ID this Chinese Monkey Man Madness

[GypsyTRobot]

In Chicago, channel 13 is CCTV - Chinese TV.    I happened upon one of the cheesiest bits of visual entertainment it's ever been my privilege to witness, on CCTV last night.  Perhaps someone out there knows what I'm talking about, if this is a TV show or movie, or what.  There was no dubbing or subtitling so I could only guess at what was going on.

Featured was an illustrious Buddhist cleric in full regalia, and his anthropomorphic monkey companion.  This monkey man seemed not to have a mask ala Planet of the Apes, rather really good makeup and fake hair glued to his face, arms and legs.  Especially after donning a nice yellow outfit, Monkey Man seemed like a Curious George all growed up and high on PCP.  There was a lot of freakout fight scenes where Monkey Man would fly into the air and spin around, with the help of the worst blue screen effects I've ever seen and accompanied by the low budget disco drums  heard in  MST3K movies like Puma Man. Then the violent Monkey would descend upon hapless thugs, most of whom would be dispatched in such a way that there'd be a good "fake-blood-squirting-from-mouth" shot.  Culminating in a "thug dies in creek so his blood flows downstream" shot.

And of course Kwan Li, goddess of mercy, showed up a few times, then would exit the scene by taking off like a rocket.   She gave a yellow hat, looking like a cross between a crown and a golf tam, to the Buddhist cleric to give to Monkey Man.  And yet more disco freakout scenes ensued when the hat turned into a circlet (tiara?) he couldn't take off.  Still don't know what that was all about.

So, anyone know what the hell I was watching?  It was on Chicago regular TV, channel 13, at least from 9:15-10:00 PM on Monday night.  I taped it  when I realized what a gem I was watching.  This surpassed anything I have seen for pure, unabashed cheese.   I mean I thought I had seen it all with the little prince and his white wookie, but Monkey Man takes the cake.

[Squishy]

Well, "Chinese spinning lunatic super-monkey of justice" tends to suggest "Sai-yu-ki," a Chinese fairy tale that has been adapted about a million times--even as a recent US TV-miniseries that no one watched, a cruddy animated series called "Monkey Magic," and a popular TV series dubbed into "cheeky" English and shown in the UK under the title "Monkey." You may have seen the undubbed version.

"Monkey" site:  http://www.angelfire.com/geek/monkeymagic/

My personal favorite version is the full-scale animated version, unavailable in English--although it too was once popular in the UK. The animation style is very, very trippy. You can get fine-quality VCDs--no region code like DVDs--at the US China Sprout site, with plenty of pics and alternative material:

http://www.chinasprout.com/html/monkeyking.html

BUT if you want to see them, stick with "Havoc In Heaven" and "3 Battles With The White Bone Demon." The others (all the ones with shorter running times) have similar cover art on the boxes but are pretty low-budget pedestrian works.

Finally, entering "Saiyuki," "monkey king," and/or "Journey to the West" (in parentheses) into Google.com will give you lots of stuff to sift through. (Warning: one of "Saiyuki"'s more recent adaptations was as a "pretty-boy" manga series--what Stan, Kyle, Cartman, and Kenny would call "Liberace gay.")

[Squishy]

(I should have been clearer--the VCDs from China Sprout are NOT in English. It doesn't really matter: the visuals will freak you out. However, China Sprout has books and so forth that ARE in English, if you're curious.)

[GypsyTRobot]

Hey thanks!  I didn't see my Monkey King show among the links but I'm pretty sure this must be a version of that story.  He was sporting some serious gold eyeshadow and that's part of the legend, that the character has gold eyes.   I don't speak Chinese  so I am probably not spelling this out right, but the Buddhist monk seemed to call him Wo Ku.

You know I was watching a crappy Oprah Winfrey presentation  when I could have been watching the first part of this Monkey King epic.  Damn you Oprah!  Well it looks to me like they didn't make it to India yet, so maybe it will be an ongoing series and I can enjoy more freaked out  Monkey King antics.

[GypsyTRobot]

sorry for getting tv show discussion onto a film board.  Another installment of about a half hour aired last night, at some random time frame like   Sandy Frank shoulda packaged this one as a movie and sold it to MST3K.

[Squishy]

It's all good. I'm glad you brought it up. I forgot to mention earlier that one of the better-known (if very, very broad) "adaptations" of the Legend of the Monkey King is the wildly-popular Japanese manga/anime "DragonBall."

[John]

>even as a recent US TV-miniseries that no one watched,

 What would that be?

[Squishy]

That would be "The Lost Empire," with Russell Wong as The Monkey King.

[Squishy]

...I was trying to remember the other remarkable "Monkey King" adaptation that was wadded up somewhere in the back of my nog, and out it finally came: one of the Medved Brothers' "The Fifty Worst Films of All Time" (what a difference a couple of decades make, hah?), the poorly-dubbed Japanese anime, "Alakazam The Great!"

...Frankie Avalon?!?!? Yeeeeeeeeee

[Flangepart]

Oh, yeah! "Alakzam the great" Lurid colors, weird stylings...(Hey, i saw it as a rug rat. ),And Jonethan Winters as "Sir Quigly Broken Botton." See...haven't seen it for decades, and i do remember seeing it.
.... In the words of Count Floyd,"Scarey".