Dir: Chang Cheh
Cast: Jiming Chen, Lixin Mu, Yongquan Jia,Yuming Du
Plot: Based on the famous "Journey to the west" story, the movie follows the adventure to the west of a buddhist monk, the monkey king, the pig, the river ogre and of course the monk.
Year: 1991
Country: Mainland China / HK
Notes: The movie is available on dvd in Mainland China by Gzbeauty (with english subtitles!). Chang Cheh is not new with his mainland movies, movies such as Cross the river (过江) and Shanghai 1937 are just few examples. The movie is also knows as "Journey to the west".Personal opinion: To be honest we didnt know it was a Chang Cheh's movie until we checked on the net. This fantasy is just awesome. It has everything you can ask from a movie of this genre: wires, magic, kung fu, weird characters.. it has all of that. The costumes are quite simple sometimes but they work. The best thing of this flick are the martial arts scenes. Beside the long (and sometime boring) battle between the good guys and "Red guy", the others were amazing. The actors knew what they were doing, especially the monkey king and the river ogre.. but the best out of all was the monkey king. There is a little bit of opera in it (especialy during the fight between the monkey king and a guy dressed like a opera artist (sorry forgot the name)), one our favourite part of the movie. Do you a favor and get this flick, you won't be dissapointed (unless you dont like fantasy movies..).
Some snapshots (from the original dvd):
