The Monkey King

The Monkey King is a 2023 animated fantasy action comedy film directed by Anthony Stacchi from a screenplay written by Rita Hsiao and the writing team of Steve Bencich and Ron J. Friedman. It is a prequel to the classic Ming dynasty novel, Journey to the West. The film stars Jimmy O. Yang, voicing over the role of the titular trickster, with Bowen Yang, Jo Koy, BD Wong, Jolie Hoang-Rappaport, and Stephanie Hsu in supporting roles. The Monkey King was selected as the closing film at the 22nd New York Asian Film Festival, where it had its world premiere on July 30, 2023, and was distributed and released on August 18, 2023, by Netflix. The film received mixed reviews from critics. Plot One night, a monkey is born from a stone atop a tall mountain and disturbs the Jade Emperor. Just as the Emperor gives the order to eliminate the cub, Buddha appears before him and tells him to let him find his purpose. Monkey finds a troop of other monkeys, but his unruly nature keeps him from fitting in. One of his escapades causes a feared demon to pounce from his mountain lair and grab one of the troop's cubs for food; as a result, Monkey is banished. To prove his worth to the troop, he trains to fight the demon. After many years, when he deems himself ready, he confronts the demon, but his training proves ineffective, and another cub is snatched. To fetch a more suitable weapon, Monkey dives into the sea realm of the Dragon King, where he finds the latter gloating over a glowing column which he means to use to eradicate all life on the world's surface. Communicating with the column, Monkey turns it into a staff and escapes.