Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		3.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		0.0
Overall		3.0

The Monkey King: Havoc in Heaven's Palace Blu-ray Movie Review

The first shall be last.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman October 7, 2017

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).

Journey to the West is evidently one of the most iconic novels in the entire redolent history of Chinese literature, having been written in the 16th century by a scholar and poet named Wu Cheng’en. The basic storyline is basically a quest outing, following the adventures of a Buddhist monk named Xuanzang, who journeys westward to obtain some sacred texts, but who ends up interacting with a trio of rather outlandish anthropomorphized characters, including the Monkey King himself, otherwise known as Sun Wukong (played by Donnie Yen in this particular film). The Monkey King is something of an origin story, and in fact Xuanzang is hardly present. The film begins with a cosmic battle between good and evil, as personified by the Jade Emperor (Chow Yun-fat), representing good as the ruler of Heaven, and the Bull Demon King (Aaron Kwok), of course representing evil as one of the major domos of more nefarious realms. While the Jade Emperor really doesn’t have too much trouble apparently dispatching the Bull Demon King, right before the Jade Emperor is about to totally take out his nemesis, Princess Iron Fan (Joe Chen), the Jade Emperor’s sister and the lover of the Bull Demon King, begs for mercy, which the Jade Emperor reluctantly grants.

As I’ve mentioned in the by now several reviews of Monkey King related movies, none of these films are especially strong on narrative elements, tending to focus instead on what amounts to visual phantasmagoria. That aspect is certainly evident in The Monkey King as well, with a fairly large amount of expository material pretty much glossed over in the early going, including exactly how The Monkey King himself even came to be (something to do with magic crystals). By the time Sun Wukong is shown as an adult, there’s very little context or background that’s been offered, and instead the viewer is simply plopped down in what becomes a defining characteristic for the weird simian hybrid — a conflict between his nobler instincts and his tendency to wreak havoc wherever he goes.

While there’s certainly a decent enough throughline in the film, with the Bull Demon King doing his best to upset the heavenly protocols, it’s the film’s visual luster that probably provides the most lasting impact. While obviously produced with 3D firmly in mind, even the “flat” presentation is a wonderland of CGI overkill, with fantastic beasts and environments regularly on display. Yen is quite enjoyable as the Monkey King, a character who is not really likable in the traditional sense, but who ends up being weirdly lovable in spite of his foibles.

The Monkey King: Havoc in Heaven's Palace Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

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 Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

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.

The Monkey King: Havoc in Heaven's Palace Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

There are no supplements on this Blu-ray disc.

The Monkey King: Havoc in Heaven's Palace Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

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).