From: owner-monkey@valinor.eldar.org (Monkey Digest) To: monkey-digest@valinor.eldar.org Subject: Monkey Digest V1 #913 Reply-To: monkey@valinor.eldar.org Sender: owner-monkey@valinor.eldar.org Errors-To: owner-monkey@valinor.eldar.org Precedence: bulk Monkey Digest Wednesday, March 21 2001 Volume 01 : Number 913 In this issue: Re: [monkey] Anyone seen the US Monkey mini-series yet? [monkey] Re: Monkey Digest V1 #912 [monkey] Monkey King, er, review Re: [monkey] Anyone seen the US Monkey mini-series yet? RE: [monkey] Anyone seen the US Monkey mini-series yet? Re: [monkey] Electronic version of "Journey To The West" / "Monkey"? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 19 Mar 2001 10:10:00 EST From: ExExpat93@aol.com Subject: Re: [monkey] Anyone seen the US Monkey mini-series yet? I saw it here in the US. I was not very impressed at all. The actor's portrayal of Monkey was not humorous at all. Plus having an modern American inserted as a lead character was out of the spirit of the piece (in my opinion). I am biased as I loved the Japanese series and think it was perfect to introduce Westerners to the subject matter. - --------------------------------------------------------------- + To unsubscribe, send an email to: majordomo@valinor.eldar.org with 'unsubscribe monkey' in the body of your message + Need help? Send an email to: owner-monkey@valinor.eldar.org - --------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 20 Mar 2001 10:27:20 -0800 From: "Michael Wong" Subject: [monkey] Re: Monkey Digest V1 #912 I skipped it the Hallmark mini. The review I read reported that Confucious is in it and actually says "Confucious Say...". No way I'm turning on drivel like that... - --------------------------------------------------------------- + To unsubscribe, send an email to: majordomo@valinor.eldar.org with 'unsubscribe monkey' in the body of your message + Need help? Send an email to: owner-monkey@valinor.eldar.org - --------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 20 Mar 2001 12:13:37 +1200 From: "sandy" Subject: [monkey] Monkey King, er, review Just finished watching Monkey King. (The new mini-series showing on Hallmark channel in the US and NZ.) I must vent. Forgive me. Spoilers ahead. Calling this a review is perhaps a little too kind. Oh, and also: 'Hi. I'm Sandy, and this is my first post.' That's my actual name. No cracks about moonies, fish, or baldness, please ;-) Slightly non-genteel language may be contained within the following... SPOILERS FOR MONKEY KING AHEAD * * * * * * * * I want to scream and gnash my teeth. Yes, it was that bad. First off, we have some doofus who's like a blackhole of charisma, and sucks up screentime painfully (Thomas Gibson). Second, we have Kwan Yin, drinking margaritas (!) baring her midriff (which admittedly is a very sexy one, but disturbing when attached to what is supposed to be a sacred figure) and attempting to seduce American doofus boy. Yes, really. Everytime they were on screen together I started to thrash about wildly like a wounded animal. Every cliched love line, every obvious exclusion of anything that might resemble 'proper religion' to the terrified audience. My flatmates started to think I had tourettes. The stomach -churning 'romance' elements took up a huge chunk of screen time. It was bad. Very, very bad. I have just survived this, so my reactions are still fresh. Or should that be 'raw'. My advice for hanging on through the Gibson and Ling scenes is to gaze at Gibson's hypnotic cheek blemish. Staring at the zit may help you block out the actual lines being spoken. And the runnin' through the frickin' flower beds. Don't even get me started. But, I did watch the whole thing nevertheless. Why did I do this, you may ask? Simple. Russell Wong. Now, in the first quarter hour, when Monkey first came on the scene and opened his mouth, I admit I went: Gah! Sc**w you! Monkey does not speak like an extra from Seinfeld! But Wong grew on me. Well, his physical presence did, anyway. Okay, I squirmed through an hour of Ling/Gibson love trash just for the occasional glimpse of Russ lookin' sexy and leaping around in his Monkey stylings. (And finally I realised where I'd drooled over him before: Romeo Must Die.) The first 'cloud surfing' scene kicked ass, even if it did remind me of a Pepsi ad. Unfortunately, Monkey was starved of lines, wit, screen time, and powers. The only funny line he had was unintentional- at the end (I kid you not) poor Russ actually has to say with a straight face: 'I learned about the true power of luuuurve,' or some such crud. Luckily, Russ is gifted with the power of The Swagger, which made up for a lot of the deficiencies of his lines. Anyway, enough with the desecration of characters, and onto the patronising sh*te. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry during the sequence that pretty much had Gibson explaining to the Jade Emperor that everyone loves Monkey because he invented being American-- hundreds of years before there was such a thing! Wow! Add to this the *extremely* thinly veiled paranoiac commie bashing (read Monkey comics under a poster of chairman Mao... it will propel you into the light of capitalism!) and what struck me as incredibly insulting dumbassedness from Kwan Yin, as she felt it necessary to explain that 'not all Chinese are ultra-regimented machines... some of us even think just like you Americans!' or thinly-veiled words to that effect. Gee, thanks hallmark, I exclaimed. If you hadn't pointed it out, I might have continued believing that people from other cultures were all androids. What really p**ses me off though, is the fact that they had to create a role for Gibson. This shows that TV really *hasn't* progressed since David Carradine was given the role that should've been Bruce Lee's in 'Kung Fu.' Monkey is relegated pretty much to the role of 'asian sidekick'. Do I even need to comment on my feelings about this? It'll just make me growl and thrash and convince everyone I have tourettes again... Then there was the bit when the evil Emperor (but o' course!) zooms through modern China blasting buildings left and right, and exclaims: 'Modern buildings are so square, so ugly, so... democratic!' Huh? Come again? Modern buildings *are* ugly... but... geez, should I even bother to go into the idiocies of the script? Needless to say, zilch understanding of Buddhism and Buddhist precepts is shown, and the show's makers seem to go out of their way to avoid actually saying 'Buddha' and especially, 'Buddhism' whenever possible. The hierarchies of Heaven are totally crashed burned and smushed around, enlightenment, cloud-flying and the 72 transformations all seem to be some kind of Luke Skywalker style power linked to martial arts (with training sequence that resembles the one from Star Wars, even) and most priceless of all are the bits with Kwan Yin mooching around about how she'll lose her powers if she loves a mortal! Oh the drama! It's just like in Superman when Clark Kent had to choose between Lois Lane and saving the world! Swoon! Barf. Pigsy becomes a junkie halfway through, and indulges in some melodramatic dietary angst. Sigh. Putting Pigsy on a diet. Why yes, of course he's concerned about his weight. Why wouldn't he be? It isn't like he's oh, I don't know... *not* a 20th C fitness guru, is it? Watch out Richard Simmons, here comes Pigsy and his Confucius-fuelled smack-diet! Well, okay, it was *meant* to be an evil spell. More evil though, was the infantilising of Pigsy. No lust please, we're... what? Cutesy? I don't know, but whatever the reason, Pigsy did not so much as crack a smile, let alone a fat, at the sight of Kwan Yin's cleavage. (It seems so wrong just to type that sentence. 'Kwan Yin's cleavage.' Just. Not. Right.) Oh, and Confucius. The inexplicably evil Confucius. Oh, but wait! He's played as over-the-top camp, so *naturally* he's evil. It all makes sense now. Thanks hallmark. Sandy is transformed into the robot character from any 80's Sci-Fi movie. 'Is this what you humans call... humor?' Oh, if only I knew how to laugh... he was some kind of tragic lumbering cross-breed of the Tin Man from the Wizard of Oz, and Star Trek's Data. Oh, and one last question: why would everyone's worst nightmare be those gold dragons? I mean, how shallow are these characters sposed to be? Surely they fear *something* a little more metaphysical than that? Or did the cgi budget run out? And what the hell was that lameoid tiger in the first bit, anyway? And why was Erh -Lang a kind of drooling monster in a cage? Who, when he got out, wasn't particularly impressive, anyway? And why did *Monkey* apologise to zit-boy, after zit-boy tried to reflexively split his head open? But, to end positively. It's gonna be hard, but I can do it. At the end of the first episode, I was actually enjoying myself. Kwan Yin had vanished, the boys were all together and getting some screen time (Gibson mercifully sidelined) and action was happening with a few demons that looked quite a lot like the sort of thing I remembered from the old Monkey series. Next ep, it all went to sh*t, of course, but I was enjoying myself then. Monkey knocking down the walls of Heaven was pretty cool. As was the Jade Emperors line about making the gate a little less indestructible. Monkey kicking the King of Havoc's ass rocked, as well. What was up with calling him 'Confusion' though? Are the target demographic supposedly too dumb to know what 'havoc' is? And also: Monkey having a *grandmother*? Ah... no. No. No. No. To sum up: Good: Looking at Monkey. Monkey flying on cloud. Monkey kicking demon ass. Monkey whooping it up on the back of the giant dragon thingie then splitting it in half. Cute dozing-in-palm-leaves Monkey. Monkey cutting statue in half, then blowing on it and watching it split. Monkey the magic simian hair-dryer. The split-second when Monkey is shown with hands crooked in what looks suspiciously like Monkey-style kung fu- yay! Looking at Monkey some more. Russell Wong is a sexbeast. I can forgive him the accent. Bad: Everything else. So Bad, It's Good: Friar Sand's mullet. Ye gods. I think I may have to go worship it in effigy now. Biggest sense of impending doom barely averted: When Kwan Yin's sister or maid or whatever she's meant to be, announces that she's helping them because she has a 'crush' (her exact words, not mine) on a certain someone. My screams resounded off the walls. Christ on a tricycle, they're going to do the time-honoured 'sidekick hooks up with maidservant' thing to poor Monkey, I whimpered. Luckily, the director seemed to forget all about this little aside, and in the next scene she had vanished without trace. Thank the friggin' lord. My bald uncensored opinion. Your mileage may differ. Hot off the press, and coloured all shades of bile ;-) Oh, and Howell, contact me if you want a tape. Least I can do for the hours of obsessive joy your sites given me. I'm in NZ, so it'd be same format as the UK no conversion required. love&rockets velvetelvis - --------------------------------------------------------------- + To unsubscribe, send an email to: majordomo@valinor.eldar.org with 'unsubscribe monkey' in the body of your message + Need help? Send an email to: owner-monkey@valinor.eldar.org - --------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 20 Mar 2001 18:49:27 +0000 From: Chris Manley Subject: Re: [monkey] Anyone seen the US Monkey mini-series yet? Josh, that would be excellent if you wouldn't mind doing me a copy as well?? PLEASE :) Cheers Chris > It started on Hallmark in Singapore last night and plays a few > more times this month. I will attempt to record a copy for you. > It is about 4 hours in total. - --------------------------------------------------------------- + To unsubscribe, send an email to: majordomo@valinor.eldar.org with 'unsubscribe monkey' in the body of your message + Need help? Send an email to: owner-monkey@valinor.eldar.org - --------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 20 Mar 2001 12:26:12 -0700 From: "Figler, Jennifer L" Subject: RE: [monkey] Anyone seen the US Monkey mini-series yet? Ok...had to interject here. I did see the movie too. It wasn't the best...but this was my first taste of the characters from 'Journey to the West' and 'Monkey Magic'. So...I don't have much to compare with. (I'm an ignorant American) Does anyone know of books...or tapes out on the internet that could fill me in more? **I did think Confucious was kind of a 'Jerry Lewis impersonation of an Asian person'...which wasn't cool. Unfortunately stereotypes will always be done....just gotta ignore them. Hey...they do stereotypes about my heritage (native american) all the time...I just look the other way. ;) Trinity Web Mistress of the Midwest http://www.geocities.com/RayPark_Toad_DarthMaul.html - --------------------------------------------------------------- + To unsubscribe, send an email to: majordomo@valinor.eldar.org with 'unsubscribe monkey' in the body of your message + Need help? Send an email to: owner-monkey@valinor.eldar.org - --------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 20 Mar 2001 19:39:19 -0000 From: "Howell Parry" Subject: Re: [monkey] Electronic version of "Journey To The West" / "Monkey"? That's excellent news, Fannio! What's the URL of your web site? (I've forgotten it) Thanks, Howell >I'm putting most of it up in HTML documents on my site >by March 20th, if you're interested. > >Glad to help, >Fannio _________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com. - --------------------------------------------------------------- + To unsubscribe, send an email to: majordomo@valinor.eldar.org with 'unsubscribe monkey' in the body of your message + Need help? Send an email to: owner-monkey@valinor.eldar.org - --------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ End of Monkey Digest V1 #913 **************************** ----------------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the Monkey Mailing List digest list, send mail to: majordomo@valinor.eldar.org with the following command in the body of your email message: unsubscribe monkey-digest To send a message to the list, send mail to: monkey-digest@valinor.eldar.org If you have any problems or questions, send mail to: owner-monkey@valinor.eldar.org For lots more information and news about "Monkey", check out the Monkey! web site: http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/Towers/8153/