Xi you jiang mo pian

Stephen Chow’s long-awaited return to directing is surprising at first glance due to its limited cadence of physical and verbal humour and, conversely, an overabundance of CGI extravagance. However, that doesn’t mean that the erstwhile master of Cantonese comedy has sold himself out. Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons merely shows him in a slightly different light than that in which he had generally been perceived before. Chow has always created purely folk spectacles and his film prequel to the notorious Journey to the West, or The Monkey King, is a modern variation of folk legends. The straightforward situational humour is effectively combined with the fantastical into a distinctively carnivalesque whole, where unrealistic bombast and a certain morbidity have their natural place. Though comparison to Jeffrey Lau’s crazy CGI mishmashes would be appropriate, this time Chow appears to be even more of an adherent of Tsui Hark, whose projects like A Chinese Ghost Story also revived the tarnished fantasy genre of Chinese culture for modern audiences. Indeed, we can see Chow’s entire career in the context of dusting off or invoking the styles of past decades, from his early works, when he brought new blood into the Cantonese comedy established by the Hui brothers, to Kung Fu Hustle, which pays tribute to the ground-breaking Cantonese classic The House of 72 Tenants. (2014.09.14)