Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		4.5
Audio		5.0
Extras		1.0
Overall		3.0

Immortal Demon Slayer: The Legend of Wu Kong Blu-ray Movie Review

If it's any day, this must be The Monkey King.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman May 5, 2018

Thank Heaven Immortal Demon Slayer came along, because it had been virtually several days since I’ve had to review a release linked to the venerable 16th century literary classic Journey to the West by Ming author Wu Cheng’en, and I was starting to go through the early stages of withdrawal. Without rehashing a long and winding tale which has taken me through all sorts of cinematic adaptations, I’ll simply point interested readers to The Monkey King: Havoc in Heaven's Palace Blu-ray review, Journey to the West: The Demons Strike Back Blu-ray review, The Monkey King 2 Blu-ray review and/or The Monkey King 3 Blu-ray review for some semblance of “the story thus far” (at least as it refers to my personal involvement with this general story source). I recently opened our Once Upon a Time Blu-ray review by stating:

I’m beginning to think there’s a whole separate industry subsumed within the general Asian filmmaking community that is singularly devoted to the production of mythic stories featuring gods and goddesses, a subset of hard toiling technicians all working tirelessly to provide intricately designed films that offer a series of amazing sequences drenched in CGI, along with an often just as confusing array of characters and plotlines. Just in the past few months, for example, I’ve reviewed a slew of these fantasy laden films, including The Monkey King 3, Along with the Gods: The Two Worlds, The Thousand Faces of Dunjia, and Legend of the Naga Pearls (and mind you, I'm just going back a month or two), and it’s getting to the point that I am so buried in Chinese mythology and/or quasi-mythology that it’s getting hard to remember who little “characters” like Moses and Jesus are (yes, that’s a joke).

I’d like to now amend, or at least append, that statement by remarking that there is more than obviously a subset of this subset devoted entirely to films about Sun Wu Kong (Eddie Peng in this particular interation), the kind of impish, always just slightly out of control, apelike character who, at least in the other films based on Journey to the West, teams up with several other hybrid characters and one honest to goodness human, a monk on a quest for sacred scriptures. (Various adaptations have transliterated the character's name as Wukong, but I'll follow this film's formulation in this review.) Immortal Demon Slayer, which evidently was released overseas theatrically as Wu Kong, actually might be thought of as a “prequel” of sorts, documenting a kind of origin story for the character, who in this version is less of a monkey and more of a scruffy humanoid divinity (at least for the bulk of the running time).

As it turns out, that singular difference is no doubt linked to the fact that Immortal Demon Slayer is really based on a “new, improved” version of the basic story elements of Journey to the West, a book which looks like it’s been released under a couple of titles (at least according to some cursory online research I did in preparation for this review), The Legend of Wu Kong and/or Legends of the Monkey King by Hezai Jin. Immortal Demon Slayer actually begins with a kind of prequel to the prequel, with an animated sequence documenting the destruction of Mount Huaguo, the home of Sun Wu Kong. Because this opening sequence is so brief, yet so stuffed full of information, I personally had some questions as to whether this is the same mountain that the Monkey King is ensnared in (beneath?) in some other versions of the story, but the upshot is that Wu Kong is on a quest for revenge this time, working to defeat a so-called “destiny astrolabe” that is ensconced in a top secret room in the astral world, and which Wu Kong considers responsible for the destruction of his homeland and in fact his own personal predicaments.

That gives this version of the tale arguably more focus than some of the “regular” Monkey King outings, many of which tend to be fairly vignette driven, and yet I have to say I was as generally confused throughout as much of Immortal Demon Slayer as I have been with any of the Monkey King or Journey to the West outings. While certain relationships, including Wu Kong’s dysfunctional interchanges with several villains, are more or less clear, the whole overarching context of this version can be hard to follow. As with many of the other live action outings based on this same basic source material (yes, there have been animated productions as well), there’s a fairly nonstop array of visual delights to be had here, with everything from the gigantic astrolabe, to an equally gigantic magic rod for Wu Kong providing lots of CGI and other special effects wizardry.

Immortal Demon Slayer: The Legend of Wu Kong Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Immortal Demon Slayer is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Cinedigm and Crimson Forest with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.39:1. It looks like one of our members incorrectly listed this as being a Well Go USA release, which would have been a good guess, considering that label's prevalence of Asian themed materials (including other Monkey King films). But kind of ironically, this Cinedigm release shows the same sort of banding in initial mastheads of several of the production entities that is often noticed in Well Go USA releases as well. After that slightly unstable beginning, things settle down considerably, though quite a bit of the CGI, especially backgrounds, tend to look fairly soft throughout this presentation. Fine detail on elements like costumes and props is typically excellent, especially in the many close-ups. The palette is nicely suffused throughout, and the many darker scenes have above average shadow definition. This is yet another Asian film that looks like it had a 3-D release in its native market, but which is only being offered in a "flat" 2D version on this side of the pond.

Immortal Demon Slayer: The Legend of Wu Kong Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Immortal Demon Slayer features an impressive DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix that keeps the side and rear channels regularly engaged, and which also offers some really stupendous washes of LFE panning through the soundstage at several key junctures. The film is a bit less "noisy" than some of the other Monkey King and Journey to the West films are, with actual minutes going by without things going boom and the like. But there are a number of outstanding set pieces scattered throughout the film that offer a glut of surround placement, all with excellent fidelity and wide dynamic range. Dialogue is also presented cleanly and clearly throughout the audio presentation.

Immortal Demon Slayer: The Legend of Wu Kong Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Behind the Scenes: Interviews with Cast (1080p; 5:26) offers brief snippets with Shawn Yue (Yang Jian), Cho Cu (Tian Peng), Dee Yang (Ju Ling) and Feihong Hui (Hua Ji), along with some fun (if equally brief) candid footage showing some wire and green screen work.


• Behind the Scenes: Interview with Director and Screenwriter (1080p; 3:15) offers brief moments with Derek Kwok, who wrote and directed the film, and Kezai Jin, who provided the source novel and co-scripted.


• Behind the Scenes: Visual Effects Montage (1080p; 1:59) offers some fun looks at effects being composited.


• Bloopers (1080p; 1:25)


• Trailer (1080p; 1:56)

Immortal Demon Slayer: The Legend of Wu Kong Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Immortal Demon Slayer gets a lot of things right. It has a clear narrative focus, something that has been pretty noticeably lacking in several of the other Monkey King and/or Journey to the West outings, and it offers an interesting conceptual take on the by now iconic character of Wu Kong. But even with a running time of around two hours, there are vast areas of the story which felt underdeveloped or at least underexplored to me, and I wish some of the running time had simply been given over to a clear explanation of some of the context, especially with regard to the kind of fascistic heavenly (hellish?) realm where Wu Kong does his battling. The kinda sorta love angle with a character played by the gorgeous Ni Ni also feels like a tangent and never ends up amounting to much in terms of emotional impact. This is yet another recent release I'm stuffing in my "shiny object" pile, meaning those who like lots to look at and listen to may well be able to overcome some of the film's other shortcomings. For those who are so inclined, this Cinedigm disc offers generally excellent technical merits.