For those unfamiliar with the Monkey King, otherwise named Sun Wukong, he is a popular character from "Journey to the West," a sixteenth-century Chinese epic that tells the tale of monk Xuanzang's journey to India, helped along the way by the mischievous Monkey King.
"Monkey King 2" sees the monk save the Monkey King (Aaron Kwok) from his imprisonment under a mountain, where he has been kept for 500 years -- or since 2014, where we left the Money King at the end of the first installment. Freed by the monk, Monkey King is now bound to his service and must help the monk battle against the myriad demons that stand between him and his destination.
Throughout the film, Monkey uses his arsenal of martial-art skills, magical abilities, and his trusted cudgel to protect the monk from this installment's bad guys -- the child-snatching White Lady/White Bone Demon (played by Gong Li) and a blood-drinking king (played by Fei Xiang) who all want a piece of the monk's flesh (monks' flesh is a cure-all and bringer of immortality).
From the outset, White Lady and her demon friends pursue the monk and his team. Her aim is to eat the monk and avoid being reincarnated. What seems like a simple mission is thwarted time and time again by the Monkey King.
In fact, it is Aaron Kwok's acting, and Sammo Hung's action-direction, along with breath-taking CGI that shows how far the Chinese industry has come in only a few years, that makes this film so popular. The action and the visuals don't give the viewer time to think about the inconsistent narrative.
In her first attempt to ensnare the monk, White Lady -- in the guise of a harmless old weaver woman -- uses spider-silk to secretly bind the monk. This ability comes out of nowhere, is not explained, and never gets used again. The silk-thread seems to be sewing together a plausible way for the White Lady to capture the monk without revealing herself to be a demon.
Similarly, later in the film it turns out that the White Lady's snow-capped lair is protected by an army of the undead but no explanation is given as to how these skeletal warriors came to be on top of a snowy mountain other than to provide the script-writers with another vehicle to show off Kwok's martial arts and China's CGI abilities.
White Lady inexplicably has the ability to use these skeletons -- now shattered by the Monkey King's kicks and punches -- to turn herself into a giant skeleton, which provides the film with its end-level boss and its last piece of over-the-top action.
Some of this might be explained by cultural differences and knowledge. "Journey to the West," on which Monkey King is based and from which there have been countless TV and cinema retellings, is a part of Chinese lore. Where a western viewer might not understand what's going on, Chinese viewers will come to the film with a fountain of knowledge that will fill in the gaps. After all, why explain to the viewer what they likely already know.
Odd narrative and cultural backgrounds aside, it is easy to see why "Monkey King 2" topped box-office charts in February by making $117 million in opening week (double the first movie's first week intake). This is a film that does not pretend to be an installment of a massive epic like "Lord of the Ring" movies or its less liked sibling "The Hobbit," but more a chance to see awesome fighting scenes set against a backdrop of top-range special effects. If you're to see the film, make sure you check your disbelief at the door so you can better enjoy the ride.
