After short-tempered trickster Monkey King is insulted while visiting a temple with his master Tang Monk, he destroys a magical tree and accidentally releases the ancient King of Demons, who kidnaps Tang Monk as revenge for his long imprisonment. Now, Monkey King and his fellow disciples must rescue their master within three days, before the Demon King regains his full power and unleashes his armies to destroy the earth.
This egalitarian animated adventure begins with Wukong (Bian Jiang) traveling alongside monk Tang Sanzang (Su Shangqing) and friendly demons Bajie (Zhang He) and Wujing (Lin Qiang) to India to return Buddhist scriptures back to China. During their journey, they stop at a temple where Wukong and his friends commit an unintentional crime, by eating some of the temple’s treasured “man fruit.” This man fruit grows on a tree that only produces 30 every 1000 years. After being caught, Wukong gets into a fight destroying the tree which accidentally releases Yuandi (Zhang Lei), the ancestor of all the demons sealed within the tree for thousands of years by a Buddhist monk. Determined to rescue Tang who has been kidnapped, Wukong has no choice but to fight Yuandi.
Eventually, the trio meets Fruity, a maniacal but friendly demon who teaches Wukong about the varying degrees of demonology. Fruity is also one of the only chances the group has to defeat the hordes of baddies recently set free from the magical tree. And much to their detriment, the ancient and powerful Primordium has been awakened, and he is heading for them.
While the animation is nicely rendered with soft focus, the demons are a tad unimaginative. Bajie looked like the Fishman from “The Shape of Water,” and the demons were not scary. Buddhist depictions of demons are typically frightening but for better or worse, “The Monkey King: Reborn” keeps it family-friendly. I ultimately appreciated the film’s message of equality, but I do not plan on watching it again.
Available on Blu-ray™, DVD, & Digital December 7th
