Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons

Probably this shall be the last movie date before Xiao Xiao is officially out in this world and in order to suit my timing, this was chosen over "From Boys to Men II".


The movie started off with a death of a villager of a water village and a priest catching and declaring a stingray to be the murderer. The protagonist stepped in to warn that the murderer was someone else, who later swam into the scene to kill off more people, which coincidentally happened to be the dead villager's wife and daughter. With his knowledge of physics, the protagonist got the villagers to jump onto one end of the see-saw to get the murderer (a fish demon) out of the water. He later then tried to subdue the demon by appealing to the inherent kindness of the demon but his attempt was halted by another demon hunter, the female lead. This incident caused the protagonist to question his master's beliefs and teachings as well as his own capabilities.

The show then progressed to another demon, this time the pig demon, and how he managed to kill off many people by luring them to his lair with finely roasted pork, ironically made with the flesh of the humans. The male and female lead then came to tear down his disguise, but the pig demon managed to get away and injured the female lead. The male lead helped her dressed her wounds and from there, the female lead fell in love with the male lead and tried to deceive him into copulating with her, but with no success.

There were also other demon-hunters trying to catch the pig demon as well, but they had no luck. The male lead then proceeded to find the monkey demon to seek his help in subduing the pig demon. In doing so, he accidentally set the monkey demon free and the other demon-hunters were exterminated. The female lead perished too and with that loss, the male lead attained enlightenment and managed to subdue the monkey demon. Together with the pig demon and fish demon subdued earlier on, all four of them proceeded with their quest of getting the scriptures from the west.

The show by Stephen Chow was a long wait and indeed there were elements of his style imbued in the story.  Perhaps the only difference was that there were much gore this time round. Other than that, the show was very enjoyable and had its fair share of funny and sad moments.