When the mighty Shaw Brothers take on one of China’s greatest literary treasures, something magical is bound to happen. THE MONKEY GOES WEST is the first entry in the studio’s epic, three-part screen adaptation of “Journey to the West,” a 16th-century novel recounting the efforts of a Buddhist monk and his magical companions to travel to India and bring back Buddhist sutras. The story is essentially China’s “Odyssey,” “Wizard of Oz” and “Pilgrim’s Progress” all rolled into one. The film is a boisterous adventure classic for adults, rich in colorful characters, lush SB production design, vintage fantasy special effects, and cheerful Chinese operatic tunes.

Cheng Kang’s script dispenses with the background story presented in the first 12 chapters of the original story where the principle characters are introduced and jumps right into the action. Monk Xuansang, played by future erotic film director Ho Fan, has been charged by the Budhisattava Guanyin to retrieve sacred Buddhist texts from India. Shortly after his journey begins, Xuansang’s party is killed off by demons hoping to capture the monk and eat his flesh, which according to legend leads to immortality. Xuansang escapes long enough to recruit Monkey, a half-man half-simian demigod with shape-shifting powers, powerful fighting skill and a hairpin that expands into a full-size cudgel.

Also known as Sun Wukong or the Monkey King, Monkey is a mischievous character who has spent the last 500 years locked inside a mountain as punishment for causing a ruckus in Heaven. He’s played with wonderful expressiveness by Yueh Hua in his first starring role, one that immediately made him one of SB’s top leading men. Yueh went on to star in the first seques, and despite having limited martial arts training, starred in a whole series of popular wuxia titles beginning with King Hu’s COME DRINK WITH ME.

In re-watching portions of MONKEY GOES WEST for this review, I found myself increasingly drawn to Yueh Hua’s performance. He regularly does many little emotes such as standing on one leg or pursing his lips that brings the character alive. As Monkey’s comical relationship with Pig is a key component to the story, I couldn’t imagine the film being anywhere near as enjoyable without Yueh’s expressiveness.

Monkey is somewhat reformed yet still prone to excessive violence and a hot temper. These tendencies are kept in check by a metal headband that causes excruciating pain whenever Xuansang reads from a jade inscription. Monkey becomes the monk’s protector and Buddhist pupil. He’s soon joined by Pig (Peng Peng), a rotund pig-man with a massive rake for a weapon and an insatiable hunger for women and food. Along with a threatening dragon (Fan Mei-sheng) that is transformed into a riding horse for the monk, the trio sets out through a picturesque landscape filled with hidden dangers. Their main adversaries come in the forms of a snake demoness (Kao Pao-shu) who attempts to seduce them with her female attendants and a river demon who manages to kidnap Xuansang and drag him to his underwater lair. Monkey and Pig come to the rescue. Once subdued, the river demon is renamed Friar Sand or Sandy and becomes the final member in Xuansang’s traveling fellowship.

Elaborate special effects films that had once thrived during China’s silent film era were uncommon in the 1960s and little had been done to advance the art. The four-part BUDDHA’S PALM (1964) film series was the most notable example prior to MONKEY GOES WEST. For this film, director Ho Meng-hua and his production design team manage a variety of special effects using tried and true techniques such as matte compositing, miniatures, puppetry, and rear projection. The net results are moderately impressive by Hong Kong standards of the day but fail to come anywhere near the sophistication or polish of leading Hollywood or Japanese effects from even a decade prior. GODZILLA and FORBIDDEN PLANET both had this film beat on effects long before it was released. At the lowest point, Yueh Hua grows in size to battle a B-grade dragon puppet, like a cheap ULTRAMAN knockoff. The crew clearly had little control over the stiffly-moving creature and after Yueh takes a few whacks at it with his staff, the scene is cut short, seemingly from an inability to adequately conclude the piñata show in a satisfactory manner.

The underwater finale employs crude rear projection techniques to depict fish swimming behind the actors with less than ideal results. The whole set up is reminiscent of a silent film but it’s still freshly entertaining thanks in part to SB’s superb art direction. This scene, as well as the rest of the movie, is filled with vibrant color, ornate costumes and elaborately decorated sets. These all come together to form the distinctive house style of Shaw Brothers that became so popular in their martial arts movies of the 1970s. This creative art style, along with sharp cinematography, bold lighting, and energetic performances from the leads help in overcoming the film’s other technical shortcomings.

The music of Wang Fu-ling, along with lyrics by Li Chun-ching, is another highlight. It won’t be to everyone’s taste but seeing characters like Pig break into rousing song, as was common in the genre films of the day, adds an element of playfulness that still moves the story forward and keeps the momentum up.

Action directors were still not being credited in 1966 so it’s difficult to know who choreographed the fighting action. As was usually the case during this early period, screen fighting is limited with Yueh Hua’s stick fighting consisting of a few basic moves. Emphasis is on fantasy action involving monsters, shape-shifting and other forms of magic. Jackie Chan Stunt Team fans will likely recognize a young Mars as one of three children playing fighting turtles in the underwater sequence.

There have been a number of movies depicting the exploits of the Monkey King before and since the release of MONKEY GOES WEST. Films prior, such as MONKEY KING’S ADVENTURE IN HEAVEN (1949), have largely gone unseen today, if any still exist. In 1995, comedic actor and filmmaker Stephen Chow took on the role for the two-part saga A CHINESE ODYSSEY. Emperor Motion Pictures produced a less enjoyable, lightweight version in A CHINESE TALL STORY (2005). Hollywood has tackled the subject twice, first with the dismal TV movie THE LOST EMPIRE (2001) with Russell Wong as the Monkey King and more notably in the first onscreen pairing of Jackie Chan and Jet Li in THE FORBIDDEN KINGDOM (2008). In this latter version, Li plays dual roles with one of them being the Monkey King.

Ho Meng-hua followed this movie up with two sequels, PRINCESS IRON FAN (1966) and the erotically-tinged CAVE OF THE SILKEN WEB (1967).

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