5.7 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 3.0 | |
Overall | 3.0 |
Sun Wukong, (The Monkey King) is a monkey born from a heavenly stone who acquires supernatural powers. After rebelling against heaven and being imprisoned under a mountain for 500 years, he later accompanies the monk Xuanzang on a journey to India.
Starring: Donnie Yen, Chow Yun-Fat, Aaron Kwok, Kelly Chen (I), Calvin ChengForeign | 100% |
Martial arts | 37% |
Action | 32% |
Fantasy | 16% |
Adventure | 8% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.40:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1
Mandarin: DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0
English
Blu-ray Disc
Two-disc set (1 BD, 1 DVD)
DVD copy
Slipcover in original pressing
Region A (locked)
Movie | 3.0 | |
Video | 3.5 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 0.0 | |
Overall | 3.0 |
The universe is evidently not done with leading me through a rather convoluted labyrinth that I detailed in our Journey to the West: The Demons Strike Back Blu-ray review. To recap briefly, while I had been introduced to some of the story elements of the so-called Monkey King tales in The Forbidden Kingdom, it perhaps unsurprisingly (given my general state of confusion) took me a while to realize that The Monkey King 2, the first film I personally reviewed based on the character, was in fact related to the Jackie Chan vehicle, if only tangentially. I was captivated enough by The Monkey King 2 to start researching the source saga as well as various cinematic treatments of it, which soon enough led me to two Hong Kong releases which preserved the 3D aspects of the films’ original theatrical exhibitions, The Monkey King 3D and The Monkey King 2 3D. As I mentioned in the The Monkey King 2 Blu-ray review, at the time that review went live, the only domestic Blu-ray release of The Monkey King 2’s progenitor I could find was The Monkey King: Havoc in Heaven's Palace, which appeared to be a MOD BD-R, which made me question how legitimate the release was (a fact which actually led me to the authorized Hong Kong releases linked to above). Now everything has come full circle with Cinedigm releasing The Monkey King: Havoc in Heaven's Palace for domestic consumption, though it follows in the kind of frustrating “tradition” I’ve mentioned in some other reviews of Asian releases in that it only preserves the “flat” 2D rendering of the film (and comes with only a stereo soundtrack, while the Hong Kong releases offer pretty boisterous surround tracks).
The Monkey King: Havoc in Heaven's Palace is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Cinedigm with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.40:1. I've included just a few screenshots from the Hong Kong release in positions 21 through 24 so that those interested can see, though the differences are perhaps not quite so apparent in the screenshots as they when watching the film in motion. While the Cinedigm has slightly different levels of contrast and overall palette hues, it suffers from what looks like over brightness, something that tends to make this CGI heavy production awash in a kind of hazy, ill defined, ambience a lot of the time. As can be seen in some screenshots, detail levels are pretty lackluster even in terms of elements like faces in some VFX heavy scenes. The bitrates of this release are often fairly anemic, with the Hong Kong release doubling them at regular intervals, which may account for some lack of detail. There are also some recurrent issues with banding. Otherwise, though, this offers generally very good detail levels when CGI elements aren't quite as prevalent, with things like the Monkey King's fur looking nicely defined.
The Monkey King: Havoc in Heaven's Palace offers a DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mix in Mandarin, with forced English subtitles (in all caps, weirdly enough). While there's nothing really seriously "wrong" with this stereo track, it simply can't compare to the really boisterous surround track on the Hong Kong release. As might be expected, this film is stuffed to the gills with sound effects, and several huge battle scenes just don't quite have the sonic energy in stereo that they do in the surround mix, especially with regard to the low end. That said, all elements, including dialogue and score, are clearly and precisely rendered on this problem free track, one which does offer good fidelity and nicely wide dynamic range.
There are no supplements on this Blu-ray disc.
Is my long and winding road through Monkey King material over? Only the Jade Emperor knows for sure, but it's been kind of fun investigating all of the different treatments of the source material, and finding the various releases that are available (without adding to what is probably already a confusing situation, some of the Journey to the West films have also received 3D Blu-ray releases overseas that haven't been duplicated for domestic consumption). This first Monkey King film is too rushed and episodic to ever deliver much in the way of emotional dividends, but it sure offers a glut of visual splendor, for those who are (like I am) dazzled by such wonderments. That said, I'd personally recommend going with the Hong Kong release for this film, since in my estimation it has superior video and inarguably better audio, along with both a 3D and 2D presentation (along with a few supplements).
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