Monkey Conquers the Demon" that I haven't seen yet.

One of the best animation movies. It is very well made, the storyline was good too. Various films by the same filmmaker are also amazing. Very very good.

Our knowledge of animation in China is, to say the least, patchy but this is represented as their most important work, an account of the adventures of the painted face monkey king who leads the little monkeys of the Fruit and Flower Mountain, despite the traps and combatants launched by the King of Heaven.

It's sobering to realise that the opera tradition that this film's moves and costumes echo is the one shown under attack in FAREWELL TO THE CONCUBINE which is set in the period in which this was made. The childrens' films of the socialist countries were often their only product to be dogma free and it's hard to accept proposition that the drunken, destructive monkey is a rendition of young Chairman Mao upsetting the authorities.

The flattened, scroll painting design is one of the film's distinctive features.

UPROAR IN HEAVEN doesn't have the animation set pieces of the major Disney films, the zip of the Looney Toons or the sophistication of European cartoons but it has a quality of it's own which appeals and even occasionally impresses - the battle with the gem headed scarlet serpent, the horses bathing in the clouds. Monkey King, who apparently did have a further career, may not make any Journey to the East with Pigsy but he is a more effective cartoon character than Mickey Mouse, Mr McGoo or many of those we know better.

Tinies may have difficulty taking two hours of this but segments would be sure to get them in. It is, in a good copy, one of the best examples of the Orwo process even if they never could cope with the violet-mauve-purple bit of the spectrum.