Television Review: The Monkey King (The Lost Empire, 2001)

over 1 year ago

(source: tmdb.org

Hallmark Entertainment is the studio specialised for family-friendly content and its best known and most ambitious productions were television adaptations of famous works of world’s literature. Most of those works were Western, but notable exception is Journey to the West, famous late 16th Century novel which is considered one of the great Four Classics of Chinese Literature. In 2001 it served as an inspiration for The Monkey King a.k.a. The Lost Empire, two-part miniseries directed by Peter MacDonald.

The plot begins in present-day China where the protagonist, American expatriate Nicholas “Nick” Orton (played by Thomas Gibson) has spent years studying Chinese history and culture and became obsessed with Journey to the West. His passion has cost him dearly, and after failed romantic relationship he is willing to use his expert knowledge only for money. However, seemingly routine encounter with Chinese Ministry of Culture official turns into great adventure when it is revealed that the said official is actually goddess Kwan Ling (played by Bai Ling). She takes Orton into another dimension where the ancient Chinese gods and mythical heroes are real instead of fiction. Orton has to set free Monkey King (played by Russell Wong), imprisoned protagonist of Journey to the West and two of them later have to prevent vicious demon Shu (played by Randall Duk Kim) from destroying the original novel and thus wreck civilisation. While Orton and Monkey King fight Shu’s demons, helped by duplicitous Confucius (played by Rick Young), Kwan Ying realises that she fell in love with an American and that she loses her divine powers because of it.

Producers probably had noble intentions of bringing part of Chinese cultural legacy to Western audience, but the script by David Henry Hwang went a little bit too far in trying to “Westernise” the content of the old book. Even those who aren’t too familiar with East Asian culture would notice that is something wrong with The Monkey King. For example, despite novel being written about famous Buddhists, protagonists do some rather un-Buddhist things and an ancient Chinese goddess suddenly falls in love like teenager with dashing American. That takes a great deal out of suspension of disbelief necessary for this miniseries and some viewers now would call it “whitewashing”. The wooden acting of rather disinterested Thomas Gibson (former star of Dharma and Greg and future star of Criminal Minds) doesn’t help much. Impression is, on the other hand, saved by more enthusiastic Russell Wong and fans of legendary Sandokan miniseries would be delighted to find Indian actor Kabir Bedi in the role of Buddhist monk. Special effects in the miniseries are decent, but large number of explosions becomes tiresome before the end. The Monkey King is mostly a waste of time, but if spurs a even little bit of interest in the old Chinese novel, it could justify its existence.

RATING: 3/10 (+)