Hokit
WARNING: Spoilers within.Like many of Stephen Chow's movies, "A Chinese Odyssey" generates an even mix between humor, martial arts and Chinese-style special effects. Lightly based on a classic Chinese mythology, it centers around the "journey" that a powerful yet misguided monkey 'king' (Chow) is forced to choose between - a life of complex emotions or abandoning it all to accompany the Longevity Monk's (Kar-Ying Law) journey towards the West.The movie is divided into two parts: the first serves as a background on "Joker's" life as a human bandit; the second highlights his struggle and unravels some interesting secrets that reveals a long forgotten past. Throughout his journey, Joker encounters magic spells and mythical creatures while finding a way to cram in Chow's trademark slapstick humour.One element that sets "A Chinese Odyssey" apart from Chow's standard fare, though, is its willingness to showcase raw emotions. Although his satirical humor in widely appreciated, few of Chow's films are known to put aside screen time which depicts its characters as emotionally relatable to.Thankfully, "A Chinese Odyssey" serves as something of an anti-Chow project. It allows its viewers to sympathise with Joker's ordeal. It's a step away from the accident-prone heroes who are there for the single purpose of enticing a few chuckles. Demonstrating his humanity throughout the film, Joker nonetheless manages to deliver without sacrificing the fanfare that made Chow a household name.Too often we're offered films which veer towards one extreme. They're either focused entirely on comedy or riddled with so much cheese, they appear lame instead of the tear-jerker promised. Not so "A Chinese Odyssey." It delivers with consistency and therefore appeals to fans of different genres.
amid77
This is a nice movie, including the second part.You can really appreciate the imagination and some twisted sense of humor. Decent fighting scenes, pretty woman and impressive art design. The story is, well, kind of freaky, so all this together make this film very surreal, but entertaining enough. Stephan Chow, genius as usual, is very helpful. You can see that Jeffrey Lau got a lot on his mind. In this movie he presents identities in crisis, internal struggles, personal development and learning, some religious, cultural and social issues, including sexual problems. All this presented to the viewers through fantastic story, while completely ignoring the laws of Fisics. But the way he chooses to make his statements or opinions looks strange, simplistic and not complete, at least to Western culture cynic like me. There a lot of movies dealing with the same stuff in another way, more realistic and, that's why, more powerful. So, it's great Mr Lau are talking and presenting this sort of themes in his personal and interesting own way, but the movie is not for everyone. His extreme fantasy takes the viewers far away from reality, it's all very distant, like some alien world. The plot and the characters are very confusing sometimes, this unbelievable environment seems artificial and doubtful, so the movie has no real impact, no meaningful influence, it's like grabbing water with hand. You know you felt something, but there is nothing left.
whatdecow-1
This is the first of a two part movie series adapted from the classic Chinese novel,Journey To The West.I would consider this as the more comedic one,while the second is more action-packed,with a little sense of art-house in it(if you watch the two together it forms a perfect balance).In this movie,Stephen Chow's character had not yet transformed into the all invincible Monkey King,hence not much action here.It was also extremely loosely based on the novel,so fans of the book might not really like this.The comedy level in this movie is so extreme...you can't even stop laughing for a minute,so if necessary,watch it bit by bit to catch some breath.Watch this solely for the humor,and you'll see a masterpiece.Sing-yeh's best film of the nineties.Rate:****
