The author of this article is a contributor @Luo Hanguo
Hungry and lazy, not loving labor, only movies
I believe that among the good films of 2022 for many audiences, there is a place for "Instantaneous Universe".
It puts East Asian family issues in the shell of fantasy adventure comedy, with novel forms of expression and sincere emotional core.
The Chinese actors in the film also gained more attention, and were in the limelight at this year's Oscars, starring Michelle Yeoh and Kwan Jiwei won the Best Actress and Best Supporting Actor awards respectively.
Subsequently, the drama "Journey to the West ABC" (formerly known as "Meisheng Chinese") under the banner of "The Original Cast of "Instantaneous Universe" was also officially announced, and the luxurious lineup made us full of expectations.
In addition to Michelle Yeoh + Guan Jiwei + Xu Weilun + Wu Hanzhang packaged from the crew of "Instantaneous Universe", and Wu Yanzu starred as Sun Wukong, Azu, who had previously expressed his desire to cooperate with Michelle Yeoh many times, finally got his wish;
Destin Crichton and Liu Yuling in the director column, the former directed "Shang Qi", and the latter is a well-known Chinese female filmmaker in Hollywood.
But no one expected that "Journey to the West ABC" with such a high degree of attention encountered word-of-mouth Waterloo in China after its launch on Thursday (April 25), and the current Douban score is only 5.6 points.
But the opposite is true overseas, and on Rotten Tomatoes, it gets 95% freshness.
Xiao Wan felt that the overall quality of the play was not so unbearable after brushing, so why is there such a huge disparity in word of mouth at home and abroad?
There are two main lines of "Journey to the West ABC": one is the ordinary life of Wang Jin, an ordinary American middle school student; The second is the Monkey King and his son, as well as the entanglement with the Bull Demon King. The series twists the two lines together, allowing Wang Jin to accidentally see the gods of the Westward Journey who broke into the world.
As the only Chinese student in the school, Wang Jin (played by Wang Ban) lives a somewhat inferior campus life, he tries his best to integrate into the circle of classmates but runs into a wall everywhere, the figure of the football team does not care about his overtures, and the campus goddess who has a crush has many suitors.
One day, a Chinese transfer student Xiaosun (played by Liu Jing) came to the school, and the two naturally approached.
Xiao Sun actually has a lot of origins, he is the son of Sun Wukong (played by Wu Yanzu), in order to save the upcoming crisis in the Heavenly Court, he snatched his father's golden hoop rod, and lurked in the world looking for key scriptures, and the seemingly ordinary Wang Jin was the key to solving the mystery.
Sun Wukong was worried about his son's safety, repeatedly went to educate him, and also sent Zhu Bajie and Sha Monk to arrest him back, but Xiaosun was blessed by Guanyin Bodhisattva (played by Michelle Yeoh).
On the other hand, the Bull Demon King is also haunted by the world, he intends to seize the golden hoop rod, and he is planning to subvert the Heavenly Court...
"Journey to the West ABC" is based on the classic Chinese novel "Journey to the West" and has a playful postmodernist adaptation of it:
The Bodhisattva Guanyin, who wears reading glasses, and the Monkey King, who is struggling with parenting, are both experiencing a mid-life crisis, the gods of the Heavenly Court are photographed like grass platform teams, and the Bull Demon King and Jigong are also showing their skills in the United States...
The most unacceptable point for many domestic audiences is the subversion of the story of Journey to the West, and the Douban short comment area is full of complaints about "magic reform".
It is normal to accept deviations, because most of us grew up watching the 1986 CCTV version of "Journey to the West", which built us the most suitable and purified Journey to the West.
The image of Zhu Bajie in the play and the female version of the sand monk
"Journey to the West" at the end of the 90s of last century is undoubtedly a playful subversion of "Journey to the West", and the film was not flattering at the beginning of its release, but with the change of time, it was slowly tasted by the audience with the taste of life.
The "Journey to the West" series has the advantages of theme and culture, first of all, it is a comedy genre film with a high threshold of audience acceptance, and secondly, it is a Cantonese film with the same roots and origin as Chinese culture.
From this, looking at "Journey to the West ABC", Xiao Wan believes that "Lei Ren" is not in the strength of adaptation, but in cultural transfer.
The setting of "Sun Wukong has a son" in the play was criticized by the audience, but this brain hole existed as early as ancient China:
In the Yuan miscellaneous drama "Journey to the West", Sun Wukong arranged his wife Princess Jinding, in the Ming Dynasty novel "Journey to the South", Sun Wukong had two sons and a daughter, and Sun Wukong's illegitimate son in the Ming Dynasty novel "Journey to the West" came to the door to find relatives. Therefore, the setting of the son of the Monkey King is not rootless and thunderous.
Episode 4 of "Journey to the West ABC" received a lot of complaints, this episode wanders outside the main plot, depicts the fairy assembly of the heavenly court, and tells the old grudge between Sun Wukong and the Bull Demon King.
The two were originally brothers who worshipped each other and met to open their eyes at the Immortal Conference, but they broke off because of the title of "Great Sage". In this episode, there are immortals such as the East Sea Dragon King, the Jade Emperor, the Queen Mother Niangniang, and the Iron Fan Princess, but the shapes are quite strange and simple.
Stylistically, this episode incorporates Hong Kong-style nonsensical elements, and also parodies the Shaw "Journey to the West" quadrilogy in the 60s and Cathay's "Monkey King Troubles Hong Kong".
The lines in episode 4 also changed their previous seriousness, and Sun Wukong changed his words in seconds, repeating meaningless poor mouth and sharp irony.
In the context of a Hong Kong commercial genre, we would think that there is no big problem, but when the Chinese actors dressed in European and American styles and Southeast Asian styles speak fluent English and hot Mandarin, we will only feel that "something is wrong anywhere".
As a representative of Chinese culture, "Journey to the West" was suddenly planted into other cultural soil, and under an inappropriate interpretation, it produced a nondescript effect like "Journey to the West ABC".
Back to the theme, although the name is "Journey to the West", "Journey to the West ABC" actually discusses the identity and belonging of the Chinese American community, which is adapted from the comic "Meisheng Chinese" drawn by Yang Jinlun, which can directly point to the core of the story.
Chinese graphic novelist Yang Jinlun has been familiar with "Journey to the West" since childhood, and the character he admires the most is Sun Wukong.
His "Meisheng Chinese" tells three story lines that seem unrelated but end up in one place: Sun Wukong haunts the Heavenly Palace; Wang Jin, a Chinese teenager, struggled to integrate into the white classmate group; Danny, a Chinese-American, changed schools to escape his Chinese cousin.
"Meisheng Chinese" skillfully blends Chinese thinking and Western humor, and delicately shows the fragments of the life of the Chinese American community, as well as their search for and questioning of identity.
Obviously, "Journey to the West ABC" also had the ambition to match "Instantaneous Universe" at the beginning of preparation, trying to present the ethnic identity, identity myths, intergenerational contradictions and family affection of the second generation of Chinese immigrants.
The difficult identity history of the protagonist Wang Jin can also be faintly seen in the play:
At the beginning, he admired the captain-style figure of the campus football captain, envied the American jacket on the promotional poster of the clothing store, abandoned the hobby and friends of the dead house, and riveted the "Chinese taste" on his body.
When he sees the Chinese comedian (played by Kwan Jiwei) in the American soap opera who plays silly and makes the audience laugh, he will feel resentment and shame in his heart.
When he was ridiculed by his classmates with the same special effects, he tried to act lightly to prove that he "did not feel discriminated against".
Finally, his self-identification and self-worth are accomplished by external forces (Xiao Sun), and in his personal heroic narrative, he also helps the immortals solve the crisis of the heavenly court.
In other words, we can understand "Journey to the West ABC" as a youth growth drama, perhaps the immortals have always been just Wang Jin's deep fantasy, saying goodbye to them, he finally said goodbye to his unconfident self in the past.
Wang Jin's father's story line represents the workplace problems of Chinese Americans, because of his conservative and silent personality, he has worked silently for decades without being promoted, and he has done a few days of psychological construction at home before talking to executives about promotions and raises.
The Chinese comedians in the play do not have much to do with the main line, but when he tells the screen about the workplace ceiling of Chinese actors and the history of hard work in foreign countries, it reflects the century-old dream journey of the Chinese actor group in Hollywood.
It is a pity that "Journey to the West ABC" does not dig deep into the identity of Chinese in the United States, but only tastes it and passes it in one stroke.
Instead of triggering deeper emotional resonance with the audience, it is keen to reshape the setting of the Westward Journey and create fancy action scenes.
This is also the reason for the different acceptance of Chinese and Western audiences, for the adaptation of "Journey to the West", foreign audiences want to watch lively, Chinese audiences watch doorways.
The end of "Journey to the West ABC" lays the groundwork, which seems to pave the way for Wang Jin's adventure in the next season. Whether the second season will go smoothly is also a question mark.
Note: Some of the pictures in this article come from Douban and the Internet, if there is infringement, please contact us.