Impeccable in his deadpan humor and comedic timing, veteran actor Yang, who also performed in The Wandering Earth and Cathy Yan’s Sundance-premiering Dead Pigs, offers his career-best performance as the single-minded pseudoscientist. The unique sense of humor in Journey to the West owes much to its actors. The film’s faux-documentary style is characterized by talking head interviews, direct addresses to the camera, and a plethora of visual gags. Kong’s film is an eclectic mix of genres that seamlessly weaves together elements of sci-fi, mystery, comedy, and road movie into a cohesive narrative. The five-member crew takes a group picture with a couple (in the center) they meet during the trip. Additionally, the movie unfolds in five chapters instead of 100. The film’s English title is derived from the 16th-century Ming Dynasty novel of the same name, which tells the adventure of a Buddhist monk and his disciples who traveled from China to India to retrieve sacred scriptures.Īlthough the film draws inspiration from this adventurous tale, Kong reimagines the story with a journey to Southwest China’s Sichuan province instead of to India. The film is a deeply engaging story that follows a group of alien-seeking misfits who set out to investigate reports of a supernatural incident, only to unravel something beyond their imagination. However, the film has earned its place among the highest-rated Chinese sci-fi movies of all time: It received an impressive score of 8.4 out of 10 on Douban, a Chinese review platform often compared to IMDb. Released in Chinese cinemas on April Fool’s Day, director Kong Dashan’s Journey to the West ( 宇宙探索编辑部, Yuzhou Tansuo Bianjibu ) has only grossed 6 million USD so far. With a massive box office take of 598 million USD, The Wandering Earth 2 may be the Chinese sci-fi flick of the year, but one young director’s low-budget debut feature is quickly stealing its thunder.
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