(2023) The Monkey King - Quite Funny but not the Type of Classic and Most Memorable Adaptation of this Legendary Character

I was only interested in watching this new movie on Netflix as I saw the trailer once few days earlier which seemed funny. I already planned to watch it as soon as I could yesterday when it was released, but due to some late night work discussion, I arrived home quite late and forced myself to see it even though I was a bit tired. Anyway, let us get on with the movie now.

Brief Story Line

Young Monkey had been treated as an outcast since he was a child. So when he grew up, Monkey (Jimmy O. Yang - Love Hard, Crazy Rich Asians etc) decided to change his own fate. As luck would have it, he somehow acquired a powerful stick that would help him fighting a demon. After being told that he should defeat many demons to become an immortal, Monkey who proclaimed himself as Monkey King went on a mission to kill as many as possible.

During his adventures, Monkey met with a young girl named Lin (Jolie Hoang-Rappaport - Head of the Class 2021 Sitcom etc) who wanted to help in his quest to achieve immortality. Monkey also had to face the Dragon King (Bowen Yang - Bros etc) with his two henchmen Benbo (Comedian Jo Koy) and Babbo (Ron Yuan - Mulan live version film etc).

So would Monkey be able to fulfil his dream? You could find out in this movie.

End of Brief Story Line

Well OK, this movie started off brightly with the introduction of Monkey from the moment he was born. It was fun seeing his naughty nature even from a child and interesting to see how he managed to become Monkey King. When I watched the trailer before, I already knew that the story would not be focusing on Monkey King's famous tales of Journey to the West. In fact, I thought that it would be an entirely something different. Hence it was a pleasant surprise for me that the movie still had those elements.

During the movie, there were plenty of hilarious moments attributed from the mischievous Monkey and him being so egocentric. And the story developed into something nice with the appearance of the young girl Lin, although her chemistry with Monkey did not really give too much warmth feeling in the beginning. But as the story progressed, it did become a bit better which was kind of the major theme of the movie, which was the relationship of two outcast.

The animation of the movie was not the totally beautiful kind but it was good enough. The action sequence and the colorful settings were obviously done to attract younger audience. In fact the funny moments here were mostly slapstick style which was the easily accepted kind of humor and managed to give me few laughs. Sadly though, in the middle of the movie, I started to feel sleepy and missed out a bit of the scenes, but I was lazy to rewind it.

The cast generally did a decent job, with Jimmy O. Yang quite suitable as the titular character (it was strange that I did not recognize his voice). In addition to those names above, there were few other support cast as well such as Hoon Lee (Warrior TV series etc) as the Jade Emperor, Stephanie Hsu (Everything Everywhere All At Once etc) as the mayor's wife,  Jodie Long (Dash & Lily TV series etc) as Wangmu, BD Wong (Heart of Stone etc) as Buddha and few others. Oh during the closing credit, there was very well known name in the Hong Kong film industry Stephen Chow (The Mermaid, Kungfu Hustle etc) as the Executive Producer. He did have experience in directing an adaptation of Monkey King's story back in 2013 and writing its sequel Journey to the West: The Demons Strike Back. 

This movie was directed by Anthony Stacchi whose prior works were animated movie Open Season and stop-motion animation film Boxtrolls. The musical score was not one of the traits I like in here with songs that were not to my liking. And what's with the singing? The song sung by Dragon King did not have a catchy tune and it was actually the least favorite scene for me personally (though some people might find it funny). Fortunately after that singing, the scene was pretty entertaining with a good enough ending.

Overall I thought this movie was enjoyable enough with some hilarious moments due to the naughtyness of Monkey King (funny how they never mentioned his Chinese name Sun Wukong in here) and his desire to break the rules and do whatever he wanted. I also like the ending scenes before the closing credits (which did not have any mid or post credit scenes). The animation was OK, and the story was good but not up to the great level. So if you want to see Monkey King wreaking havoc and providing laughters with his style, then you could give it a try. But do not expect this to be a classical tale of the famous legendary stories.

Mike's movie moments rating: 3 out of 5 stars