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The Butterfly
Tornado Alley
This review may contain spoilers
"Of all the poisons, men are the most dangerous!"
Monkey King 3 took up where Monkey King 2 left off. Aaron Kwok returned as the Monkey King along with Feng Shao Feng, Xiao Shen Yang, and Him Law. Zhao Li Ying joined them this time as the Queen of the Women’s Kingdom.
Wu Kong, Pigsy, Sandy, and Tang Seng are heading west on a river when a river demon assaults them. There’s an old joke, “You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him ski.” This was as close to a skiing horse as you are likely to see! With the help of the goddess they escape and go from the frying pan into the fire. They crash through the portal into Woman Land where Tang Seng and the Queen seem to fall in love as they plummet down a mountain. The Preceptor, a very uptight woman dressed in white, declares the men must die because they have made the cardinal sin…of being men. Men’s love is poison to a woman and it’s looking like the Queen might have been infected. She rescues them during their execution and they seek to find a way out of the spell dome over the land.
The CGI was good for the most part and there was a lot of it. Woman’s Land had beautiful dwellings and strange monsters abounded.
Aaron Kwok is the best Monkey King I’ve seen. Too bad he had very little to do in this movie. This story was more of a romance and spiritual trial than adventure. Even the “villain” was just misunderstood and hurting. Tang Seng and the Queen had to decide between love and duty as did the Preceptor. Even if you are like me and only know the story from the movies, the ending was inevitable.
I had reservations about certain aspects of the story. The one whom the Preceptor had loved during her youth was an androgynous river god. Years before because of her duty to the new queen, the Preceptor had to reject the river god who then became unproductive, obsessive and wrathful. The spirit who could cause miscarriages appeared to be a man in woman’s clothing which was played for laughs. Not very 2018 of them on either count, neither was portrayed positively. The men ended up pregnant, very pregnant after accidentally ingesting the water from the river of womanhood. Setting aside the biological issues, and regardless of your stance on abortion, there were forced abortions. Finally, though the women seem to be well trained warriors, they still had to rely on the men to solve their problems and ultimately decided maternal love was greater than romantic love. Seemed like this movie could have at least tried to give them more agency and views on loving. There were also a couple of deus ex machina moments that took the tension out of volatile, dangerous moments.
Tang Seng wrestled with wanting it both ways. He wanted the Queen and he wanted to save humankind from suffering. He believed sensual love would weaken his soul. Ultimately, he and the Queen were able to live with their decisions because they faced the problems head on and made their choices freely. Perhaps the Goddess sent him to Woman Land, because just like heartache, you can’t understand love unless you’ve felt it and lived through it.
If you are wanting to watch a movie featuring the Monkey King, this is not it. He is a supporting character to the love story. The love story was hard for me to accept as they fell instantly in love as if they’d been poisoned, knowing nothing about the other person. Zhao Yi Ling and Feng Shao Feng did their best to convince me, and it almost worked. They were lovely to look at and capable actors. Ultimately, this felt more about duty than love even if Tang Seng believed loving one was the same as loving everyone.
11/19/22
Wu Kong, Pigsy, Sandy, and Tang Seng are heading west on a river when a river demon assaults them. There’s an old joke, “You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him ski.” This was as close to a skiing horse as you are likely to see! With the help of the goddess they escape and go from the frying pan into the fire. They crash through the portal into Woman Land where Tang Seng and the Queen seem to fall in love as they plummet down a mountain. The Preceptor, a very uptight woman dressed in white, declares the men must die because they have made the cardinal sin…of being men. Men’s love is poison to a woman and it’s looking like the Queen might have been infected. She rescues them during their execution and they seek to find a way out of the spell dome over the land.
The CGI was good for the most part and there was a lot of it. Woman’s Land had beautiful dwellings and strange monsters abounded.
Aaron Kwok is the best Monkey King I’ve seen. Too bad he had very little to do in this movie. This story was more of a romance and spiritual trial than adventure. Even the “villain” was just misunderstood and hurting. Tang Seng and the Queen had to decide between love and duty as did the Preceptor. Even if you are like me and only know the story from the movies, the ending was inevitable.
I had reservations about certain aspects of the story. The one whom the Preceptor had loved during her youth was an androgynous river god. Years before because of her duty to the new queen, the Preceptor had to reject the river god who then became unproductive, obsessive and wrathful. The spirit who could cause miscarriages appeared to be a man in woman’s clothing which was played for laughs. Not very 2018 of them on either count, neither was portrayed positively. The men ended up pregnant, very pregnant after accidentally ingesting the water from the river of womanhood. Setting aside the biological issues, and regardless of your stance on abortion, there were forced abortions. Finally, though the women seem to be well trained warriors, they still had to rely on the men to solve their problems and ultimately decided maternal love was greater than romantic love. Seemed like this movie could have at least tried to give them more agency and views on loving. There were also a couple of deus ex machina moments that took the tension out of volatile, dangerous moments.
Tang Seng wrestled with wanting it both ways. He wanted the Queen and he wanted to save humankind from suffering. He believed sensual love would weaken his soul. Ultimately, he and the Queen were able to live with their decisions because they faced the problems head on and made their choices freely. Perhaps the Goddess sent him to Woman Land, because just like heartache, you can’t understand love unless you’ve felt it and lived through it.
If you are wanting to watch a movie featuring the Monkey King, this is not it. He is a supporting character to the love story. The love story was hard for me to accept as they fell instantly in love as if they’d been poisoned, knowing nothing about the other person. Zhao Yi Ling and Feng Shao Feng did their best to convince me, and it almost worked. They were lovely to look at and capable actors. Ultimately, this felt more about duty than love even if Tang Seng believed loving one was the same as loving everyone.
11/19/22
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