Chow's specialty is over-the-top slapstick action in the Hong Kong style, and the new film doesn't disappoint on either count.
The spectacular combination of slapstick, love story and superhero antics doesn't entirely avoid awkwardness, but mostly it defies gravity, like many of the stunts.
Stephen Chow has done it again. An epic fantasy martial arts movie with a few laughs and twists, but most of all, excellent special effects and memorable characters. Its not as immersing as Kung Fu Hustle, but continues to keep your jaw on the floor. If you are a kung fu fan this should be part of your library. The only reason why I gave this a nine is because I wanted the show to go on and on and on! Excellent job!
I'm a fan of Stephen Chow's work, I've always liked his vision for cinema. To me, Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons was a very unique take on the Chinese folktale that worked for me and I love it. A thoroughly entertaining fantasy, action, comedy movie.
Showcases Chow at his weirdest and most entertaining.
Journey to the West may not rank among Chow’s classics, but it’s a crowd-pleaser that also serves as a reminder of what the director can accomplish when he’s on his game.
By turns daffy and dazzling, awkward and artful, Journey to the West takes an ancient tale and gives it contemporary flair.
Chow’s movies are always as sweet as they are silly, a combination he once again balances — alongside cool effects — with typically deft irreverence.
The camera swoops and whooshes about but never generates any compelling energy — Chow's film proves endlessly manic but devoid of much mirth.
It injects comedy into serious scenes, tries to mix grief with cheap laughs, horror with crude jokes, and fails to deliver all of them. When a scene seems to develop emotionally into something, it shoots itself in the foot. I understand that the movie is a comedy of sorts, but there's no respite from throwing jokes at the audience, which leaves little room to care about any of the characters or what's happening to them. The sets, the effects, and the action are lovely, but the latter is over the top and inconsistent, delaying on long combat with no sense of threat, just for the sake of more CGI effects. In short, I wasn't sure whether I was supposed to laugh or fall asleep.
Not terrible but the trailer made it look like it was going to be a fun and funny action movie. There are a few laughs for sure but utterly lacking a story. Also, from the CG I thought this movie was made in the early 2000's or maybe late 90's but 2013? yikes those are some crappy effects.
Maybe not the worst movie that I've ever seen, but certainly up there. Really a far cry from Kung Fu Hustle and Shaolin Soccer. I don't even know where to start with how bad it is because it goes wrong at basically every juncture. There's really no understandable reason for anything happening and everything just serves as a poor attempt to connect the dots between the action set-pieces which are themselves just a mess of bad CGI and poor design choices. All the beats of the film are completely predictable. It's impossible to not be distracted by the seemingly random use of CGI in virtually every shot. The dialog is generic schlock. The humor is painfully unfunny. Maybe Seth Rogen consulted on the script because a number of the "jokes" were just someone repeating something over and over and over again, so even if it had been funny initially, it lost any semblance of humor on the third or fourth time they said it. I went into the movie with really no expectations other than a very, very base idea of the original story of The Journey to the West. Just from watching the movie I could tell that this movie was a very poor interpretation. Reading up on it further has only strengthened that feeling. I understand why they added a love interested character [many people are unfortunately unable to watch movies without a crappy love story shoehorned in] but they could have at least had the courtesy to force her into the story in an interesting way. I can't get over how bad their dialog and interaction is. It's just so terrible. I was fully expecting to see this in the 20% range on Metacritic, Rotten Tomatoes, IMDB, and all those site. It blows my mind that that someone started a review with the words "not terrible." Yes, terrible. Do not watch this movie. It is bad. And not enjoyable bad, just boring and predictable bad. I don't understand how the majority consensus is that this is an enjoyable film. If you watch this move and enjoy it, you need to take a long, hard look in the mirror and think about your own complete lack of taste. If you saw and enjoyed Kung Fu Hustle and Shaolin Soccer and see this movie and think "hey, I liked those other movies, maybe this one will be alright," resist that impulse. In Bruges, The Professional, Summer Wars, 22 Jump Street, Alien, Jackie Chan's First Strike, Whiplash, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, Edge of Tomorrow, John Carpenter's The Thing, Casablanca. What do these films have in common? They're all roughly the same length as this terrible movie and are all a much better use of your time. If you feel tempted to watch this, watch one or all of those instead. That's not to say that they're all perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but they're all way more worth your time. 1 point for having the basic components of a movie [cameras pointed at actors saying lines with music in the background] and another point because Shaolin Soccer and Kung Fu Hustle were good. It's sad to say, but Stephen Chow seems to have been replaced with a talent-less hack bodysnatcher.
Production Company Bingo Movie Development, Film Workshop, Huayi Brothers Media, China Film Group Corporation [CFGC], Village Roadshow Pictures Asia, Chinavision Media Group, Edko Films
Is Journey to the West for kids?
This series is interesting and easy to read, which is great for primary school kids. There is lots of great vocabulary for them to pick up in the books."
How old do you have to be to read Journey to the West?
Journey to the West [for children aged 9-12] [Chinese Edition]
What grade level is Journey to the West?
Product information.
Is Journey to the West a good story?
Journey to the West is one of the great Classic Chinese Novels. It's one of the great works of Chinese literature.