The Monkey King 3 Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		4.5
Audio		5.0
Extras		0.5
Overall		3.0

The Monkey King 3 Blu-ray Movie Review

The Shape of Ancient Chinese Water.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman April 28, 2018

Well, the Jade Emperor has struck again. I closed our The Monkey King: Havoc in Heaven's Palace Blu-ray review by asking “Is my long and winding road through Monkey King material over? Only the Jade Emperor knows for sure”, and sure enough, just a few months after that review was posted, I’m back in the wild, wooly and frequently extremely wacky world of the Monkey King, a franchise which I’ve been tangling with now for some time, not just courtesy of films with “Monkey King” in their title. Both the above linked review and our Journey to the West: The Demons Strike Back Blu-ray review go into some detail about the kind of mind boggling array of cinematic adaptations that have been based on one of so called “four great classical novels” of Chinese literature, and considering how confusing trying to keep track of these adaptations can be, it may simply be time to find a copy of the original source tome by Chinese poet Wu Cheng'en, or perhaps the evidently well regarded English language redaction, Monkey, by Arthur Waley, and read those. Since I haven’t in fact read either Journey to the West or Monkey, I can’t state with any certitude what if any of The Monkey King 3’s decidedly weird plot dynamics are based on the evidently sprawling source novel, but this particular outing, while as visually alluring as most of the other adaptations that I’ve seen have been, is a bit of a slog, detailing the exploits of Sun Wukong (Aaron Kwok), also known as The Monkey King, and his cohorts as they travel through a magical realm run entirely by (man hating) women. (Some online data I researched while doing background reading for this review does suggest that the plot of this film is at least partially based on story elements from the original source novel.)

While there’s no stop motion in this CGI heavy enterprise, lots of The Monkey King 3 actually kinda sorta reminded me of classic Ray Harryhausen, at least in terms of its overall quest ambience and some of the larger than life gods, goddesses and (perhaps most saliently) scorpions and other beasts that populate its otherworldly locales. The film in fact starts with a little vignette which is at least somewhat like a sequence in Jason and the Argonauts, with Tang Sanzang (Feng Shaofeng), Zhu Bajie (Shenyang Xiao) and Sha Wujing (Him Law), floating down a river in a little skiff, where they’re soon joined by Sun Wukong, the Monkey King himself. The quartet has a little fracas with a water demon, and the upshot is they end up in so-called Womanland, which might be likened to the Ancient Chinese version of Amazon Women on the Moon.

There, it doesn’t take long for our hero monk to meet cute (actually fall cute) with a gorgeous young princess named Nü'erguo guowang (Zhao Liying). She is under the sway of a rather Maleficent-esque sorceress called the Preceptor (Gigi Leung), who has instructed the beautiful ruler that all men are evil and are a poison that must be eradicated. The Preceptor in fact wants to immediately execute Sanzang and his acolytes, but the princess has already felt a (dangerous) spark of romantic attraction toward the monk, and has other ideas.

As with the other Monkey King films, this outing is rather vignette driven, even if it gives lip service to a supposedly mysteriously missing text that the monk would like to become part of his collection of scriptures (part of the overriding plot mechanics of both the source novel and all of the Monkey King films). But what’s kind of odd about this entry is the emphasis on Womanland and the supposed romantic entanglement between the princess and the monk, one which the monk insists can’t be fostered, let alone consummated, due to his vows of celibacy. That kind of puts the kibosh on any traditional “happily ever after” for a love story, but then the film goes off on a decidedly odd tangent involving the river demon seen in the first sequence that ends up playing like some kind of distant Chinese cousin to The Shape of Water.

The Monkey King franchise has been a big hit over the past few years in its native land as the "film to go to" to celebrate the Chinese New Year, and if taken on that baseline "popcorn munching" (and perhaps slightly hung over) level, the film delivers a litany of visual blandishments, while offering at least the semblance of a through line that suffices as a putative "plot". There are already plans for a slew of new Monkey King sequels that will reportedly be unspooled over the many Chinese New Years to come, but there may be time before the next one arrives to actually crack open a volume of the gigantic Journey to the West and do a little background research.

The Monkey King 3 Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Monkey King 3 is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Well Go USA with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.85:1. The IMDb lists the Red Epic X Dragon as having digitally captured the often astounding imagery in the film, which was finished at a 2K DI (again, according to the IMDb). Unfortunately, this is yet another Asian film, and yet another Monkey King outing, that had a 3D theatrical exhibition overseas but which is only receiving a 2D Blu-ray release here. Even more unfortunately, while some of the other Monkey King films have had foreign 3D Blu-ray releases (you can read about some of them in some of my previous reviews of this franchise), there doesn't appear to be a foreign 3D Blu-ray release available for this particular film, at least not as of the writing of this review. One way or the other, while "flat", this is a very appealing looking presentation. There's the typical Well Go USA banding on their masthead, but after that, there really aren't any major anomalies that I noticed. The CGI can look rather soft at times (especially some of the underwater footage), but practical elements like props, costumes and actual humans (whether or not they're made up to look like hybrid creatures) typically offer robust fine detail levels. The palette is nicely suffused, with a wide range of tones and generally warm look.

The Monkey King 3 Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The Monkey King 3 features a fantastically boisterous DTS:X mix in Mandarin, as well as a generally forceful if not quite as immersive DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix in Cantonese. Lip movements are pretty loose no matter which language is chosen, which leads me to believe this was probably a multilingual cast performing in whatever native tongue suited them best. While synch may therefore look a little loose at times, in terms of surround activity and effects, this is a reference quality track, with a number of huge effects sequences the regularly place sounds (like the water demon rising out of the river) over the listener's head and which also regularly engage the side and rear channels. Fidelity is problem free, and dynamic range extremely wide on this very enjoyable track.

The Monkey King 3 Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Teaser Trailer (1080p; 1:37)


• Trailer (1080p; 1:25)

Note: Leaving aside for a moment the fact that the Teaser Trailer is longer than the actual Trailer, this disc follows in Well Go USA's typical tradition of being authored so that the two supplements above follow each other automatically. After the Trailer for this film plays, the disc then moves automatically on to trailers for other Well Go USA releases. Those other trailers also play at disc boot up.

The Monkey King 3 Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

The Monkey King 3 probably falls in that "shiny object" territory that I personally haven't been shy about admitting tends to keep me entertained, even if I'm not completely involved in the story. This is another freewheeling assault on the senses that includes a number of visually gorgeous sequences, along with a really impressive DTS:X soundtrack, two elements that might help distract the viewer from the feeling that not much is making sense in this outing. Maybe The Monkey King 4 can develop a more coherent story. If not, there's always The Monkey King 5. Technical merits are first rate, and with caveats noted, The Monkey King 3 comes Recommended.