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A review by thereadingmum
Monkey King: Journey to the West by Wu Ch'eng-En
adventurous
funny
lighthearted
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
This is exactly how I remember the story of Sun Wu Kong being. It's more a series of vignettes with a loose over-arching storyline.
A mountain lays this stone egg which hatches a monkey. This monkey goes on to wreak mischievous havoc on everything and everyone until finally the goddess of mercy puts a magic ring on his head that contracts when a spell is recited. She tells this to a monk, Tripitaka, and then instructs monkey to accompany Tripitaka on his quest to the west to bring Buddha's sacred scrolls back to China.
The main story is that of this "Journey to the West", which is a book in itself, but adds Monkey's origin story at the beginning so you fully comprehend the extent of his mayhem.
The one thing that really annoyed me was that the narrator, given his name and if he's the actor, his profile on IMDB, being Chinese, couldn't pronounce the Mandarin words properly. It wasn't terrible, but I expected better. He did a great job with the voices and the dramatic element though, which helped me overlook that defect. Perhaps the other version of this narrated by Kevin Shen would have been better.
A mountain lays this stone egg which hatches a monkey. This monkey goes on to wreak mischievous havoc on everything and everyone until finally the goddess of mercy puts a magic ring on his head that contracts when a spell is recited. She tells this to a monk, Tripitaka, and then instructs monkey to accompany Tripitaka on his quest to the west to bring Buddha's sacred scrolls back to China.
The main story is that of this "Journey to the West", which is a book in itself, but adds Monkey's origin story at the beginning so you fully comprehend the extent of his mayhem.
The one thing that really annoyed me was that the narrator, given his name and if he's the actor, his profile on IMDB, being Chinese, couldn't pronounce the Mandarin words properly. It wasn't terrible, but I expected better. He did a great job with the voices and the dramatic element though, which helped me overlook that defect. Perhaps the other version of this narrated by Kevin Shen would have been better.