Audiences seem more than happy to welcome these numerous adaptations. Over the past two years, a majority of Journey remakes released in the mainland, such as Stephen Chow's big-budget blockbuster Journey to the West: Demons Fight Back , have chosen to debut during the Chinese New Year holidays, arguably the country's most fiercely competitive period for films.
In most cases this was a wise movie as a majority of these films saw commercial, if not critical, success during the period. Demons Fight Back alone raked in more than 1. Humanized hero But where did people's fascination for this centuries-old pilgrimage story come from?
And why have Journey remakes performed more successfully globally than adaptations of other classic works of Chinese literature? First of all, it may be that the story's mythical setting full of monsters and gods provides abundant material for studios to make fantasy films that are easily understood by both Eastern and Western audiences. Hanuman from Hindu mythology is believed to have been one of the inspirations for Sun Wukong.
Journey to the West introduces a host of fantastical characters to the pilgrimage, notably a coterie of supernatural disciples: Zhu Bajie, Sha Wujing, and the inimitable Sun Wukong. He shares the same cultural appeal as characters like Coyote, Loki, and Odysseus.
But the Monkey King, being the narcissist that he is, takes it a step further than most. And that is an incredibly powerful image, especially in Chinese culture, which traditionally espouses family over individuality, duty over personal desire.
What makes Sun Wukong so enduring though, perhaps, is the paradoxical nature of his existence. A tour guide? A modern story? If you have already heard of the monkey king, the answer should not be difficult.
0コメント