Soon, supernatural villainy arises in the form of beautiful but lethal White Bone Spirit, Baigujing, played with a seething malevolence by the terrific Gong Li. The pair are accompanied by two of the book’s most beloved characters, pig/man Baije (Xiao Shenyang) and blue-skinned water spirit, Wujing (Him Law). Having spectacularly dispatched the tiger (rather too enthusiastically for some animal lovers, it may be said), Wukong is visited by the Goddess Guanyin (Kelly Chan) and summoned to accompany Xuanzang on a journey west to acquire ancient Buddhist scrolls, or sutras, that will calm the natural order of Earth. The narrative troughs and visual overkill of the first film are nowhere to be found in the sequel leaner and more focussed, the central characters take on greater emotional resonance and the artists crafting wondrous visions of this fantasy landscape come into their own.ĭespite the title, most central to the plot is young monk Xuanzang (William Feng), an idealistic traveller who, whilst fleeing a tiger attack, finds himself deep within the Five Elements Mountain, prison to the impish Wukong for 500 years. The Lunar New Year festivities heralding in The Year of The Monkey will assuredly include celestial box office takings for the epic and emotional fantasy adventure, The Monkey King 2.įeaturing Aaron Kwok in a vibrant, vivid rendition of the legendary simian deity, Sun Wukong, and an giddy parade of artfully rendered special effects showpieces, Pou-Soi Cheang’s sequel to his 2014 blockbuster proves an infinitely more engaging and impressive mounting of key elements from Wu Cheng’en’s classic novel, Journey to The West. Writers: Ran Ping, Ran Jianan, Elvis Man and Yin Yiyi
Stars: Aaron Kwok, Gong Li, Feng Shaofeng, Kelly Chen, Xiao Shenyang and Him Law.
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