Reviewed by George Ivanoff
 

It seems that the trend of reviving old TV shows has made it from Hollywood to Japan, as the 1970s series Monkey gets a big-budget update (well, a bigger budget than the series). Although Monkey Magic tries hard to entertain, it falls short of the mark. I’m afraid there’s not much magic in this monkey. I remember enjoying the dubbed English version of the classic Japanese TV series (which is based on a Chinese story) as a kid. But it’s been years since I’ve seen it, so I’m not going to try to compare it to this new version. I’ll be looking at this film on its own merits.

The film follows the adventures of a monk, Sanzo Hoshi (Eri Fukatsu) and his three disciples, Cho Hakkai/Pigsy (Atsushi Ito), Sa Gojou/Sandy(Teruyoshi Uchimura), and the monkey king Son Goku (Shingo Katori), as they journey to India to retrieve a sacred scroll. On the way, they stop at Tiger Kingdom, which is now under the control of two demons, King Silver Horn (Goro Kishitani) and King Golden Horn (Takeshi Kaga). Princess Reimi, whose parents have been turned into tortoises by the demons, asks our travelling heroes for their assistance in defeating the demons and returning her parents to the throne. They, of course, promise to help. And so the adventure begins.

With the exception of Shingo Katori, who dreadfully overacts at Son Goku, the cast is excellent. Goro Kishitani as King Silver Horn and The Iron Chef’s Takeshi Kaga as King Golden Horn are particularly entertaining. The special effects are mostly quite good, with only a couple of real lapses. Over all, Monkey Magic a very good-looking film that holds bucket-loads of promise.

Unfortunately it doesn’t deliver on the promise. It’s greatest flaw, is that for an adventure film, it’s rather slow and somewhat lacking in adventure. It feels like the plot of a TV episode that has been stretched beyond its capacity to fill a feature film. The action sequences and fight choreography are rather uninspired, with black-clad bad-guys theatrically waving swords in the air at nothing in particular until one of our heroes is ready to face them.

Much time is spent on the characters of Son Goku and Sanzo Hoshi, but the other two members of the heroic quartet are poorly developed and given little to do. The plot also suffers from a few major lapses in logic, a flaw that immediately plays havoc with the whole suspension of disbelief thing. To top it all off, the action is accompanied by a clichéd musical score that gets really over-the-top in the climactic sequence.

Having said all of this, Monkey Magic is still moderately entertaining. There are some really good moments here… but they are few and far between.

There are no significant DVD Extras included.

Monkey Magic
(2008)

Available through Madman Entertainment.