This film adaptation is helmed by Steven Chow, best known for his wacky martial arts extravaganza Kung Fu Hustle, and in translating this ancient tale from scroll to screen he makes sure to include as much fun, sincerity, and humour in his interpretation as possible. It tells the story of Tang Sanzang, who gathers a posse of disciples to aid him in a quest to travel west and find a cache of ancient sutra texts, in his relentless pursuit of Buddhist enlightenment. Journey is a retelling of one of the four great novels of classical Chinese literature, which endure in Asian culture much the same way Grimm’s fairy tales and Aesop’s Fables do in Europe and North America. Watching a Hong Kong blockbuster like Journey, which has the honour of capturing both the largest single-day box office gross and the largest total international gross of any Chinese film (taking in $19.6 million and $215 million US dollars, respectively), is like biting into the pickled ginger that comes with an order of sushi: refreshing, exotic, and wonderfully palate-cleansing, especially after a long summer’s barrage of Hollywood values. I’m drawn to Asian cinema for the same reasons I’m drawn to Asian culture in general: its fascinating singularity makes for a completely fresh perspective. Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons was an easy sell.
Wen Zhang in Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons