First the TV series and the book by Wu Cheng'en (1500-1582) - Journey To The West - 1994-2011, later.
The main actors were kept for the whole series with one exception: Pigsy. The first actor gave up halfway to the end and was replaced. That was a big challenge to shoot fifty-two episodes in three years. The producers are Kokusai Hoei Co. Ltd and the Nippon Television Network and the original literary work, a long picaresque saga from the sixteenth century with the action situated in the Tang Dynasty's historical period from 618 to 936. I will cover the book later but let me say the TV series neglects some crucial elements. First, the big journey to the west identified as India has one objective: to bring the Buddhist sacred books back to China. This is kept but the most important element in China itself is not kept. The period saw the struggle of two religious movements, Buddhism and Taoism, and the Buddhists are struggling against the Taoists because the Taoists believe in and practice slavery, whereas the Buddhists refuse this concept and practice. This fundamental struggle is a crucial development that was to produce modern China that is deeply based on a benevolent Buddhist vision of the collectivity in which every individual has a personal role to play, but all individuals must have the good of the community in mind all the time.
Hence the dangers on the road are reduced to bandits, thieves, murderers, on one hand, and witches, monsters, magicians, and other semi-human beings, with only one really supernatural being known as Buddha, and she - yes, she is a woman - intervenes from the sky frequently. One element is missing, and it reduces the religious story of the original book. In the book, most monsters are beings who, in fact, escaped from some kind of divine or semi-divine masters and stole some secret or weapon from them that enabled them to become the evil-doing creatures they are at first in the story before regressing or being put back into their original servitude. This dimension of the gods - and there are many - not being able to take care of and keep under control the creatures they more or less dominate, at times in some kind of slavery, is reducing the adventures to very human circumstances, or at best or worst, superstitious beliefs. The original work defends the idea that Buddhism and this particular mission changed China for good and gave birth to the modern and unified China we know today. Neglecting this side of the picaresque saga is to miss the possibility to understand modern China. We think of Don Quixote and his struggle against the windmills seen as symbols of feudalism that had some difficulty both surviving and disappearing in the sixteenth century in Spain, with the Moors, or the Saracens behind them, Islam and the reconquest, the Inquisition and the banning of Jews, not to mention the crusades. China is a completely different story that has little to do with outside forces, though Buddhism is seen as Asian and connected to India, but it is more the object of a pilgrimage to India than the danger of conquest by India.
The main interest of the series is then the magic tricks Monkey is developing in his daily adventures, especially his staff and his cloud, plus his ability to change his appearance. He is a good fighter with Pigsy and Sandy, and their own tools are used as weapons, and the fights are like some kind of ballet being performed over and over again, and apparently, Monkey only kills real certified monsters, though he may also convert some to Buddhism and good doing. In the same way, as Buddha is seen as a woman, the priest who is systematically referred to as a man and a male, is played by an actress and she surely has a feminine face. This feminization of Buddhism is a little bit surprising though it is true Buddhism took a pro-woman stance from the very start, Buddha himself, with the opening of the Sangha, the religious order, to female monks, Bhikkhunis, as opposed to male Bhikkhus. That was the period in China when Deng Xiaoping started emerging and China started reforming and opening, but that is surprising. This also obliges the series to avoid any type of even partial nudity, though in the novel the priest and the disciples are often captured, stripped naked, and hung in some underground food reserve for later use in some banquet. None of that here. Of course, even Monkey could not be shown in some state of nudity since he would not have all the body hairs he is systematically using for his magic. We will note he does not at all hesitate to create three, four, or five male beings from his chest hairs to become his slave soldiers or slave workers.
That gives many episodes a rather childish feeling, if not meaning, and the deeper Buddhist meaning is not really captured. This trip - in the series - is a lifelong trip that targets the improvement of the participants, the cleaning up of some evils along the way, the absolute concentration on the spiritual dimension, though Pigsy has a real problem with his sensual nature looking for the immediate pleasure of his senses, which can only come from women. At times he is lubricious and lascivious, slightly too much even.
In the final episodes this lifelong trip to improvement, hence to Nibbana or Nirvana, to enlightenment, becomes clear though not really explained in detail as being an objective in life that can only be fulfilled in death. Kamma or Karma is nothing easy to reach in this life to guarantee the non-rebirth after death and the final uplifting and merging into the cosmic energy that is the real creator of this universe of ours. I must say that the scenery, natural scenery even, is rather good though in a slightly superficial way, from high in the sky, from Monkey's magic cloud, but some natural scenes are quite impressive.
Enjoy the trip but be sure you have some time because fifty-two episodes, plus the extras, is a tremendous mission: thirteen DVDs with more than three hours of Monkey Magic per DVD, hence more than thirty-nine hours of screen time. It should cover many days. I managed it in twenty-six days over one month. But if you have confinement programmed for soon next week and to last a couple of weeks, you will be able to watch the whole series at least twice. With the second viewing, you might be able to crack the strong Asian if not Extreme-Oriental accent and follow most of the dialogue, because they speak a lot, in-between the various fights choreographed like some Olympic celebration.
Dr. Jacques COULARDEAU.
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