Better Late Then Never

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

Blistering performances.

The biggest problem with this movie is it’s a little better than you think it might be, which somehow makes it worse. As in, it takes itself a bit too seriously, which makes most of the movie feel kind of dull.

Tang Sanzang, is a careful and loving buddhist monk who is also a demon hunter. Instead of using violence to defeat and capture the demons he uses nursery rhymes to try and defeat them. Furthermore, during his journey he must fight 3 demons in order to protect the village from the demon beings. However, there are other demon hunters that are not like him and do not see the good in the demons or try to save them, instead they capture the demons for ransom or fame. During Tang Sanzang travels he meets Miss Duan who falls in love with him and save s him repeatedly throughout the movie. Tang Sanzang must face the trial of love, good, and bad, and ultimately his own perseverance. Tang Sanzang, unlike all of the other demon hunters, does not use violence to defeat any of the monsters and is a true honest hero. I do wonder why the journey to kill and destroy demons had to be in the westerly direction and not in the east, north, or south. Like does the west have a negative connotation in both the U.S and China? I know that there is the wicked witch of the west in the wizard of Oz and Dorothy and the others must defeat her. Furthermore, I do not think that there is a difference in the United States and China for the use of the west as a negative connotation in their movies context. The film Journey to the west is very high quality and used CGI effects for production so their effects and screenplay is very evidently similar to the U.S.. I believe this happens because the U.S. and China are very developed countries and have the money to make movies look really good, not saying the other countries without the supplements of money could not make movies with high quality but it is definitely much appreciated.

This film is jam packed with tons of Stephen Chow's comedic style. It has action, love, and some scenes on the meaning of life. There also some descriptions on ancient Chinese symbols. It begins with this supposed demon hunter trying to warn a village that the creature they just killed was not the demon they thought(a giant stingray). Instead, the real demon was a large man eating fish. They eventually get the fish out of the water and the demon hunter(Xuan Zang) attempts to rid the demon of evil and only leave good behind through his book of nursery rhymes. They were to no avail and he started to get beaten up by the fish until a real women demon hunter came about and fought the demon, killing it. The novice demon catcher began to question his abilities as a demon hunter and decided to go to get some food from an infamous restaurant. It turned out the restaurant was run by a demon who tricked the newcomers into being killed and fed to the next who are foolish enough to enter. However, the novice demon fighter suspects something wrong with everything and calls out the demon, but as he calls him out the women demon hunter from the previous fight appears and starts to fight the demon with her magic rings. They walk back to town and she tries to kiss him but he has vowed to only kiss a woman of great love. She keeps on following him trying to get him to like her in return and marry her, but he does not give in. The demon that the women demon hunter had fought before did not actually die and has been on the loose. The novice demon hunter decides to seek help from the monkey king who has been enslaved by buddha for the past 500 years. The monkey king tricks him into freeing him and begins to reign terror killing demon hunters and the women demon hunter who until her death the novice demon hunter does not show feelings of love for. He eventually reaches enlightenment and kills the monkey king with his powers

The Chinese film, Journey to the West is based off the book Journey to the West. This film is said to be a kind of intro to the book. It is an action packed love story, with several twists and turns. The main character, Xuanzang, is a young Buddhist monk who is a sought out hero. At the beginning of the movie, he tries to save the people of a small wooden town from a demon. He faces rejection, but never stopped fighting for the people who turned their backs to him. He returns to his master and tells him that maybe he is not the chosen one, but his master says that he is. Xuanzang's master tells him to use a book of nursery rhymes to fight his battles. Xuanzang's goal is to become the greatest demon hunter there is. On his journey, he faces many battles with other demons and demon hunters who are all fighting for the same goal. At the end of the film, Xuanzang faces the hardest battle of his life. He experiences pain, loss, and heartbreak. These three casualties, motivate him to beat his greatest enemy and reach enlightenment.

The very unique film, Journey to the West, directed and filmed by Stephen Chow, was one of the weirdest and most quirky films I have ever seen. This film had a ton of cultural references that may have been difficult for some of us viewers to understand because the Chinese culture and traditions are so much different than ours here in the United States. This very much included the different forms of comedy presented in the film. Although wacky, I somehow liked the film for all the action and adrenaline it contained. I would recommend this film to anyone who enjoys Chinese culture, or mythological beings and magic.