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It is a performances centric movie

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

Journey to the West adapted extremely loosely from a very famous 16th-century Chinese novel is one of those movies that dares to mix unspeakable horror with laugh-out-loud slapstick, high- minded themes with dumb humor. Stephen Chow, who also made a name for himself Stateside with the hits Shaolin Soccer and Kung-fu Hustle, specializes in this kind of gonzo action comedy, and this is the most ambitious and the spectacular movie he's made yet.

Journey to the West is a Chinese film that focuses on the Buddhist traditions and beliefs. This was a very interesting and entertaining film. I liked the way that it used the concept of Buddhism in the movie, and made things science fiction, resembling to American films. In the beginning of the film there is a village and they are being attacked by a demon creature.The main character Chen presents himself as a demon hunter, and tells the village that he will protect everyone from the demon, but yet fails to do so. In replacement to his position is a woman named Duan who presents herself as a demon hunter as well, and yet she succeeds at turning the fish creature into a toy. After this scene Duan always finds Chen and comes to his rescue in the troubling times, when he does not know how to protect himself. Duan showed her love for Chen in the film, but Chen never did and this was the main conflict. My favorite character was Chen, because at the end of the film even though he failed at protecting Duan from the monkey king, he admitted to have loved her all along. After this overview, I would rate this film a 4/5.

This is a Buddhist story. Let's get that out of the way. It illustrates the path to spiritual enlightenment.The thing that struck me about Stephen Chow's iteration of the classical illustration was its universality. This story is only confusing to people who've never read any spiritual thing and asked, "What's the point of this?"The Demon Hunters are a metaphorical community of humanists, basically. People who regard themselves to be in control of their destinies - leveraging technologies and magic in their fight for mastery over the evil that lives in all of us. The meek kid with the book of 300 Nursery Rhymes states early in the film, "I don't want to kill (demons), I want to bring out their goodness." This is the person leveraging love which, by the end of the film, we figure out is the power of God (Buddha).It's a beautiful story, beautifully illustrated and enriched by the performances of some seriously talented actors and actresses. I've seen many of these actors in other Stephen Chow productions but everyone really appeared to have brought their A-Game. All the performances were inspired. My favorites being the main character, his sifu and the actor who portrayed the Monkey King (WuKong).I rate NOTHING 10/10 - that's perfection and nothing is that. So I give this movie 9/10 for what it was, what it set out to do and how well it did it as well as the experience it afforded me.

You need to see this movie! I just caught this on one of our public TV channels, and absolutely LOVED it! From the same Chinese legend that the TV series Monkey was based on, this movie tells the lead in story as to how the disparate group lead by Tripitaka came to be.Gorgeous pictures, great CGI and effects, and laugh out loud comedy. The performances are great...the lead character is adorable (I know, that sounds inane, but it's the only way to describe him) and the demon hunter who !s forever saving him is such a great, strong, female character. Their relationship is a bit of a role reversal of the usual Western cinema tradition. And the Monkey King.....just a delight.For fans of the TV show, this is the ultimate back story, though it doesn't matter if you've never seen it. Journey To the West is a great stand alone film, but if you are a 50 something Monkey tragic (as I clearly am) it's a really special treat!