Movielogr

Rating: 7.5 stars

Tags

mubi China monkey king folklore slapstick Hong Kong transformation reincarnation bandits martial arts

All movies seen on 08/26/2019

View on: IMDb | TMDb

A Chinese Odyssey Part One: Pandora's Box (1995)

Directed by Jeffrey Lau

Action | Fantasy | Comedy

Overview

When the Goddess of Happiness tosses the Longevity Monk and his disciples out of heaven (because the Monkey King tried to attain immortality), the Monkey King is reincarnated as the Joker. He now spends his time chasing two jealous women. When one of them is dying, the Joker goes back in time in an attempt to save her.

Length 88 minutes

Actors

Stephen Chow | Karen Mok | Ng Man-Tat | Yammie Lam | Law Kar-Ying | Athena Chu | Jeffrey Lau | Johnnie Kong | Ada Choi | Lu Shuming | Hou Yan

Viewing History (seen 2 times)

Viewing Notes

Was excited when these popped up on MUBI (Part 1 and Part 2) b/c they’ve been on my wishlist for a long time. I believe they may have been added to Amazon, too. Anyways, it was nice to finally view the first part even tho I knew it was gonna be a little more slapsticky than I like w/Stephen Chow in the lead (both as the Monkey King and the Joker). But there’s some great supporting actors like Karen Mok and Yammie Lam as the demon sisters.

I think one of the reasons that these films are so highly rated is how steeped in Chinese folklore they are along with the kind of humor that makes more sense if you’ve grown up with these tales. Just a theory but it’s definitely something you can sense while viewing. Like I imagine had I seen this with an audience in HK when it was released the entire theater would be belly laughing throughout.

One thing I do really love is how absolutely “mid-90s Hong Kong cinema” this looks… lurid contrasting colors and that greasy lens with those wild angles that makes the backdrop appear so dark and vast. Really this is worth viewing just for those bright colors splitting the screen. Deep blue and red. Bright green and yellow. The entire sequence with the spider woman is great. The dinner scene w/the sisters and the bandits is also a standout. I’ll probably watch this again before jumping into Part 2.

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