Xi you ji zhi nü er guo [The Monkey King 3] (2018)

(On TV, July 2020) Considering that I’m coming to The Monkey King 3 without having seen the first two films, take this review with a grain of salt—or at least filter it through my overlapping ignorance of the series, the Journey to the West mythology on which it’s based, and the inevitable cultural specifics of a Chinese film. There are a few good things here—as a high-fantasy adventure set in mythological times, it’s executed with a heavy emphasis on CGI. Visually, at least, there are a few things to see—even if the character design (carried over from previous films, I’m guessing) may strike many as grotesque. But the film as a whole has some serious tonal problems, with a comic first section that turns far more uncomfortable midway through as a character decides to abort other characters’ sudden pregnancies (it’s all unplanned magical stuff, but still: yikes!) After that, the film gets weirder, slower, far less lighthearted and never quite recovers the pacing of its first half. I haven’t even mentioned the incongruous musical moment. Maybe The Money King 3 will make more sense if I ever see the first two; maybe another look will smooth out some of those atonal incongruities, or maybe I will not revisit the series at all.