Kwok pulls it all out This is the third film in the Hong Kong blockbuster series about the Monkey King. If we talk about the place in the row from good to bad, then its number is definitely second.
In technical terms, it can be put on the first place in the trilogy, as the picture turned out to be good. Which is not surprising: Chinese cinema is developing at a rapid pace, and in the two years that have passed between the second and third films, the level of technical performance has increased significantly.
The makeup is also good and, at least, is not inferior to the previous part, and in some places and surpasses it. Costumes, decorations - all this also causes an undoubtedly positive reaction.
And even the plot behaves quite well at first. Compared to the second film, The Kingdom of Women has gone from the path of seriousness and gloom to cheerful comedy and melodrama. And if the first mostly turned out quite well, the second just killed the whole picture, turning it into a snotty soap opera.
So, the first half of the film looks like a comedy action adventure. Maybe not all jokes are good, but a lot will make you smile. And the story develops actively and interestingly. And then everything suddenly merges into a melodramatic thrust circling around the suffering women of Xuanzang on the local queen. And in parallel - the sufferers of the water capoper with the anatomy of puppet Ken on the local vizier. Moreover, all these snot is also generously flavored with the most tedious Buddhist brain drain - a great idea to stuff this into comedy! (Buddha, by the way, also flashes in the role of absolutely superfluous deus ex machina.) It was like, ‘I’ve put it in.’
In fact, in essence, the idea of making a story about the Land of Women melodrama is not so bad. If it were not the cornerstone of the whole picture, it would be just another occasion for comedy. And it was necessary to arrange it for the entire team of travelers, and not only for the monk, who, moreover, was drawn to the fore because of this, although he should not be the main character of the story.
Interestingly, there are hints of love adventures for each of the pilgrims in the picture. The impression is that it was originally conceived, and then was deleted from the script during filming. And the pieces of this also got into the final installation. For example, there is a scene where during the battle, a fighting girl, who at first shows obvious chemistry with Wukun, lands with him, excuse me, butt on his face - well, obvious vulgar hints of something like that. But all this flashes in the frame literally for a fraction of a second and the attention on this is not focused at all. Like it was just a random piece of carved footage.
But for a completely unsuccessful joke with a hermit guarding the water, Getting rid of the fetus, too much screen time was allocated. This scene looks like it was stolen from a Camedi club, and causes only bewilderment.
The soundtrack in this part also jumped. I don't know why, but instead of Young writing the music for the previous parts, they took some nouneim Japanese. As a result, the musical accompaniment does not cause any emotions and is not remembered at all, and the boring song, which was also inserted directly into the film, I just want to rewind. As good as the songs in the prequels were, so bad is the song in The Kingdom of Women.
As a result, the whole film is based only on Aaron Kwok and his beautiful performance of the role of Sun Wukong. Despite the fact that the character is openly pushed to the background, except for him to look at something special and nothing.