[JOURNEY
TO THE WEST: CONQUERING THE DEMONS screens Thursday May 8th at 6:45 pm and Friday May 9th at 9:20 pm at the Cleveland Cinematheque.]
Review
by Bob Ignizio
Loosely
based on a 16th century Chinese novel considered one of the four
great novels of Chinese classical literature, Stephen Chow and Derek
Kok's JOURNEY TO THE WEST: CONQUERING THE DEMONS
feels anything but literary. Rather it is, like most of Chow's work
as a director (SHAOLIN SOCCER, KUNG FU HUSTLE, etc.), a lighthearted action/adventure romp full of
improbable situations and slapstick humor.
As
the film starts, a fishing village is being terrorized by a fish
demon, a sequence which alludes to JAWS
when a dubious demon hunter kills a giant stingray, only to be told
by “unshaved monk” Tang Sanzang (Wen Zhang) that he got the wrong
critter. Indeed this turns out to be the case when the real fish
demon returns to gobble up a few villagers. Sanzang tries to subdue
the monster by reading it nursery rhymes, which he believes will
bring out the good in the creature. When this fails, it's up to yet
another demon hunter, the striking Miss Duan (Shu Qi) to save the
day. From here on, the film is a series of vignettes in which Sanzang
and Duan track down and do battle with other dastardly entities,
Sanzang coping with both his own self doubt and the unwanted advances
of Miss Duan.
