BEFORE: This would have been a great time to drop in "Wicked", with both Michelle Yeoh and Bowen Yang carrying over - but I'm not in the mood for that, plus my gut tells me that film could be useful in linking some Christmas movies together. Sure, it's WAY too early to think about Christmas linking, there's a whole Doc Block and horror chain to get through before I even get an impression of an idea which Christmas movies I can get to this year BUT, if I watch "Wicked" now then those links will be lost, and I could end up with an idea for a series of holiday flicks and no way to get from one to the other. Or I could link from "Wicked" to "Fire Island", a film I've been trying to get to for a couple years, either way I want to pass on the biggest film of last year for the moment. There is another big film I want to add in, though, in two days time, like "Wicked" it would probably fit in a lot of places, but I want to knock it out this week.
So Jo Koy and Bowen Yang carry over from "The Tiger's Apprentice", this works thematically too because both films are kind of about Chinese gods and martial arts. Right?
THE PLOT: Inspired by an epic Chinese tale, a Monkey and his magical fighting Stick battle demons, dragons, gods and the greatest adversary of all - Monkey's ego.
AFTER: I don't know why the animation industry suddenly went all Chinese on me - probably has something to do with the size of the Asian market, just a few billion people, that's all. And movies are like the number one export from the U.S., or at least they were until we started imposing tariffs on everything. China probably doesn't want anything from the U.S. now, not beef or corn or movies, so that's really a case of us shooting ourselves in the foot. Ah, well, in just a few years everything animated will be made by A.I., so no people will be harmed in the process, there will just be hundreds of Dreamworks and Pixar staffers out of work. Maybe I picked the right time to get out of that industry, the Titanic is already sinking and I managed to get aboard one of the lifeboats. That's what I keep telling myself, anyway.
It might be a little odd to focus on the Monkey King in a kid's movie, because he kills things so violently - demons, sure, and I guess killing demons is always a good thing (?) unless you want your kid to watch a movie that's not just about killing things. Monkey King is also very selfish (but, aren't we all?) and uses people to get what he wants (but, don't we all?) and so I guess it's fine, it's just a few weird messages to send out to the kids. Like, they can watch Deadpool for similar actions and banter, but just keep in mind what you're showing to the kids, that's all. Why can't Monkey King learn that it's better to help people with his talents rather than just kill stuff? His human friend suggests this of course, he just doesn't want to listen - he's got to figure that out the hard way, it seems.
This is a film that started out at one animation studio (Reel FX) but then the work was transferred to another on, Tangent Animation, which then closed down in 2021, so the job went back to Reel FX. That's the animation business sometimes, you have to watch a job go away sometimes, but if the other company screws up, the job could come back. Sometimes you have to let people fail so they learn a hard lesson - and a studio is only as good as its management and business practices, just like a restaurant if there's no business coming in, it will close.
The Monkey King is born from inside a rock, and we're not really sure how that came to be, like did somebody have sex with the rock, or was magic involved or what? Monkey King's first attempts to learn normal monkey society don't go well, but he trains with coconut weapons until he's able to defeat the Demon that is stealing and eating baby monkeys. Once he defeats the "demon" (I think it might just be a big, muscular tiger though) he sets out to defeat 99 more, so he can say he defeated 100 demons, which should get him some fame and glory.
The Monkey King's goal is to become immortal, and thus get invited to live up in the clouds with the other Immortal Ones - however, several of the Immortal Ones don't want to let this happen, apparently there's not much room up in Chinese heaven, or they don't want any noisy neighbors. It's a bit odd that a Western film would focus on Chinese heaven, which looks a lot like Christian heaven, only with Buddha in place of God and a Jade Emperor running the day-to-day, kind of like St. Peter. And there are plenty of rules in Chinese heaven, like don't make your own elixirs in the pharmacy and don't make holes in the temple roofs, because it takes like eternity to get them fixed after you put in the work order.
There are rules in Chinese hell, too - which looks like a giant library full of everyone's life scrolls, which foretell the moment that people will die. The Monkey King wants to erase the date of his death from his scroll, which would logically mean that he can't die. Much like the afterlife seen in "Beetlejuice Beetlejuice", when you die your ghost goes to a giant office complex and you get assigned to a room like the Suite of Ridiculous Deaths and that's where your soul spends eternity, and apparently there's an infinite capacity for all the millions of souls that arrive there each year. Whether there's a train or a donkey that takes you out of there once you serve your time and brings you to a better place, I'm not sure. Here Monkey King wants to steal the Book of Everlasting Life from King Yama, because he believes it has more helpful tips on how to become immortal.
The book tells him to eat a peach from the Orchard of Everlasting Life - sure, simple, why doesn't everyone just do that? - and he tries, but the Dragon King disguises an orchard of very normal peaches as the Everlasting Life orchard, and has his assistant, Lin, bring him there. Dragon King has also poisoned the peaches from one tree in particular, in retaliation for Monkey King stealing his giant column of power and transforming it into his Magic Fighting Stick. Lin is tempted several times to just steal the staff from Monkey King and deliver it to Dragon King, as Dragon King has promised to bring rain to her dried-up village, which would save her family's farm. But against her better judgment, she keeps giving Monkey King another chance, until finally she can't do it any more. (I feel you, Lin - just remember the boss is never going to change, in fact he's going to continue to get more arrogant and more stubborn over time, and you should really just grab what you need from him and get out of there. Solid plan.)
Hey, at least you can count on the Monkey King to be self-centered and unfeeling toward others - but you can't trust the Dragon King at all. Instead of the drought-saving rain he promised, the Dragon King creates a mega-storm that will drown the whole world - so Lin has to trick him into hitting the Monkey King with his "weakness", lightning, which will really make him grow gigantic and very powerful. But as Monkey King grows, so does his ego, so once he's big enough to take down the Dragon King, he's really out of control. Buddha has to come down from Chinese heaven and help Lin bring him back to his senses. For his "crimes" Monkey King gets sealed inside a large rock and is forced to meditate until he can wake up with no thoughts of violence.
But he's needed 500 years later, when some unnamed threat arises, and they need a monkey of peace to travel to the Western world fight again for a sequel - so maybe?
NITPICK POINT: Lin is seen falling from the clouds, hurtling toward Earth, hoping that Monkey King will catch her before she lands and dies - and he does jump after her, he does nothing to slow her fall, in fact it looks like he uses his momentum to increase her speed, which obviously would kill her. Even landing in the water at that point would not help her survive, at that speed the impact of hitting the water's surface would be just as lethal as landing on the ground. I see a lot of movies make mistakes like this, like when a superhero catches someone who's falling, just because they're being caught won't save their life, they would need to be slowed down first before they stop moving, there would still be a deadly impact.
Directed by Anthony Stacchi (director of "The Boxtrolls")
Also starring the voices of Jimmy O. Yang (last seen in "Easter Sunday"), Jolie Hoang-Rappaport, Ron Yuan (last seen in "Mulan" (2020)), Hoon Lee (ditto), Nan Li, Andrew Pang (last seen in "The Big Sick"), Stephanie Hsu (last heard in "The Wild Robot"), Dee Bradley Baker (ditto), Sophie Jean Wu, Andrew Kishino (last heard in "Batman: The Killing Joke"), Jodi Long (last seen in "Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings"), BD Wong (last seen in "Heart of Stone"), Robert Wu (last seen in "Logan"), David Chen, James Sie (last heard in "Kung Fu Panda 4"), Vic Chao (ditto), Kieran Regan, Kuno Inghram, Mark Benninghofen, Artemis Snow, Kaiji Tang
RATING: 6 out of 10 falling coconuts
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