The Monkey King 3
西游记 女儿国
China, 2018, colour, 2.35:1, 3-D, 113 mins.
Director: Zheng Baorui 郑保瑞 [Soi Cheang].
Rating: 7/10.
The most engaging of the three films on a character level but lacking a strong star presence.
STORY
China, Tang dynasty. On his journey westwards to collect some Buddhist scriptures from India, the young Buddhist monk Xuanzang (Feng Shaofeng) – along with his travelling companions Sun Wukong, aka Monkey King (Guo Fucheng), Zhu Ganglie, aka Zhu Bajie/Pigsy (Xiaoshenyang), and Sha Wujing, aka Sandy (Luo Zhongqian) – are attacked by a river monster and bounced into Womanland. There Xuanzang is immediately entranced by the young queen (Zhao Liying), who is out hunting on her own. After consulting the ancient scriptures back at the palace, she concludes she’s been infected with the Love Poison that can be caught from men. The sagacious Madam Preceptor (Liang Yongqi) advises her to kill the root cause and, after Pigsy is caught spying on some women bathing in the forest, all the men are arrested. They learn they are in Womanland of Western Liang 西梁女国 and will be executed for the crime of being male. The queen, however, insists on questioning Xuanzang personally, whle her generals question the other three. When Madam Preceptor insists on the sentence being carried out, the queen helps them escape and they all meet later in a secret cave. After fighting off some giant scorpions, they find a missing part of the ancient scriptures which says the gates of Womanland will only open when you discover what love is. As a monk, Xuanzang says he can’t be much help in that department but after a further adventure, in which Xuanzang, Pigsy and Sandy become pregnant for a while and learn to love their babies, the queen decides to leave Womanland with them all, despite the fact it will mean the end of her nation. But first they have to cross the Sea of Suffering.
REVIEW
In his third (and supposedly final) outing into the classic saga Journey to the West 西游记, Macau-born director Zheng Baorui 郑保瑞 [Soi Cheang] gets the “human”/CGI balance pretty much right again, with the latter at the service of the former (as in The Monkey King 2 西游记之孙悟空三打白骨精, 2016) and not the other way round (as in The Monkey King 西游记之大闹天空, 2014). Though it lacks a strong star presence like that of Zhou Runfa 周润发 [Chow Yun-fat] in MK1 or Gong Li 巩俐 in MK2 – which loses it a point, and may explain its relatively weaker box-office performance in the Mainland – The Monkey King 3 西游记 女儿国 is the most engaging of the three films on a character level, with a relaxed tone and often silly humour that also help to bolster its “human” face.
Whereas MK2 was centred on the eternal tug-of-war between pacifism and violence – represented by the Buddhist monk Xuanzang and the unpredictable Sun Wukong, aka Monkey – MK3 spins on the theme of love, in several variations. The script is credited this time to just one writer – Mainland-born Wen Ning 文宁 who was one of four on MK2 and has also worked in a wide range of genres in a very short time (Mainland comedy Mr. Jin’s Happy Life 金太狼的幸福生活, 2013; 3-D horror omnibus The Mirror 魔镜, 2015; Hong Kong crime thriller The Trough 低压槽之欲望之城, 2018). Wen has taken taken three chapters (53-55) from Journey to the West, in which Xuanzang and his three companions (Monkey, Pigsy and Sandy) find themselves in an all-female country, and reworked some of its elements into a generally romantic tale in which the monk has to decide whether he’ll love just one person (the country’s young queen) or all sentient beings in general. The tug between his heart/loins and Buddhist teaching can obviously result in only one outcome, but it is Monkey who helps him in his interior struggle at moments of weakness, thus justifying a bond of loyalty between the two that was painfully forged in MK2.
Thankfully, the film doesn’t spend much time making points about gender and all the rest. After some obvious jokes, the fact of Womanland’s existence is accepted as a fact by the four travellers and they’re then tested on various levels, first in a very funny sequence in which they’re separately interrogated by the queen and her female generals and then by a more elaborate sequence in which Xuanzang, Pigsy and Sandy temporarily become pregnant (from falling into the Motherhood River) and experience maternal love. After these knockabout sections, however, the script then takes the theme of love to the next level, in which the queen, realising she can’t have Xuanzang as a normal man, falls for him even more, for his devotion to the Buddhist scriptures. This leads to the finale as they set out across the Sea of Suffering, capped by a grand finale of CGI at full tilt (but only for five minutes).
The film bears only a rough similarity to the chapters in Journey to the West – especially in the final half-hour in which the characters’ desertion of Womanland threatens the country’s existence – and is effectively, like MK2, a standalone creation. But it does adhere to the spirit of the classic novel and its main characters, and isn’t just a series of action/VFX sequences separated by bits of dialogue. The four leads, all reprised by the same cast from MK2, seem at ease in their skins, with Hong Kong’s Guo Fucheng 郭富城 [Aaron Kwok] again downplaying Monkey’s simian tics in favour of a real performance, his compatriot Luo Zhongqian 罗仲谦 solid as the giant Sandy in a blue muscle-suit, and the Mainland’s Xiaoshenyang 小沈阳 and Feng Shaofeng 冯绍峰, generally seen in lighter roles, ditto as Pigsy and Xuanzang. The last role is always a difficult one to bring off amid such colourful company but Feng manages to make Xuanzang sympathetic rather than holier-than-thou boring.
As the young queen, Mainland TV actress Zhao Liying 赵丽颖, 30, who’s only recently started to build a big-screen identity (The Rise of a Tomboy 女汉子真爱公式, 2016; Duckweed 乘风破浪, 2017), is okay but lacks a big enough presence here to dominate the film as her character should. Hong Kong’s Liang Yongqi 梁咏琪 [Gigi Leung], now a veteran of 42 and dressed to kill as Womanland’s chief adviser, grabs the spotlight whenever she’s wheeled out but is a less fully-drawn character than Zhao’s. The only other big name in the cast, Taiwan actress-model Lin Zhiling 林志玲, 43, is hardly recognisable as the River Spirit, an androgynous visual effect who has a couple of memorable moments in the CGI-heavy finale.
Key technical crew, apart from Hong Kong editor Qiu Zhiwei 邱志伟 [Yau Chi-wai] and the 3-D stereographers, are all new to the series but knit together seamlessly. Replacing the US’ Christopher Young (MK1, MK2), Japanese composer Kobayashi Yu 小林雄 generally plays more to the love angle than to the action or VFX, which is effective. South Korean p.d. Jo Hwa-seong 조화성 | 曹和成 (time-travel thriller Reset 逆时营救, 2017) comes up with some succulent designs for the palace, library and caves of Womanland; Hong Kong veteran Li Bijun 利碧君 [Lee Bik-kwan] ditto on the costumes; and both are richly shot by the Mainland’s Yang Tao 杨涛 (The Sun Also Rises 太阳照常升起, 2007; Guilty of Mind 心理罪, 2017) and New Zealand’s Richard Bluck. The latter previously worked on the action unit of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Sword of Destiny 卧虎藏龙 青冥宝剑 (2016) and as d.p. on China-set kids’ fantasy Into the Rainbow 奇迹 追逐彩虹 (2017).
The film’s Chinese title means “Journey to the West: Womanland”. Like the other two movies, it comes in at under two hours but this time comfortably. Together the three have earned some RMB3 billion in the Mainland: MK1 a hunky RMB1.05 billion, MK2 an even hunkier RMB1.20 billion, and MK3 a lesser but still handsome RMB727 million.
CREDITS
Presented by Filmko Film (CN). Produced by Filmko Film (CN), Shanghai Hanna Pictures (CN).
Script: Wen Ning. Photography: Richard Bluck, Yang Tao. Editing: Qiu Zhiwei [Yau Chi-wai]. Music: Kobayashi Yu. Production design: Jo Hwa-seong. Costume design: Li Bijun [Lee Bik-kwan]. Special costumes: Shaun Patrick Smith. Styling: Yu Jia’an [Bruce Yu]. Sound: Yin Jie, Steve Burgess. Action: Guo Yong. Special effects: Wang Naipeng. Visual effects: Seung Je-gal, Jeong Seong-jin, Yi Ju-weon, Xu Jian (Dexter Studios, Digital Idea). 3-D: Sean Kelly, Yao Yao.
Cast: Guo Fucheng [Aaron Kwok] (Sun Wukong/Monkey King), Feng Shaofeng (Xuanzang, monk), Zhao Liying (queen), Xiaoshenyang (Zhu Ganglie/Zhu Bajie/Pigsy), Luo Zhongqian (Sha Wujing/Sandy), Lin Zhiling (River Spirit), Liang Yongqi [Gigi Leung] (Guoshi Mama/Madam Preceptor), Liu Tao (Guanyin, goddess of mercy), Yuan Qiongdan (old priestess), Pan Binlong (Ruyi Zhenxian/As-You-Will Immortal), Shi Shi (old sovereign), Su Lishan (young Madam Preceptor), Sun Yihan (Yangzhi), Chen Yali (Yingluo), He Xinlin (Qiushui), Guan Le (Cuiyu), Ma Sai (Yipin, Madam Preceptor’s maidservant), Sun Ruoqi (Yixiao, Madam Preceptor’s maidservant).
Release: China, 16 Feb 2018.