The Monkey King is noted to be one of the most filmed fantasy characters. To recall, Jeffrey Lau featured him in " A Chinese Odyssey" and Stephen Chow also interpret him in the 90's series, "Journey to the West." The latest movie in which the classic mythical tale is featured is "Wu Kong."
The movie was directed by Hong Kong filmmaker Derek Kwok. It stars Taiwanese heartthrob Eddie Peng of the movie "Cold War."
"I think the reason why the Monkey King is such a beloved character is that many people resonate with his personality," director Kwok said. "He's rebellious but he's invincible. He can be naughty at times but he always does the right thing in the end."
The director's interpreted "Wu Kong" differently from the rest of the previous movies. The script is based on the popular internet novel, "Wukong Zhuan" written by Jin Hezai, instead of the traditional famous novel, "Journey to the West."
The new movie tells the adventures of Sun Wukong and tells the story of his rebellion against the gods with his nemesis Erlang Shen, portrayed by Shawn Yue. Eventually, he becomes Monkey King, the invincible.
"'Wu Kong' is like a prologue of Monkey King," he said. "I worked closely with Jin Hezai on the script. We decided to create something new without sacrificing the original spirit of the internet novel."
"I picture Wu Kong as any other youth, who is pressured by work or school," he further added, noting on how he wanted to portray the younger approach of the iconic character. "Eddie's acting is animated, a little bit childish but full of character. I didn't want him to portray the Monkey King in the traditional way."
"We wanted to portray the Monkey King trapped in a human body [for this particular film]," actor Eddie Peng also said. "So I try to only reveal the 'monkey' side when the emotions are strong, in scenes where the character's either furious or devastated."
