This video is sponsored by NordVPN Journey to the West tells the story of Tang Dynasty monk Tripitaka And his mission to travel to India To obtain sacred Buddhist sutras By his side are a bunch of outcasted gods Monkey Sun Wukong Pigsy Zhu Bajie Sandy Sha Wujing Together, they face many challenges on their journey Local demons want to eat Tripitaka The Queen of the Gerudo also wants to eat Tripitaka But in a sexy euphemistic way Tripitaka also accidentally gets pregnant once And they have to fight Ted Cruz for free access to abortion It is an episodic epic known throughout Asia Even if you don't know the story You have felt its influence through anime and video games It was March 2001 A certain saxophone player had just finished his terms A fellow erhu player was also one year away from finishing his Relationship between the US and China Was at its most normal since the Korean War It was also the last few months of the pre-911 America The US was still curious about the outside world Setting your movies in China was the hot thing to do And so, with such innocence America made its own adaptation Of Journey to the West Produced by NBC and the SciFi Channel The Monkey King is... for lack of a better word F*cking weird, man Also known as The Lost Empire In this two-part miniseries A white dude is recruited by Guanyin and her cleavage On a mission to save the world He teams up with the three disciples Relives some of the stories from the novel All while a romance is developing between him and Guanyin "OH MAH GOOOOOOOOOOOOOD" If that sounds like a sacrilege trash fire You are not wrong This miniseries was not well received upon release And has *not* gained a cult following since Yet, for some reason I kinda like it... Let me explain [The Silly American Sequel to Journey to the West] [Chapter One] Set 500 years after the completion of the novel The Monkey King miniseries is actually a sequel In this story, author Wu Cheng'en was captured By an evil demonic minister Who aims to control the thoughts of the masses He saw Journey to the West as a dangerous piece Of individualist propaganda So, he cast a spell on the original manual script Using the next 500 years To erase all of its influence from existence A rather original plot, I have to say By the way, if that plot sounds like a commentary On China's cultural revolution I thought so, too But the story never commits to it The villain goes on and on about preserving "tradition values" "Like the 1950s?" "No, you idiot!" "I mean traditional tradition" Which isn't what the cultural revolution was about So... I don't know Maybe it's about conservative Republicans Anyway, to save reality as we know it Guanyin, the Buddhist deity of compassion Recruited our white boy scholar to save the world Under her guidance The scholar retraces the journey walked by Tripitaka Rescuing Monkey and friends In a journey to save the manuscript Now, I'm sure I don't have to explain to you All of the cultural insensitivity in this miniseries But, for me to tell you why I love it I have to establish why I really *should've* hated it So, sit back, and enjoy this non-exhaustive list of complains Let's start with the big one From minute one Guanyin both physically And figuratively throws herself at the scholar This is problematic in so many ways Firstly, the interracial subtext It's a Hollywood tradition to depict Asian women As delicate, submissive, and quiet Both fashionable, yet conservative Pure but somehow also slutty And most importantly, they are always there To fall for a white man It's called the "Lotus Blossom" trope A form of Orientalism that uses Asian women's femininity To prop up the sense of masculinity of its white male audience Our white protagonist is so irresistibly sexy Even a goddess cannot help but gets all flirty It's sleazy and insulting to Asian women This is also where I remind you that she is a literal goddess Which means... Secondly, this is just freaking sacrilege, dude It is already hilarious that of all the goddesses in China They had to pick the one *Buddhist* deity to be sexy Guanyin is also a motherly figure And I do not want to go down that train of thoughts What's even worse is that Chinese people Still actively worships her Using someone else's religion for cheap sex appeal is just gross The aesthetic languages of the series Also harkens back to the days of Fu Manchu The heavenly court looks just like Fu Manchu's palace And so does most hair and makeup Now, I can forgive the inaccurate props bought from Chinatown I'm sure my YouTube friends would have a field day with that It's a TV production I don't expect much But is it too much to ask to at least keep Confucius looking right That's the third problem The whole miniseries just looks like an Oriental fever dream I can honestly go on for hours But I'm sure the images speak for itself So, now that you are sufficiently pissed off Let me tell you why I like this series [Sponsored Message] So, here are some factoids about Journey to the West Monkey, the Japanese TV series Was hugely popular in Australia and New Zealand That's why you can only watch it on Netflix Australia Saiyuki, an anime adaptation is available only on Netflix Italy Because Italy loves anime Netflix Japan has a Doraemon adaptation, though Luckily, if you want to watch them all You don't have to travel around the world All you need is NordVPN With just a simple click I can change my virtual location to anywhere in the world Unlocking geo-restricted content in an instant One account supports up to 6 devices Even if I'm overseas I can still access content back home on my phone! Go to https://nordvpn.com/accentedcinema To get the two year plan with an exclusive deal PLUS 4 EXTRA MONTHS! With a 30 day money back guarantee policy It's entirely risk free Wanna journey the world at your own home? Start today with NordVPN! [Chapter Two] You know what's weird? Okay, the whole thing is weird But, oddly, the protagonist is never acknowledged... As a white dude He calls himself an American a handful of times But everyone else just treats him like normal This is why I didn't bring up the white savior trope This character doesn't have to be white Sure, him being played by a white actor Is still symptomatic of Hollywood's racial bias But the intention of not having a Chinese main character Is rather interesting "Journey to the West was the first Chinese book I ever read" "Before that, I was like most Americans" "China didn't mean anything more to me than..." "Charlie Chan... Or Fu Manchu" "But when I began to read about Monkey" "Who broke all the rules and pissed people off" "I did it with a higher purpose and a sense of honor" "It made me feel like I can do something with my life" Maybe I'm just optimistic But that feels like a story told straight from the filmmakers' hearts The scholar is white Because the filmmakers are white It's a self-insert A way for them to express their genuine love For Journey to the West Going back to Guanyin for a bit Her character is undoubtedly a garbage heap of yellow fever That part is inexcusable But what if I tell you the romance between these two Isn't as insane as it sounds? You see, in this story Guanyin is less of a Buddhist deity And more of a low-ranking servant goddess She works under Confucius Has a colleague called Lady White Snake Who I think is a reference to the folktale of White Snake In that story, a snake monster fell in love with a human man And in some versions of the folk tale The snake eventually became a deity herself Forbidden love between a human man and a godly woman Is a massive Chinese cliche And in all of these stories The women were punished for breaking the rules of nature So was Guanyin in this story Whoever wrote this plot seemed a little confused But still got the spirit In this scene, the scholar is introducing Journey to the West to someone "He joins forces with Pigsy" "Who basically eats his way through the whole adventure" It's the kind of sass you can only express When you are intimately familiar with something It sounds like a line coming straight from OSP's recap videos This would, in turn, explains
why the three disciples Look so pitch perfect In terms of character depictions We have seen some weird ones And some insulting ones But this is up there as one of the best It builds on the popular look from the Mainland TV show As well as the Hong Kong TV show All while adding its own spin on top Casting a South Asian actor for Sandy makes a lot of sense Considering Tripitaka met him while on his way to India And for whatever reason Pigsy speaks with this Londoner accent "That was a joke, Sandy." It's sarcastic and a perfect fit The Monkey King made an earnest attempt At not just adapting a Chinese fantasy novel But really interprets it through an American lens It turned an episodic novel Into a more familiar chosen-one narrative The scholar learns how to fight Making him a more action-oriented hero There's this part where Guanyin explains why the demons Can't just burn the manuscript And she says it is because it's an influential and powerful book Like the Bible It's an interesting and very American perspective It seems to me that the creator of the series Really do love Journey to the West They want to share it with America So, they explain it in ways most palatable to an American audience Tropes, flaws, and biases included And I think that is respectable [Conclusion] In a sequence that predates the famous scene from Doctor Who The scholar and Guanyin brings Wu Cheng'en Back to the human world in modern times To show him the influence of his works "They have kept your characters alive" "In old ways..." "As well as some new" This sequence alone is enough to win me over There is a reason why adaptations Of Journey to the West are everywhere Because every time a new adaptation is made It becomes someone's childhood memory For my grandparents, it was the CCTV adaptation For me, it was the TVB TV show Some people like the Havoc in Heaven animation Some people like the Hero is Back animation There is the Stephen Chow adaptation The Jet Li vs. Jackie Chan version Dragon Ball is still going on And I'm still waiting for that damn game to come out! Journey to the West means a lot of Chinese people And that emotion is conveyed so perfectly in this scene "For centuries, the children of Asia" "Have learn the stories which you wrote" Clearly, the book meant something to the filmmakers, too How can I bring myself to hate something so sincere?
