Journey To The West - Conquering The Demons (2013)

How many movies can you think of that climax with a fight between King Kong and God*? I can name one: Journey To The West - Conquering The Demons.

With Conquering The Demons writer/director Stephen Chow gives us a prequel to the well-known tale of The Monkey King as portrayed in various media, including the '70s TV show Monkey!

Conquering The Demons is the origin story of the famous quartet at the heart of the latter tale - Monkey, Pigsy, Sandy and Tripitaka - although this isn't entirely obvious until the final moments of the movie, as the film stands well enough on its own without any prior knowledge.

The story grows gradually out of a number of vignettes with characters that seem rather familiar from other iterations of Journey To The West (one of the  Four Great Classical Novels of Chinese literature) but cast as villains where we have only really known them as reluctant heroes before. You'll also spot items that eventually become iconic artefacts in the story of Monkey and Tripitaka's travels.

Zhang Wen plays scruffy demon-hunter Xuan Zang who doesn't want to slay demons but simply remind them they were once innocent children, though the songs in his book of 300 Nursery Rhymes.

While battling a giant fish-shaped water demon, Xuan crosses paths with the pretty and resourceful Miss Duan (Qi Shu), who is attracted to Xuan's innocence - despite his outward expressions of chaste disinterest.

After a run-in with an unstoppable pig demon, Xuan's master sends him on a quest to seek help from The Monkey King, imprisoned under Five Finger Mountain.

Luckily, he is not alone when he comes up against the ultimate trickster - he has fellow demon-hunters, Miss Duan, Prince Important (Show Luo), Almighty Foot (Chaoli Zhang) and Fist of the North Star (Xing Yu) to watch his back.

Blending comedy (both physical and verbal), with horror, martial arts, wire-work, magic, romance, song, tragedy and pathos in a cocktail rarely seen in Western cinema, Conquering The Demons is a genuinely captivating action movie.

Chow's take on The Monkey King is a lot darker than any I've been used to before. He's still playful, selfish, manipulative and arrogant, but he's also really very evil here - having clearly not learned his lesson from when Buddha trapped him under the mountain 500 years earlier.

The humour subsides in the totally gonzo climax as The Monkey King demonstrates his true nature, making short work of the demon-hunters before Xuan calls on Buddha to intercede and matters come to a head on a cosmic scale.

It's no surprise this film raked in the yuan in China, Journey To The West - Conquering The Demons is not only magnificent storytelling but a visual feast as well, packed as it is with magical martial artists and monsters.

* Technically it's The Monkey King and Buddha... and it's not really even a fight... ignore me, you just have to watch it... seriously... watch this film!

The Monkey King (2014)

For those up on their Chinese mythology (or fans of the old Japanese TV show, Monkey!), the basic story of The Monkey King is a familiar one, although this latest big screen adaptation adds a few flourishes and twists to the traditional tale.

At its heart though, it's a straight-forward morality play about a naive and egotistical animal spirit, Sun Wukong aka Monkey King (Donnie Yen), being tricked into helping the evil forces of the Bull Demon King (Aaron Kwok) get through the Gates Of Heaven and attempt a coup against the Jade Emperor (Chow Yun-Fat).

Kam-Yuen Szeto and Edmond Wong's script is very clever, giving the well-known tale a fresh coat of paint rather than a total overhaul.

For instance, I liked the introduction of the low-key romance between the Monkey King and Silver Fox (Xia Zi Tong), that added an extra layer to explaining his willingness to go along with the Bull Demon King, and unlike many Western films this sub-plot doesn't slow the phenomenal pacing of the main story.

Although The Monkey King is two hours long, it moves along like a bullet train, but where it falls down is the rather inconsistent quality of its special effects.

While the blend of "people-in-costumes" creatures and CGI gives the movie a certain charm - the 'costume creatures', for instance, evoke memories of the old Monkey! TV show... and Power Rangers - the computer graphics lurch from breath-taking to appalling.

Rather oddly, for me, the equally unpredictable subtitles on my Thai-import DVD didn't hamper my enjoyment of the movie.

Some lengthy dialogue scenes merited no sub-titles (particularly, for some reason, when Sun Wukong was speaking) and at other times screeds of text would race across the screen at migraine-inducing speed.

And yet, the plot was still easy to follow. Yes, I might have missed some moments of witty (or profound) dialogue, but the visual storytelling was so spot on that I still felt as though I had my finger on the film's pulse.

That's not to say it's simplistic. This is an Asian fantasy after all, so there are some insane segues and moments of mind-baffling surreality that trigger 2001: A Space Odyssey flashbacks, but you watch enough of these movies and you learn to just go with it.

Interestingly, The Monkey King serves as a prequel to the better known story of Monkey and Tripitaka's 'Journey To The West'; we just get a teasing glimpse of young Tripitaka in the closing moments.

BEST FILMS & TV OF 2025

The best, new, movies I saw last year were (in no particular order):

• Fantastic Four: First Steps
• Superman 
• The Monkey 
• Frozen: The Hit Broadway Musical

I have to be honest, because of my medical issues last year, I haven't felt like watching/reviewing many new films - instead building up a healthy backlog of unopened Blu-rays to (hopefully) throw myself into in 2026.

On the other hand, I did watch an awful lot of TV shows, much of it being new.

My favourites for the year in this category (again, in no particular order) were:

• The Assembly 
• How The Wild West Was Won - With Ray Mears
• Dexter: Resurrection 
• Frieren: Beyond Journey's End

We also said goodbye to some great, long-running shows in 2025, including:

• Stranger Things - no notes.
• Cobra Kai - now that’s how you do a franchise! Fantastic and satisfying wrap-up for the series.
• Evil - we finally got closure on the greatest pulp horror show of the 21st Century. This one really breaks my heart because it was such an inventive genre programme, running through more outré ideas per episode than most shows conjure up in a season. And Katja Herbers.
• The Handmaid’s Tale
• Squid Games 
• The Sandman 
• My Hero Academia

I'm easily pleased!

War For The Planet Of The Apes (2017)

As far as I'm concerned the original 1960s/'70s Planet Of The Apes movies are - warts and all - sacrosanct, critic-proof, indelible parts of my childhood and formative years.

The 2001 Tim Burton 'reboot' is best forgotten (as I think most people have).

And so I came to this decade's retelling of the classic story with a degree of caution.

To date, the new franchise was running 50/50. I really enjoyed Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes, but was ultimately underwhelmed by Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes.

This left me uncertain of what to expect from War For The Planet Of The Apes, as the same team that had fumbled the ball with Dawn were behind this new offering.

But not only had they learned from their mistakes, but writer-director Matt Reeves and co-writer Mark Bomback have managed to deliver a genuine epic of sweeping emotions and spectacular action.

The time-frame has moved on several years from Dawn.

Caesar (surely an Oscar-worthy mo-cap performance from the brilliant Andy Serkis) and his colleagues fighting the war that the rogue Koba started, but are trying to convince the humans that they just want to live in peace.

However, when The Colonel (Woody Harrelson, in full Marlon Brando/Colonel Kurtz mode) kills members of Caesar's family, the conflict becomes personal and the super-intelligent chimpanzee makes it his mission in life to exact revenge on The Colonel.

The situation is complicated by the discovery that the virus that caused all the problems to start with is continuing to mutate, causing additional problems for the human species.

Taking a small band of loyal followers with him, Caesar sends the rest of his tribe off to safety, then sets out on his crusade.

More than ever, War For The Planet Of The Apes focuses on the simian side of the conflict.

While Caesar is a flawed protagonist, the apes are definitely the good guys and the humans - violent and stupid - are not shown in a great light.

Although primarily a dramatic and violent war film, balanced with some genuine humanity and tragedy, I was surprised by the injection of moments of humour - largely due to the addition of Bad Ape (Steve Zahn) to Caesar's band.

The film is also full of wonderful nods to the original movies, from the introduction of young Nova (Amiah Miller), the mute child who is the one human to side with the apes; through the striking ape crucifixions; to the alpha/omega icongraphy of The Colonel's military encampment.

In spite of its two hours and 20 minutes duration, War For The Planet Of The Apes holds your attention and draws you in, you can't help but feel genuine emotional attachment to the computer-generated, simian characters. Every emotion can be read on their faces as they experience them, you hear ever change in timbre in their voices.

The special effects, especially with regard to the motion-capture portrayal of the apes, are simply incredible. They are so good you truly believe in these characters without a second thought.

This is the gold standard by which other effects-heavy movies should be judged now.

The effects are so good and, more crucially, the performances by the actors portraying the characters created through motion-capture are so impressive that, if you immerse yourself in the movie, it feels as real as any movie shot without any special effects.

And director Matt Reeves has such an incredible artistic eye for visuals, encapsulated perfectly in the final scenes that - clearly deliberately - evoke the feeling of an old school Hollywood Biblical epic when the apes ultimately come to their 'promised land'.

War For The Planet Of The Apes can clearly be read as a prequel to the scenario established in the 1968 original, as it sets up the fall of mankind and the rise to dominance of the apes.

With the advances in movie-making technology, and in the gifted hands of a visionary director like Reeves, I'm now hoping for a genuine remake of the original to bring the franchise full circle.

Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes (2014)

Director Matt Reeves and Twentieth Century Fox have pulled off a cunning bait-and-switch with Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes, getting the summer blockbuster crowds flocking to see to a sub-titled foreign film!

Because that's essentially what Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes is with almost as little English spoken dialogue as an Arnold Schwarzenegger flick, about 75 per cent of the movie is the apes signing - or grunting - to each other, translated as sub-titles.

And the apes are magnificent. There is no denying the brilliance of the special effects and the emotional depth the actors manage to portray through motion-capture.

The script by Mark Bomback, Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silveris also heavily biased towards the simian elements of the story with the humans being two-dimensional at best.

We have followed the key apes - such as Caesar (Andy Serkis) and Koba (Toby Kebbell) - from Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes and they are given solid character arcs. However, in stark contrast, the humans we meet for the first time here we never really get to know anything of any substance about and so they generally come across as broad stereotypes.

Gary Oldman's character, Dreyfus, for instance adds nothing to the story, except his final act of destruction which could have been committed by any of the nameless supporting characters.

It's ten years since the outbreak of simian flu (as seen at the end of Rise) and the apes have made themselves a nice home in the woods outside of San Francisco, across the Golden Gate Bridge, while human civilization has collapsed and been at war with itself for increasingly less resources.

Despite living just across the bridge from each other the apes haven't seen any humans for two years and the humans in San Francisco seem even more oblivious to the colony of apes (I know this is all post-apocalypty, but I did find this a bit hard to believe).

The humans need the energy from an hydroelectric dam up in the forest (to power their iPads mainly) and so send out a small party to scout it out. The group includes Malcolm (Jason Clarke), his son Alexander (Kodi Smit-McPhee), Malcolm's girlfriend Ellie (Keri Russell) and fine Fringe alum Kirk Acevedo as the required troublemaker - and they unexpectedly run into the apes. Naturally hilarity ensues.

Caesar reluctantly comes to trust the humans, while scarred-up Koba hates them with a white-hot fury and does his best to sabotage any moves to establish respect or friendship between the two neighbouring colonies.

Most of the humans - barring Malcolm and his make-shift family - aren't overly fond of the apes either and so inevitably tensions come to a head and conflict breaks out.

The storyline of Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes isn't particularly clever or original and ultimately it comes off feeling like a bridging film between the fantastic Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes and whatever is coming next in the franchise.

Also, for a summer blockbuster (and especially one with a surprising amount of subtitles), it's a very "talky" film, with some noticeably slow patches between the fast-paced action sequences.

In hindsight, this is an Apes film for lovers of the franchise that, despite its big build-up, seems quite small in its execution, portraying what is presumably a key moment in the development of (this iteration of) The Planet Of The Apes, rather than being the self-contained epic some might have been expecting.

Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes is enjoyable, but not to the same degree as Rise. It goes part way towards realising the potential set out in the original film, but with the inescapable feeling that there is still a lot more to come.

The main takeaway from Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes for me was a hunger to see where the franchise goes next.

Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes (2011)

It is inevitable that one day mankind will be superseded by ape-kind and I will be at the front of the crowd, waving my flag and cheering on our new simian overlords.

With that bias in mind, my predisposition was to expect greatness from Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes (hoping it would wipe, forever, from our collective consciousnesses Tim Burton's ill-conceived abomination of 2001).

What I wasn't expecting was just how damn awesome it was!

Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes is, without a doubt, the most perfect piece of filmmaking of 2011, from Rupert Wyatt's direction and Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver's script to the motion-capture apes and the humans they interact with.

The plot pacing was superb, the foreshadowing excellent, and the beautiful little Easter eggs for fans of the original ape films (from Caesar's model of the Statue of Liberty and the name "Bright Eyes" through to line-lifts such as "it's a madhouse", "get your hands off me..." and a certain other key line delivered by a key character) simply showed how much care and attention had gone into this movie, and its respect for its cinematic predecessors.

James Franco plays research scientist Will Rodman, working on a cure for Alzheimer's, but a catastrophic accident during final testing makes his boss order him to have all their test subjects - chimpanzees - put down.

Will takes pity on a baby chimp and takes him home to be a companion to his father Charles Rodman (John Lithgow), a former music teacher and scholar now in the grip of Alzheimer's.

The chimp, who they name Caesar, soon becomes a central part of the family unit, especially when Will tests his gene-therapy on his father and it works.

Unfortunately, years later, the therapy starts to wear off for Charles and he finds himself in an altercation with his obnoxious neighbour, a pilot called Hunsiker (Stargate's David Hewlett).

Caesar jumps in to save his friend and ends up being taken in by the authorities and handed over to an animal control centre run by John Landon (Brian Cox) and his obnoxious son Dodge (Tom Felton).

It is here, eventually, that Caesar hatches his plan to liberate his fellow apes and take revenge on mankind.

That brief summation of the early scenes of the movie doesn't even begin to do it justice.

As well-rounded as the human characters are, the film truly belongs to Caesar - the CGI ape created by motion-capture technology and based upon the performance of the incredible Andy Serkis (already renowned for brining life to such diverse characters as Gollum and King Kong).

Given that the bulk of his feelings and emotions are expressed through sign language, gestures or facial expressions, Serkis has made Caesar an incredibly complex and well-rounded character.

If he doesn't get some mighty gong for his performance here then there truly is no justice in the world.

You also have to feel slightly sorry for Tom Felton, having played the 'bad boy' of Hogwarts, Draco Malfoy, for all these years, his first post-Harry Potter role is just as objectionable. But he suitably slimy as Dodge and gets his just desserts at the hands of the apes he loves tormenting.

Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes is a classic 'science-experiment-gone-wrong' movie and naturally ends with a breath-taking action sequence that makes great use of the streets of San Francisco and the Golden Gate Bridge.

However, that's not the end of things because as the closing credits hint, and picking up on clues sown throughout the movie (man's first manned mission to Mars, spacecraft disappearing etc), the groundwork was been laid seamlessly for the inevitable sequel.

And it couldn't come soon enough...

THROWBACK THURSDAY: One Post Isn't Enough To Celebrate The Eternal Beauty Of Karen Allen

After last week's celebration of my most enduring childhood crush, Karen Allen (particularly in her role as Marion Ravenwood), I just couldn't get her out of my mind.

So, I sat down to watch Raiders Of The Lost Ark again.

What a great film. It really is non-stop, gliding from set-piece to set-piece thanks to Spielberg's glorious pulp alchemy.

And Karen... oh, Karen, such screen presence and such a strong character.

As one of the few people on the planet who seems to actually enjoys both Indiana  Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull and Dial of Destiny, I guess I should roll them out again for some more Marion magic, but, really, I can get all the fix I need from continued revisitations of Raiders.

It never gets old.

The Monkey (2025)

Having been abandoned by their father, twin brothers Hal and Bill Shelburn (both played by Christian Convery) are searching through the junk he left behind and discover a creepy-looking, wind-up, drum-playing toy monkey.

Very quickly the young boys realise that by turning the key, and setting the monkey drumming, random people in their environs start to die in statistically improbable ways.

Unfortunately, one of those people is their mother, Lois (She-Hulk's Tatiana Maslany), which drives the final wedge between the constantly-feuding twins.

Twenty-five years later, the monkey returns to plague Hal's (Theo James of The Time Traveler's Wife) life, but now - even though he has cut himself off from pretty much everyone - he fears this force of evil might harm his own son, Petey (Colin O'Brien).

Petey is being raised by Hal's ex-wife (Project Blue Book's Laura Mennell) and her new husband, self-help guru Ted (Lord of The Rings' Elijah Wood), who is going to adopt Petey and excise Hal from the boy's life completely.

Thus, Hal has a final week to spend with his son before losing him to Ted.

Learning that the aunt who raised him and Bill after their mother's death has also died in a "freak accident", Hal hopes to track down the monkey - and finally destroy it - when he returns to her house, with Petey in tow, to deal with the disposal of the estate.

However, this just sets in motion a series of violent events around Hal that end up in a reunion with his twin (also played by Theo James).

Bill has been driven insane by his involvement with the cursed monkey, and now sees its magical power as a route to a kind of immortality, regardless of the cost to others.

Based on a Stephen King short story, produced by James Wan (of Saw and The Conjuring fame), and written for the screen by director Osgood Perkins (who also wrote and directed Longlegs), The Monkey is a gloriously gory dark comedy and meditation on the randomness - and inevitability - of death.

Except for its drumming, the mysterious monkey is never seen moving (Bill claims it "teleports") which gives this absurdist Grand Guignol a distinct flavouring of the Annabelle movies blended with the Final Destination franchise.

The very definition of weird fiction, there are no easy answers to explain the enigmatic animatronics' origin or abilities, and no pat resolution to Hal's troubles... but that's rather the point. 

Full of mesmerising, bizarre and creative kills, The Monkey clearly aims to challenge its audience whether to laugh out loud or squirm and wretch as it segues from set piece to set piece.

More shocking than scary, this wonderful film is an over-the-top, blood-soaked rollercoaster that doesn't let up for its 97-minute duration. 

I'm Pretty Sure I Am, But Are You Ready For The Summer of Superman?

To coincide with the release of a certain movie we're all looking forward to (don't let us down, James Gunn!), DC Comics has announced its Summer of Superman initiative.

Leading the charge will be a new ongoing title in May, Superman Unlimited, from the ever-excellent Dan Slott (of Fantastic Four, Amazing Spider-Man etc fame), making his ongoing DC debut, and artist Rafael Albuquerque.

A massive extinction-level Kryptonite asteroid showers Superman’s greatest weakness down upon the earth, creating an arms race for the new most valuable resource on the planet: Green K.

The greater availability of Kryptonite in the DC Universe changes the balance of power in the criminal empires of Metropolis and across the globe: Intergang, under new leadership, is on the rise, with practically all their foot soldiers carrying at least one clip of Kryptonite bullets on them.

The asteroid left massive Kryptonite deposits to be mined, and it houses unlimited horrors yet to be unpacked. To survive, Superman will need to forge new alliances, new tech and new tactics if he hopes to carry on his quest for truth, justice and a better tomorrow!

Superman Unlimited won’t just provide Superman’s nemeses with near-unlimited Kryptonite: the Daily Planet gets an upgrade.

A merger with a new incarnation of Morgan Edge’s Galaxy Communications expands the Daily Planet brand into a multimedia news platform with a cable news channel, website, strong social media presence, and—yes—Lois Lane is still editor in chief.

Daily Planet regulars Jimmy Olsen, Ron Troupe, Cat Grant and Steve Lombard will staff satellite branches across the DC universe, creating a global network.

Behind it all is the tech savvy of a new IT specialist from Gorilla City, King Solovar’s goddaughter, Tee-Nah.

The story kicks off with a 10-page preview in the DC All In Free Comic Book Day Special Edition #1, coming out on May 3. This flip book will also include a new Absolute Universe story, written by Jeff Lemire. 

Superman Unlimited #1 is then scheduled for launch on May 21.

DC’s Summer of Superman will not only embrace the already ongoing Action Comics and Superman titles but will include limited and ongoing series starring Superboy, Supergirl, Krypto (yay!), and more, highlighting DC’s deep roster of Superman-related characters.

I suspect this could see some heavy culling of non-Superman, and non-Fantastic Four, titles from my monthly pull-list, but nothing immediately springs to mind as expendable. Ahhh, first world problems!

The two faces of DC's FCBD flip book

THROWBACK THURSDAY: My (Continuing) Adventures With Superman

My deep affinity for the character of Superman has a poignant origin story. I had this copy of Amazing Heroes magazine, which takes an in-depth look at John Byrne's impending (at the time) relaunch of Superman for DC Comics (post Crisis on Infinite Earths) when I travelled up to Stoke-on-Trent in 1986.

I was visiting my dear friend Matt, who was studying at university there, and I have a vivid memory of sitting on a small hillock in some parkland, waiting for him to turn up.

As I sat there I was reading Amazing Heroes and becoming increasingly convinced that I was going to really enjoy this era of Superman's comic book adventures.

Now, of course, this is also another strong memory I have associated with my gone-too-soon old pal.

I was already a massive fan of John Byrne's work from his stint on Fantastic Four (still a benchmark by which I judge most other superhero books) but I'd only really dabbled in Superman titles up until that point.

I had a few random Bronze Age issues, including both parts of Alan Moore's classic Whatever Happened to The Man of Tomorrow? story (I was a big Alan Moore fan, as most people were at the time, religiously reading Watchmen and Swamp Thing) and this particularly memorable issue of Action featuring Captain Strong (most definitely not a Popeye knockoff):

As Byrne's The Man of Steel (the six-issue miniseries introducing us to all the key players in the key Superman mythos) was published, I knew I had found "my" Superman.

I treasure my original collection of The Man of Steel, for the artwork, stories and memories

As I wrote on Facebook the other day:

"Although I'm a fan of all eras of Superman (with a particular penchant for the wackiness of the Silver Age these days), it was John Byrne's 1986, post-Crisis, relaunch, with The Man of Steel miniseries, that truly sold me on the character. For me, this remains the definitive take on Superman and his supporting cast."

Luthor was no longer a 'mad scientist' but a corrupt businessman

But, of course, me being me it's not just Superman comics I collect (... and films... and T-shirts), it's also the occasional action figure, miniature, and Funko Pop.

For the longest time, it wasn't even a conscious effort to accumulate these artifacts, but as time passed I realised my 'horde' had a definite Superman bias.

I'm not a hardcore hunter of such Superman memorabilia, but if I see something that catches my eye (and I can afford it at the time) I always like to add it to the shelves of my gamesroom:

Alongside Beppo The Super-Monkey, Bizzaro and Doomsday, one of these Supermen
is actually a "Superman Robot" - can you pick him out?

A selection of Supergirls (from TV and comics),
with Krypto and Streaky The Supercat and Wonder Woman

A comic-accurate Kelex, soon believed to be appearing in the new Superman film

Funko Pops of Superman and Lois from the original Christopher Reeve movie

I love my collection of miniature Smallville residents from the Silver Age comics

My shelf of Superman graphic novels and omnibuses - along with a Daily Planet pen holder.