Elsewhere, the film’s take on a notorious segment of “Journey” in which men get pregnant touches on the moral responsibility of abortion (a sore point in the context of China’s one-child policy) but ultimately resolves it in a tasteless farce. However, the film passes up the chance to affirm womankind’s independence by focusing on a sense of deprivation among its female characters, explained by one jilted woman’s vengeful attitude toward men. The shooting location of Sichuan, where the tribe still lives, suggests this affinity. A closer precedent is probably the Mosuo tribe, a Chinese ethnic minority whose matriarchal society dates back thousands of years. Western viewers may instinctively associate the place with Themiscyra, home of the Amazons in Greek mythology - and more recently, Wonder Woman. In Chapter 54 of the novel, author Wu Cheng’en concocted a “Kingdom of Maidens” in which men were non-existent, and where women only gave birth to daughters after impregnating themselves by drinking from the “Spring of Motherhood.” Though he and screenwriter Elvis Man slip back into shallow, showy mode again here, production company Filmko’s plan to roll out five more installments seems unstoppable.Īccording to the surviving travelogue written by Xuanzhuang (AKA Tripitaka), whose legendary pilgrimage to India is detailed in “Journey to the West,” the Tang Dynasty monk traversed a land where women ruled while men served them as farmers and soldiers.
With “The Monkey King 2,” Cheang found his groove, transcending mere popcorn entertainment by introducing a charismatic and poignantly layered villain in the form of Gong Li’s White-Boned Demon. Though the gaudy production pales in comparison to the previous installment on nearly every artistic level, a visible improvement in 3D effects, combined with the film’s family-friendly subject and a day-and-date release in the U.S., should make it a cinch to surpass the previous film’s record opening two years ago.īack in 2014, when Cheang’s original “The Monkey King” earned a whopping $15.5 million, the film swiftly evolved from a clever one-off into a lucrative Chinese New Year’s franchise - easy to do, given the infinite stories suggested by its epic source material. And yet, while its femme-focused premise suggests rich opportunities to challenge traditional Chinese gender roles, “The Monkey King 3” disappointingly resists the chance to reinvent female identity. This first installment in a trilogy of live action 3-D movies is actually a prequel to The Journey To The West, the much told story of the Monkey King's adventures on the road to India.Monkeying around with 16th-century Chinese literary classic “Journey to the West” yet again, Hong Kong action veteran Soi Cheang’s third installment in the hit Monkey King franchise ventures into a kingdom populated exclusively by women.
This much beloved story, is as much a part of Asian culture as The Iliad and The Odyssey or The Wizard of Oz are to the West. Thus, according to legend, Buddhism is brought to ancient China. After rebelling against heaven and being imprisoned under a mountain for 500 years, he later accompanies the monk Xuanzang on a journey to India. Sun Wukong, (The Monkey King) is a monkey born from a heavenly stone who acquires supernatural powers.