When it comes to the Shaw Bros. discs, I found through my New Year’s viewing that I made a big mistake back in 2003. Because I wasn’t crazy about THE MONKEY GOES WEST (1966), the first in the studio’s series of adaptations of Monkey King stories from “Journey to the West,” I bought all three sequels on VCD, mainly to save money. Well, I finally sat down and watched all three--PRINCESS IRON FAN, CAVE OF SILKEN WEB and THE LAND OF MANY PERFUMES--and I could kick myself for not getting them on DVD. They’re beautiful-looking films and deserve to be seen in the best possible format. And I enjoyed them quite a bit. The stories are exciting; there’s plenty of action and magic; there are stunning women throughout; and there’s lots of humor.
PRINCESS IRON FAN (1966) tells two self-contained stories from the saga and is evenly divided between the two stories. I like this approach. It reduces clutter and keeps the film focused. The first deals with Monkey King’s attempt to get the Iron Fan from Princess Iron Fan and Ox King so he can fan away the fire on Flame Mountain and make it through to continue his party’s journey. The second deals with the two Skeleton Sisters and their attempt to capture Monkey King’s master, the Tang Monk, so they can eat his flesh and gain immortality. The three female antagonists are all played by prime Shaw Bros. stars of the time, Pat Ting Hung, Cheng Pei-Pei and Lily Ho, and they all get a chance to shine. They’re a total delight to watch.
THE CAVE OF SILKEN WEB (1967) is also one to see for fans of Shaw Bros. beauties. It features the Seven Spider Sisters who trap the monk in their cave (for the same purpose as above) and then fight over him while Monkey, Pig and Sand try to break through the web to free the monk. The sisters are all gorgeous and dressed in sexy color-coded costumes and even provide some simple but well-staged song-and-dance numbers, in which they parade about the cave set singing lyrically about eating the monk’s flesh. I have to say I found these numbers far more competent and entertaining than those found in the actual modern-day musicals Shaw Bros. was producing in the ‘60s, such as HONG KONG NOCTURNE and LES BELLES. The only actress among the Seven Sisters I recognized is Angela Yu Chien who plays Lady Red and has a pretty spicy spider web boudoir scene. (She pops up in an even spicier part nine years later in Chor Yuen’s spider-themed WEB OF DEATH, 1976.) I’m eager to know who plays the Elder (Gold) Sister. She looks like an older version of Lily Ho. (Helen Ma is listed in the cast and the photo of her from FATE OF LEE KHAN on Bruce Long’s Cast Photos web site looks like this actress, but the other photos of her on that site don’t.)
LAND OF MANY PERFUMES (1968) has even more women in it as the Monk and his party enter the title kingdom, which is populated exclusively by women. Both the Empress and her daughter want to marry the monk, while the Empress’s “Minister” (played by the same actress who played Elder Sister in CAVE, although Helen Ma is not listed in these credits) gets into the act also. (I’d like to know who the lead actresses here are.) At one point, an army of man-hungry female guards, wearing golden nighties, are roused from their sleep and chase after Pig because he is, after all, still a man. Meanwhile the female Scorpion and Snake spirits (who’ve been training for 1000 years), also turn up looking for the monk, again, to partake of his reportedly life-extending flesh. This subplot detracts from the main plot too much and adds some dreaded clutter; the action shifts from the palace just as a suspenseful plot element is introduced. So this one's not quite as good as the others.
Because the Monkey King and Pig each have the power to transform into other characters, the actors in these films often have to play their characters as played by a transformed Monkey King or Pig. So the actor who plays Ox King has to play the Ox King AND the Monkey King turned-into-the Ox King. And in CAVE, the actress playing Silver Sister has to convey to us that she’s the Monkey King tricking the other Spider Sisters into thinking that she’s the real Silver Sister. The illusion is maintained because the acting is so good.
I enjoyed the special effects in IRON FAN and CAVE; they’re simple, effective and achieved largely through either optical printing or on-stage mechanical means. They’re not so good in PERFUMES, where some unbelievably bad rear screen projection mars a few sequences.
In looking over my brief notes for MONKEY GOES WEST I find that I didn’t like it because it was rather slow and spent way too much time on Pig and his exploits and side stories. In the sequels, Monkey gets to be the hero and the characters are better balanced, with each getting their moments in the spotlight, and Pig’s taste for the ladies providing many of the funniest moments. Of the male cast, only Pig gets to sing, though, and his bursts into song are quite entertaining. I do plan to re-view MONKEY GOES WEST now.
Yueh Hua played Monkey in MONKEY GOES WEST and PRINCESS IRON FAN. A different actor plays him in the other two. I believe a different actor plays Pig in those two as well. PERFUMES has an animated credits sequence. There’s a mix of lavish Shaw Bros. studio sets and picturesque Taiwan landscape locations. I now intend to get all the sequels on DVD.
If anybody knows where I can find a good cast list for these films, I’d be grateful—or at least tell me who the actresses I wondered about are. (I can’t go to HKMDB because my attempts at registration all failed and e-mail queries have gone unanswered.)
Brian a good place to go to get at least some of you information would be at the newly redesign Hong-Kong Cinemagic here:
http://www.hkcinemagic.com/fr/main.asp?
It's a french website but does have a English section with a database on Hong-Kong movies and actors which while not as complete as HKMDB is still pretty extended. Actually the people that managed the site are looking for English-writing Hong Kong cinema specialists and I'm quite sure they would very much welcome someone with your expertise.
The oldest spider sister was played by Liu Liang Hua who also played Petrina Fung Bo Bo mother in The TEMPLE OF RED LOTUS. She was for a time married to Lo Wei and when Raymond Chow sought to acquire Bruce Lee it's her that he send out to Los Angeles to make his big offer. Thankfully this time out Mrs Liu didn't let her "target" slip out her hand.
I saw CAVE OF THE SILKEN WEB myself one month ag.o These spiders girls were hot indeed.
Yves.
I liked the first one too,it's the longest of the four trying to estabilish a continuing storyline from the novel that was by and large abandoned in favour of sit-com style scenarios. They are great fun though(haven't seen IRON FAN yet),I can imagine their long-lasting influence on people like Tsui Hark,Jeff Lau & Stephen Chow. I believe Fong Ying plays the daughter princess in PERFUMES (she later became an art director on movies like Naked Killer). You can get full cast lists at Webpac but Chinese only.
Look for cheap Monkey dvds at on-line stores,some of them are part of Celestial 60%-off series(I picked up Perfumes for HKD35)
Just in case you're not familiar with the Webpac that Andras refers to, Brian, it's the Hong Kong Film Archive's online catalogue:
http://webpac.hkfa.lcsd.gov.hk/webpac/Local movies listed in the system often have extensive cast lists with character names included in brackets. A very useful Chinese-language resource.
Tim.
MONKEY GOES WEST remains my least favorite of the series, while PRINCESS IRON FAN by far rates the best. What is remarkable about MONKEY GOES WEST is especially apparent when reading the actual novel -- Monkey's exploits at the beginning of the story are fabulously entertaining. The introduction of Tripitaka, the horse, Pigsy, and Sandy likewise. But somehow, the movie adaptation manages to skip past all of the interesting parts in the story, and settle around the dullest most banal moments in the narrative. It is amazing. If you sat down consciously deciding to cut all the most interesting bits, the end result would well approximate MONKEY GOES WEST. It could have been so much better. Perhaps viewers not familiar with the story might tolerate it better; but I doubt it.
PRINCESS IRON FAN, on the other hand, neatly puts together a couple of the adventures in a nice package, CAVE OF THE SILKEN WEB does likewise.
-- Peter
I share the view that MONKEY GOES WEST is the least of the series and that they dumped a lot of interesting material when making it. There's an awful lot of enjoyable Monkey-amuck-in-heaven stuff in the book that is alluded to but not shown in the film. CAVE remains my favorite. I watched it with my niece the other day. She's just starting to read, so I summarized the plot as we went. She was quite into it.
Fans of the Monkey King and animation might be interested in the recent 40th anniversary edition of UPROAR IN HEAVEN. The film is based on the opening chapters of Journey to the West. A full length animation film made in Shanghai that tooks 3 or 4 years to make. It looks heavily influenced by the old Disney animation productions. Though only subbed in Chinese, it's easy enough to follow for anyone familiar with the book. The animation is jaw-droppingly gorgeous (and I'm not a anime fan, either). Be sure to get the 2 disc version, if you are interested, as the second disc includes the 1941 b/w animation film of PRINCESS IRON FAN, both films made by Wan Lai Ming.
Elsewhere, another viewer noted that the rebellious Monkey was modified slightly to be an allegory for Mao Tse-Tung, so instead of being punished for his misdeeds, Monkey becomes heroic for upending the heavenly order.
PRINCESS IRON FAN, according to the bcdb, was the third ever feature length animated film made, after Snow White and Gullivers Travel. The 2 disc version also includes 3 or 4 illustrations of the movie characters suitable for framing. A nice deal for $7.99.
From the bcdb.com (Big Cartoon Database)
http://www.bcdb.com/bcdb/detailed.cgi?film=61746http://www.bcdb.com/bcdb/cartoon.cgi?film=...eshan%20GongzhuThe DVD is available from yesasia:
http://us.yesasia.com/en/PrdDept.aspx/pid-...section-videos/