As a big fan of Stephen Chow, best known for his Kungfu Hustle and Shaolin Soccer, I was really looking forward to his new action comedy Journey to the West. But after watching it till the end, I'm quite disappointed. Chow did great casting for the movie as always. I specially loved to watch the beautiful sexy Qi Shu. But unfortunately, she is the only good part of the movie.
The starting was interesting. But the monster was not scary.... and not even funny. Chow tried to mix up fun action with a lot of death at the beginning. Specially the death of a 4/5 years old girl was supposed to be heart touching, but unfortunately, it wasn't that much. Or may be I myself lost all emotions. LOL...
Unlike is previous films, this time the actions were more like magic tricks than actual martial arts. The only person who showed us some real martial arts is Qi Shu. But then again, it was dependent a lot on her "Infinity Ring", another magical item.
Stephen Chow was trying to re-create actions from his old movies. Like the Lion's Roar from Kungfu Hustle, but it failed greatly. The Monkey King was not funny and not scary. The last transformation of the Monkey King reminded me of Son Goku from Dragon Ball. But that's not very surprising, is it? After all Son Goku character was created based on the old myth of the Monkey King.
The 300 Nursery Rhymes, that later changed into the Buddhist Script, is also a mimicry of the Buddhist Palm book from Kungfu Hustle. And yes, the Buddhist Palm move is also used in this new movie, but as I said, it's more magic than martial arts.
So, what score should I give this movie? It was somewhat enjoyable but at the same time disappointing. Specially the ending was somewhat stupid. I will only give this movie a 5/10.
Trailer
