The Monkey King Reborn Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		5.0
Audio		4.5
Extras		0.5
Overall		3.0

The Monkey King Reborn Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman November 29, 2021

Yeah, yeah, yeah, the title references a monkey, but some wise soul may caution curious types to be careful of falling down a rabbit hole when approaching any film with either "monkey king" in its moniker or just such a character among its cast. While nowhere near the full complement of such films, just the following list of items I've personally reviewed may be enough to highlight what a kind of amazingly huge subgenre "monkey king" movies have been (and evidently will continue to be, as I'll mention below): The Monkey King: Havoc in Heaven's Palace, Journey to the West: The Demons Strike Back, The Monkey King 2, Immortal Demon Slayer: The Legend of Wu Kong and The Monkey King 3 have all crossed my review queue over several previous years, and as I've mentioned in some of the reviews of those films, other "monkey king" outings have also been part of my viewing fare, including such films as Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons, The Forbidden Kingdom, Monkey King: Hero Is Back , The Monkey King 3D and The Monkey King 2 3D. Now, the kind of funny and possibly ironic thing about all of the above linked films is that they are all live action, and yet attempt to deliver the kind of over the top lunacy that is often associated with animated fare, while The Monkey King Reborn is indeed a "cartoon", albeit one glimmering with all the digital wonderment that CGI can offer.

Some elements of this version of the Monkey King saga will strike some viewers who have seen any and/or all of the aforementioned films as probably unavoidably repetitive, but there are at least some sidebars which may provide a bit of interest, perhaps especially for those who have seen some of those other films. In that regard, it's interesting to note that in this story the Monkey King has not been exiled to an underground lair for untold millennia (or at least not within the general confines of the story being told), but instead releases a similarly imprisoned entity. That "mistake" is just one way that The Monkey King Reborn attempts to deliver an arguably more viscerally ambiguous title character, one who is frequently under the sway of his darker impulses and who is just as prone to harass as he is to help.

Even this film's opening "origin story", delivered over a montage of imagery suggesting huge epochal creative forces at play that can't quite keep the center from not holding (to quote a certain apocalyptically minded poet), is less about the Monkey King in particular than about things in general and the King of Demons who happens to be the villain the Monkey King unleashes unwittingly. Some of the rest of this tale, and especially some of the characters, will be more than familiar to those who have seen some of the glut of other Monkey King properties. Along with Sun Wukong (the Monkey King's actual name), there are a number of "and the rest" folks who, while perhaps not always having exactly the same names as in other adaptations, are more or less the same characters. These include the monk Tang Sanzang, the pig like creature named Zhu Bajie and the kind of fish like Sha Wujing. The bantering interplay between Bajie and Wujing in particular may feel the most familiar to those who have seen some of the other Monkey King films.

If the story and at least some of the characters in this particular enterprise may not offer much innovation, the film is rather surprisingly artful in both senses of the word in its visual acuity, which combines a number of different styles to deliver an often compelling viewing experience. The live action Monkey King films often strive to offer a "Chuck Jones" sensibility at times, and this piece of pure animation is a vertiginous, cartwheeling exercise in manic energy a lot of the time. That can frankly be a bit exhausting after a while, but it at least gives the film some impact that is frequently quite enjoyable to just watch.

The Monkey King Reborn Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Monkey King Reborn is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Well Go USA with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.39:1. There's next to no information of any kind on this film that I was able to dredge up online, but this product of the digital domain makes it onto a digital format with very few issues of any kind. As mentioned above in the main body of the review, there are a few different styles that are employed, with the often seen gambit of a more hand drawn appearance being offered in the early montage documenting the "big bang" (or something like that), which then moves on to the more fully realized CGI look that can offer some rubbery facial textures at times, but which otherwise offers pretty substantial detail levels in a lot of the rendering, including things like the Monkey King's fur. The palette is nicely robust and some of the deeper reds, purples and blues are especially evocative. Well Go USA's Blu-ray releases have been improving in terms of some compression anomalies that have cropped up from time to time, and I'm happy to report I noticed nothing of any major import to distract or annoy in this presentation.

The Monkey King Reborn Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

As is frequently the case with Well Go USA releases of Asian fare, there are original language (in this case Mandarin) and English tracks available in either DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 or Dolby Digital 2.0. There are some interesting differences in mixes, especially with regard to amplitude of actual dialogue, that can be heard when toggling between the Mandarin and English tracks, but in terms of effects and score, the two are virtually interchangeable. The DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 tracks offer good engagement of the surround channels throughout the presentation, with a number of the Monkey King's high flying shenanigans offering some nice immersive moments that can almost swirl around the listener. Dialogue is rendered cleanly and clearly throughout. While the optional English subtitles for dialogue are removable, some identifying English subtitles (for things like signs and the like) are hardcoded into the transfer.

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

• Trailer (HD; 1:43)

Note: As tends to be the case with Well Go USA Blu-ray releases, the the disc has been authored to automatically move on to trailers for other Well Go USA releases after the trailer for this film plays. Those trailers for other Well Go USA releases also play automatically at disc boot up.

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

My opening paragraph above alluded to the fact that we may not yet have seen the end of this evidently interminable Journey to the West, as the IMDb discloses that yet another Monkey King film is due imminently. This animated version is fun to see, but its story is pretty rote and will probably fail to excite those who have already seen one or more of the live action Monkey King films. Technical merits are solid for those who may be considering making a purchase.