Journey to the West

Following the "Journey to the West" (JTTW) fever, I decide to write reviews for any JTTW series that I have watched so far. I should forewarn the readers that this review is written with a rather serious and different perspective than those from the norms.

Being a devout Buddhist and knowing a bit about Chinese folklore and mythologies, I cannot help being agitated at the naive view of the producer. It was evident from tacky scripts that the scriptwriters were ignorant of the real Buddhist teaching. It was also fair to say that the whole series has lost sight of the original theme of being a holy quest of a monk and his disciples. The whole show has basically been reduced into a whimsical serial, although admittedly a well-done production on its own.

The basic story is about a young monk in the era of Tang Dynasty set foot westward to fetch Buddhism Cannons back to China to reestablish Buddhism fate. From help of Goddess of Mercy (Guan Yim), he gained three disciples and a white horse, which was originally a dragon prince. Together, they braved various dangers throughout the long journey that took over a decade.

This is really a religious tale favored with many fantasy ideologies, mixed with folklore and myths. The main four characters should show their developments in saintliness and their understandings of Buddha's words as they progressed in their journey (Please read on. This is really a review, not a brochure to convert your belief. * smile *).

The monk, in my opinion, should be an ordinary man with strong determination and benevolent character. Yet, he was without means of protection, hence the need of three disciples to help him go through all obstacles. All the way, he and the others would get tested and tempted numerous times in many ways, but he would remain steadfast and went on after subduing the cause of those desires. Demons represented human sins, and the monk had to learn to leave all the desire in order to attain the ultimate step in Buddhism world.

Of course, this series showed only the half-baked story of these divine characters. It changed the plot into a comedy series, which was fun to watch but very disappointing all the same. This is another series that could have come out as a 'comedy classic' even, but TVB did mess it up as usual by uncreative plot and tacky dialogues.

All this highly entertaining series managed to put message across, however, was that praying is everything and that saying 'Amidha Buddha' is an equivalent of 'Amen' in Christianity.

Complaints
First of all, I will have to voice my displeasure on the plot which contained so many cheesy dialogues, mainly to show how holy and perfect the monk was. Nonetheless, his character would suddenly turn bad tempered (and rather hypocritical) just like any normal human beings. Such a very inconsistent and complicated person, so different from the pure, naive, and brave candidate that Guan Yim probably had in mind.

Secondly, following tradition of recent TVB series, there were so many loopholes that the viewers don't need great efforts to find them. For example, the idea of the Monkey King not being able to operate in water just because he could not swim was rather too weak and very laughable. What was the use of his magical power then? Another irritating fact was that this traveling group has supposedly entered monkshood. Yet, there was an instance that the monk let his first disciple drink wine freely, although consuming alcohol is one of the five basic commandments in Buddhism. As a master, he seemed to be rather lenient in this supposedly 'sinful' conduct and didn't even bother to preach to his disciples on this matter.

Thirdly, praying and chanting sutras, although good religious practice, were hardly a real core of Buddhism. Nonetheless, the show repeatedly demonstrated that praying would solve everything. It is an admirable idea and well displayed with special effects, but it was a wrong assumption of those who have no background on Buddhism. The whole show actually heavily relied on supernatural tone.

CAST
Kong Wah as the Tang monk
I think he was the best candidate among the actors in TVB at the time although I don't think he fit that well with the role's description. The monk is supposed to be youthful and rather fragile looking. He is supposed to have the fair skin and tempting look for all demons out there to eat him. Kong Wah looked a bit old and was not innocent enough. Remember that this monk grew up in the temple. He was ordained since young and very clever and enlightened in learning sutras but should be rather naive when dealing with worldly matters such as love. These qualities were not portrayed at all through Kong Wah. All I saw was one confused monk who seemed so superficial. He seemed so strong and sure of himself at times that I wondered why Guan Yim even bothered to send the monkey god to protect him, whereas he could just get out of any hardships by uttering sutras, and voila! yellow letters would come out around him and worked miracles.

Kong Wah is an excellent actor, but I don't get a feeling of his pureness and humbleness. His countenance was just too haughty at times with his devil-may-care glances instead of benevolent look. He also sometimes lost temper easily and lashed out so unlike the holy monk that the script tried to sell to the audience. Many times, the monk said and acted so detached from worldly matter, but at the same time, he was so engrossed in a little thing, like afraid that the jar that supposedly contained his second principle's ashes would get wet. That really contradicted his character so illogically. More or less, I imagined the monk to be a warmer version of Xiao Long Nu, a heroine in "Return of Condor Heroes", where he hardly knew about relationships between men and women. These cheesy scenes were basically there to insult the audience's intelligence. TVB should really start some deep thinking and produce more profound plots instead of the usual shallow one.

Lastly, if he had such deep understanding in the religion, it seemed useless to go that far for something that he already knew. According to the original story, I think the reason that the monk wanted the complete canons of Buddha's teaching was because Tang lacked them; therefore, Buddhism practitioners only had rudimentary understanding of real teaching, and that should apply to this monk as well.

Dicky Cheung as the monkey god
His 'yo' trademark seemed to be a pioneer for every artist to imitate him when he/she is in a similar role. I found his character lively and lovable although not exactly monkey-like. Admittedly, I'm impressed with his energetic acting although I think he was still far from showing a real monkey side. He was very active in the scenes where he was the focus character. However, he would remain still when the camera was not on him. He was a funny character for sure, but I sometimes wished that he would show a bit restlessness when he transformed himself. The best monkey god that I have seen so far was the one from Chinese production's JTTW. That was a true monkey there.

The monkey god here was also too weak and not powerful enough. Many times, he could have just used his power to solve a problem, like when he fought with numerous demons outside the Secret City. All in all, he just seemed more human and more talk than action (of course, this had nothing to do with the actor, just the script's false).

Having said that, I have to remind myself that there was no such thing as right or wrong in the interpretation of characters as this story was basically a fantasy story, and the tone given from this series was rather light-hearted.

Overall, I enjoyed watching Dicky but never got a feeling that he was a monkey.

On side note, I never watch Dicky's early works and don't know if his 'Yo!' pose has always been with him or just a new trademark he has adopted since this popular series. Nevertheless, in his recent series, he has repeatedly portrayed his traits of this role so that they began to mar his talents as a versatile actor, which is a real pity in my opinion. I would have loved to see him in a more serious role and finally shed the image of the monkey god. * for angry fans of Dicky's, no hate mails, please! *

Wayne Lai as the pig demon
Despite his inadequate makeup, Wayne Lai was my most favorite character in this series. He had a great chemistry with Dicky Cheung. His personal stories were interesting, and his mishaps were rather entertaining due to his cute acting.

There is nothing much to say about this character. He was sent to disrupt the journey and practically to distinguish the fine qualities of his fellow travelers opposite to all his weaknesses. He learned his lessons the hard way throughout the journey though, and his master was kind enough to forgive him every time.

The third disciple and the horse:
** sigh ** It would have been better if they had foregone the white horse. The horse seemed to magically disappear at any 'convenient' time. The water demon was pathetically stupid although he was a bit smarter in this series than the sequel. Their characters were much neglected in contrast to the first two disciples.

Mimi Kung as Goddess of Mercy:
Aside from Angie Chiu Ngar Chi, this actress was the second best one as Guan Yim in my opinion so far. She had the peaceful look and her costume was simple white. Her appearance each time was awesome, thanks to excellent computer graphic. I was disappointed that she did not appear in the sequel series.

The Three-eyed God and Na Cha:
Very good casting. Although making short appearances, they made good impression on me. Ho Mei Tian had a right look for young Na Cha, and Joe Ma was great at displaying the proud Er Lang. My only complaint would be the choice of dog as his companion. It did not even look intimidating as his sidekick.

Other Gods:
They were evidently there to be sidekicks for Dicky Cheung. Rather degrading but funny all the same.

EPISODES (in no particular order and divided according to my own system)
I like the first scene of the series, where they portrayed different gods flying to hear Buddha's sermon. Good computer graphics here.

The birth of the monkey god:
The beginning reminded me strongly of a Japanese Ultraman film on the scene of the rock monkey fighting with a god from heaven. Then, the meeting between the monkey and his weapon seemed like an E.T. scene to me. Aside from these two, the story was quite good, thanked to the talented child actor.

Kong Wah as the honest monk probably should look at least uncomfortable at deceiving the monkey to wear a hat. He even lied that it was his childhood's hat. Another evident of the inconsistencies here.

The love stories of the pig demon:
I am not sure if this really was in the original story, but the episode was quite interesting and entertaining all the same. One couldn't help feeling a bit sorry for the pig's tragedies.

The monk seeking Guan Yim:
A good introduction of the holy monk. However, the series missed one important factor -- the giving of the robe to the monk from Guan Yim. This incident should show how the monk got initiated into traveling to the West.

The bull demon and his family:
A long episode with an unnecessary add-in of the dream demon. The actress who portrayed Hong Hai Er showed his annoying character to the max. There seemed to be many inconsistencies as well. Granted that the bull demon would never die according to the early episode, how come he and his wife still look young after five hundred years, whereas their other fellow students were so old looking? I personally think the early episode messed things up by showing a bunch of old men to signify that the monkey was still young because of his immortality. To my knowledge, the bull demon and his wife never practiced to be immortal. Moreover, it was said in the beginning that the fan princess was pregnant with Hong Hai Er five hundred years ago at least. Therefore, it was incredible that their child still remained a boy after all those years.

The other thing that is quite beyond my understanding was the fact that the supernatural beings, such as the bull demon and his family, seemed to have no problem living with humans, but the later episodes would show that demons would get persecuted by villagers. The funniest would be that among those villagers, there was a spider demon's mother, who of course was demon herself. However, that was another long story.

The test from 3 gods:
A short but good episode.

The white bone demon:
I notice that recently TVB shows would always give excuses why the villains turned out to be villains. There was no longer such thing as bad actions because of that person's innate evilness. In this case, the demon created troubles for the group because she was in love with a human. Again, special effects were great. Actually, they were, oddly enough, the best factor in this series and what kept me watching on.

One more observation here: many deaths seemed to be revived as if Guan Yim were the Lord of the Underworld instead. The third disciple himself died twice in this series and came back to life both times. If this was not an old trick in the bag, I don't know what were.

The spider demon:
Rain Lau and Angie Cheung, two talented actresses were in here, yet they still could not save this episode. It should have turned out a poignant romantic love story, but the disordered timeline and basic illogical details just ruined this part, not to say that it was another draggy episode.

On side note, the monkey god was so innocent in love that I don't know how they would explain it away with the new coming JTTW. I heard that he would fall in love TWICE! Another fantasy show with littlest things to do with real story of JTTW should be expected. ** shaking my head sadly **

The spider demon's lover ironically ended up being an evil demon. However, he consistently said that he had attained a thousand years power. Given that he had just reborn into that form, it was rather unbelievable (His former life's family was still living, by the way). Or maybe my dubbed VCD has a wrong translation! Moreover, according to the Lord of Underworld, he had reincarnated in his former life 30 years ago and died at the age of 25. Now, I wonder how TVB could come up with an explanation that the man reborn again and was a grown man to meet his spider demon lover at last within a space of five years, more or less.

Another unsolved math problem that needs a real miracle to work it out.

In the end, the spider demon went into the fire with her lover with her mother (also a demon) being part of enraged crowd. I simply don't get the logic behind demon and human relationship in this TVB's world.

The other loophole here was that the magical mirror had been broken earlier in the white bone demon's episode. Yet, it was reappeared in this one with smaller size. In the sequel, JTTW II, the same mirror in the original size would also appear in more than one series.

There are many more unreasonable details that would take too long to point them out. Believe me, if you have watched it, you would know. They were not that hard to find.

TVB really need to do a simple math work and learn to process things in more orderly manner.

Having said that, I have to praise the two actresses that made the episode watchable. Rain Lau was funny and great with Dicky Cheung. Her side story with the monkey god was as impressive as that of her sister's.

The Secret City:
I was totally taken aback at first with the incredible tale about nine suns. Then, as the story progressed, it was very moving with the different portrayal of each member's character in the group. The monk's love story was rather unrealistic, but it turned out to be a dream anyway. However, the biography of Goddess of Mercy was an eye opening if it was true (Can someone help verify on that?).

Curiously though, the monkey god didn't show much of his super power here. What about the ability to create several of his images to fight off the demons?

This must be my most favorite episode. We could see some inner conflicts within each character and the relationships among one another in the group. There was strong chemistry established among the three disciples. The white horse somehow disappeared in this episode. Maybe, TVB could not make up their mind whether to produce a human baby or a colt for the dragon prince or simply a baby fish. ** wink

On Computer Graphic:
Thumbs up to TVB on the excellent effects. They were just right and added much color to the series. I like all of them except the beginning ones that reminded me strongly of the Japanese Ultraman and ET. (the birth of the Monkey King and the meeting between him and his weapon)

Rating: 3
I would have given better rating if not for some inconsistencies and a tasteless scripts. The overall message did not focus enough on Buddha's teaching although certain parts did give that feeling. It seemed that everything could be solved just by praying -- probably a popular belief but definitely seemed out of place in the tale about religious world.

Overall, I enjoyed the series as an entertainment but did not think that it could be called a classic or an original serial as many have claimed. To be a classic, I think the series needed to step further into a deeper thinking. It would be like making "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" without referring to the history and called it a historical classic.

Having tearing the series apart, this didn't deter me from saying that this is one of the highly entertained series and well done in terms of special effects. For any viewer who would not bother on the religious angle, the serial could be quite convincing, just like some viewers love "Return of Condor Heroes" Richie Ren's version and think that it is one of the best Jin Yong's adaptations.

On the side note, aside from this popular series, there was yet an original version produced by Mainland, which I heartily recommend for all JTTW fans.