Journey To The West
Stephen Chow, Derek Kwok
The story: Xuanzang (Wen Zhang) is a demon hunter whose weapon of choice is singing from the book of 300 Nursery Rhymes. Fellow demon hunter Duan (Shu Qi), who works with spiffy magical flying rings, ridicules Xuanzang at first but soon falls for him. The demons who threaten them include the powerful Monkey King Sun Wukong (Huang Bo) and the rapacious KL Hogg (Chen Bing Qiang).

Despite bearing the same English title as the beloved classical Chinese novel about Buddhist monk Xuanzang’s pilgrimage to obtain sutras, this movie is actually a prequel to the story.
Xuanzang is not yet a monk but a good-hearted demon hunter with a mop of unruly hair. Sun Wukong, Sha Wujing and Piggy, inscrutably named KL Hogg here, are not yet his disciples – they are demons to be conquered. The film is quite episodic as Xuanzang confronts one challenge after another, each more potent than the last – a water demon, a pig demon and, finally, the monkey demon.
While the pacing could have been tighter, particularly for the first battle, directors Stephen Chow (CJ7, 2008) and Derek Kwok (Gallants, 2010) manage to keep one entertained throughout.
The water demon plagues a picturesque fishing village, which turns into an inventive backdrop for the battle. Wooden walkways turn into ramps and seesaws as Xuanzang tries to save the villagers from the demon’s jaws.
The humour runs the gamut from low-brow (it takes a plus-sized girl to toss the demon onto land by jumping on the upraised end of a seesaw) to the sublimely ridiculous (Xuanzang sings a nursery rhyme to subdue the monster).
Adding to the fun are kooky characters, from a demon hunter with one giant foot to the crafty, almost Gollum-like Sun Wukong. Wen Zhang, who touched hearts playing an autistic character in Ocean Heaven (2010), is a hoot here as he has no qualms making a fool of himself. In a hilarious scene, Xuanzang is made to dance seductively in front of two other men and Wen totally gets into it.
At the same time, he conveys the essential innocence of the character and the struggle Xuanzang faces in coming to terms with his feelings for Duan.
Shu Qi, for once in her career, gets to be gauche and uncouth as Duan, whose warped idea of courtship is to trick Xuanzang into having sex with her. It is fun watching the actress who usually plays sexy urbanite roles needing lessons on how to seduce a man. That her relationship with Xuanzang means something more than a gag is credit to the film-makers.
Chow had previously starred in the two-part modern classic A Chinese Odyssey (2004), a loose adaptation of Journey To The West. In it, he utters a key piece of dialogue about loving someone for 10,000 years. There is actually an entry in the Baidu online encyclopaedia on this.
He uses it again here, with a moving twist to it. When Xuanzang finally attains enlightenment, the price he pays is a devastating one.
Chow may give the impression that he is a crude and rough director given his association with nonsensical comedies but he is actually a very thoughtful one. Little details – from the book of nursery rhymes to Duan’s ring – serve different purposes at different points in the movie and yet, at the end, it all makes sense. This was a journey worth taking.
(ST)