It’s fair to say that reboots, remakes, and reimaginings continue to be the go-to methods of creating new content for any major studio, network, or streaming service, but there’s barely an IP out there that can touch 16th Century novel Journey to the West when it comes to sheer volume, with Netflix the latest to get in on the act with animated feature The Monkey King.
For those keeping count – which can’t be many considering the quantity – there have been no less than 23 movies and 18 TV shows at least partially inspired by the legendary text to have released since the year 2000 alone, which covers such disparate projects as the bonkers blockbuster Wu Kong to cult favorite series Into the Badlands, via Disney Plus’ acclaimed but completely ignored fantasy American Born Chinese.
Having wrangled together a star-studded cast that features Stephanie Hsu, BD Wong, Bowen Yang, Hoo Lee, Jimmy O. Yang, Ron Yuan, and many more, this spin on the source material follows the charismatic Monkey as he set out on an epic quest to defeat 100 demons, the Dragon King, and his own ego.
The first trailer looks as though it’ll provide plenty of disposable fun for families everywhere, even if there probably doesn’t need to be yet another audiovisual twist on a tale that’s been told on repeat for hundreds of years across all forms of media.
There are echoes of 2021’s Wish Dragon, too, if only for the fact both are animated kid-friendly titles rooted in Chinese folklore, but that one didn’t make much of a splash on the viewership charts. Maybe The Monkey King will be different, but even if it doesn’t perform as expected among subscribers, then it’s not as if there aren’t countless other iterations of the same basic story beats that aren’t readily available.