Oh, those nutty demons. Always strikin’ back and stuff. Did you know you were co-opting a Star Wars qualifier? How does The Empire Strikes Back translate in Mandarin? Journey to the West: The Demons Strike Back is the sequel to the Netflix available Journey to the West, written and directed by Stephen Chow. Chow adapted Journey from a traditional Chinese tale. Imagine, for example, Mel Brooks directing Cinderella and you’ve got a ballpark idea of what’s going on here. The first film had some merit, but felt decidedly incomplete; after all, the hero didn’t start journeying west until the credits started rolling. I entered this film a tad wary as “Strikes Back” were the key words in the second Star Wars film chronologically. Are there going to be ten more Journey films to follow? Will we get plastic action figures and bad iron-on t-shirts?
My trepidation didn’t improve upon hearing the particulars. Stephen Chow wrote the sequel, yes, but he didn’t direct the follow-up and the players are completely different as well. Sure, replace Harrison Ford with Tom Berenger for Empire; who will know the diff?
Perhaps I’ll just get to the film. Four years later (to us) but immediately following in the narrative, Buddhist monk Tang Sanzang (Kris Wu) is no longer Xuan Zang, although I believe the pronunciation (to my ear) is the same. Ugh. This is confusing already. Saddled with the defeated demons from the first film: the Monkey King (Lin Gengxin), the Pig Demon and the Fish Demon, Tang sets out for India … because that’s where the story said he’s supposed to go. He gets as far as the next town over, where the four companions realize they need money to travel and form a half-assed circus act. Tang and Monkey immediately start battling over control. The latter gets really mad when you call him “Bad Monkey,” which, in turn, leads to several rebellious challenges of authority – from a guy who probably didn’t want the companions to begin with. Luckily, we are spared a scene of Tang spanking his Monkey.
The Journey to West franchise is all about the CGI. You can’t take three steps in this world without being challenged by some giant spider, Buddha, or jack-in-the-box in disguise. Even when the battles are worth the attention, motivation is a constant source of puzzlement in this world. I think Tang needs to battle demons to become enlightened, but some demons are good and some are bad and some start out good and are actually bad and some start out bad and are actually good. Two films in, I’m still not sure of the objective, nor what to make of the fact that Tang fell in love, under a different name, as a different person, with the demon huntress who died. Maybe he’ll find her again in his Journeys.
As far as I can tell, the Pig Demon and the Fish Demon do nothing. I have 
no idea why either is in this film; when a battle happens, Monkey fights it, then Tang gets annoyed at him, and these other two sit on the sidelines like Jimmy Garappolo waiting for Tom Brady to step down.
Thus, this film contains the perfect metaphor-within-a-metaphor. If you remember the first film (and, gosh, who can forget it?), Tang defeats the giant Fish Demon, so now the Fish Demon is obliged to travel with Tang (to the moon, presumably). Usually, the demon is a man, which makes the journey an easy one, even if the man is relatively helpless, but sometimes, for no particular reason, he turns back into a monstrous 12-foot, 1,000 pound fanged fish. The fish is useless on land, and so the companions take turns literally carting the unwieldy beast from place-to-place. This is Journey to the West II in a nutshell – a giant, unwieldy beast that serves little purpose, has no point, and needs to be carted around from time to time. But, hey, big fish.
♪Block the Monkey King’s strife
Block the Monkey King’s strife
Cover me when I fight
Cover me through the spires
Something knocked me like a breeze
Now I’m on my knees
Cover me, Monkey, geez
Monkey
Bad Monkey
Monkey
Don’t you know I’m gonna block the Monkey♫
Rated PG-13, 109 Minutes
D: Hark Tsui
W: Stephen Chow, Si-Cheun Lee
Genre: Chowless Chow
Type of person most likely to enjoy this film: China’s world of CGI enthusiasts
Type of person least likely to enjoy this film: I’m guessing traditionalists
♪ Parody inspired by “Shock the Monkey”
