Bringing in 110 million yuan ($16.46 million) on its day of release and over 600 million yuan during the seven-day Spring Festival (January 31 to February 6), domestic 3D fantasy movie The Monkey King become a box-office record breaker in China.
With similar box-office revenue, and adapted from the same ancient Chinese novel Journey to the West, The Monkey King is comparable to Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons, the action comedy directed by Stephen Chow and released at almost the same time last year.
Despite cleaning up at the box office like its predecessor, The Monkey King has received both positive and negative feedback from moviegoers.
Something old, something new
Starring a number of famous actors like Donnie Yen, Aaron Kwok and Chow Yun-Fat, The Monkey King tells the story of how the Monkey Sun Wukong was born and the subsequent uproar he caused in heaven.
At the start of the movie a new plot line is introduced: Dissatisfied with the deities leading the world, the demon tribe led by Bull Demon King (Kwok) starts a war with the purpose of overthrowing heaven. After being defeated and sent down to the Flaming Mountain, the Bull secretly plans a scheme for revenge - by taking advantage of God Erlang's (Peter Ho) discontentment with heaven and cheating the Monkey (Yen), who was born from a divine stone and endowed with genius and special powers.
The later part of the story becomes more loyal to the original classic novel. The development of the story is familiar even to kids, featuring the Monkey stealing his weapon from the Eastern Sea Palace and causing trouble at the Fairy Peach Grove - many classic scenes are included unchanged.
CG important
As a fantasy film with a large number of scenes set in the mysterious Heavenly Palace, Eastern Sea Palace, and Flaming Mountain, computer generated effects take up a large percentage of the whole film.
Some reports say that almost 98 percent of the shots in the film used special effects, and creating them all took three years. The team working on them included more than 1,900 people from seven countries, with a special effects budget of $40 million.
To create a realistic Monkey King, 200,000 yuan was spent on his hair, and the cost of his three coats of armor reached 600,000 yuan.
"It is estimated that 200 kilograms of monkey hair was used altogether," entertainment portal ent.sina.com reported.
One story, many versions
An ancient classic with both legendary stories and heroism, Journey to the West has been adapted many times for TV, movies and even opera.
The most well-known one is no doubt the 1986 TV version, staring Liu Xiao Ling Tong as the Monkey.
However, each new adaptation has caused some criticism. The two A Chinese Odyssey films, directed by Jeffrey Lau in 1994 and 1995, were harshly criticized for tampering with the classic story. Now, however, they are viewed as standard adaptations.
Last year's Conquering the Demons was criticized for showing the darker side of the three disciples (the monkey, the pig and the fish), who were portrayed in a milder and cuter way in earlier works.
Compared to previous films, movie critic Wang Siwei said that nowadays people are more open minded about movie producers adapting and changing classics, but the most important thing is whether new adaptations bring fresh surprises.
"Journey to the West itself is an imaginary story, after all," he noted.
Disapproval of critics
While many criticized the changing of the original plot, such as giving the Monkey a romantic relationship and making God Erlang a rebellious figure, Ma Boyong, a contemporary novelist seems to have a similar opinion with Wang. He argued many of the critics did not get the point. "There is no need to discuss too much whether the story is loyal to the original or not. The fault is not that it made these changes, but in the poor adaptation," he wrote on his Sina Weibo.
Even the CG special effects have come in for criticism. Domestic movie critic Xiedu Dianying gave the film a one star rating, saying the special effects "look OK during important scenes but the small details are lacking. It is the details that test the level of special effects."
Despite a box-office return of $46 million over three days (Friday to Sunday) in the seven territories the film was released, a critic from Variety said "Many of the visuals are over-saturated and simply sub-standard, resembling cheap computer-games."
Zhu Yuming, president of operations at Filmko Entertainment and one of the makers of The Monkey King, told the Global Times that from the very beginning the film was planned for the whole family to enjoy.
"To be understandable for audiences from age 8 to 80, all the characters needed to be clear enough as heroes or villains," Zhu said.
To make the movie popular with a global audience, Zhu explained that they learnt from Hollywood movies of the same genre. "For example, Superman. [To make The Monkey King] a superhero film was our plan."
As for the special effects, Zhu said he had received positive feedback from industry insiders.
"For a domestic production it is at a very high level," Zhu told the Global Times. "But it is still a trial. We admit there are flaws and we can see them ourselves. But I still believe you need to take that first step."