This mini-series is a humorous parable about the evolution of Chinese culture into the modern age. It uses the classic Chinese tale "Journey to the West" and shows its relevance in the modern age; the allegory here is that losing this book literally results in the loss of all the advances of modern civilization. It is retelling of the classic story, but in a Buddhist context of reliving the events in another cycle to make it relevant to the modern day. The story uses humor to make it accessible to the audience, and also to make the point that wrapping up tradition with too much seriousness causes some of the meaning and lesson of tradition to be lost. Some of the acting is pretty good, with Ric Young embracing contradiction portraying Confucius as a conniving villain and Ling Bai portraying Kuan Ying operating on many different levels. The Wizard-of-Oz ending was a little simplistic but it underlined how the story worked as allegory and parable. This is a light fluffy action story with a subtly complex political undertone, and an interesting interpretation of a classic tale.
Review of The Monkey King
