Donnie Yen’s “The Monkey King” Releases First Trailer

Above: Donnie Yen stars in “The Monkey King”.

The Monkey King <西遊記之大鬧天宮> cast, Donnie Yen (甄子丹), Chow Yun Fat (周潤發), Aaron Kwok (郭富城), Joe Chen (陳喬恩) and Peter Ho (何潤東) promoted the film at the 16th Shanghai International Film Festival this week. The first trailer of the film was also revealed.

Director Cheang Pou Soi’s (郑保瑞) new 3D film is the latest adaptation of Journey to the West <西遊記>, one of the four great classical novels of Chinese literature. In November last year, it released a teaser trailer which revealed nothing but only the big stars involved in the film. Footage from the actual film was revealed in a trailer at the Shanghai Film Festival.

Starring Donnie Yen as the Monkey King, the movie features heavy CGI effects to create the fantasy backdrop. Donnie’s martial arts skills made it possible to recognize him despite his thick makeup. The magical skills of the Monkey King’s 72 transformations were made possible with the help of the CGI. It was understood that the film was wholly filmed using a screen backdrop and then edited on the computer. The entire process took more than six months to complete and the film used a total of 2,600 special effect shots.

Cast Promotes “The Monkey King”

In the film, the Monkey King (Donnie Yen) rebels against the Jade Emperor (Chow Yun Fat). However, in the trailer released, there was no footage of the Jade Emperor, or the Bull Demon King, played by Aaron Kwok. Despite this, the trio attracted wide media coverage and squeals when they rode on their Harley Davidson motorcycles.

Chow Yun Fat jokingly complained that filming the movie zapped his energy level, and he could only film for two hours each day. Not to lose out, Donnie and Aaron also complained incessantly about sitting down for five to six hours for the makeup artists to apply their makeup. Donnie and Aaron teased that their action scenes are more than Fat Gor’s.

After numerous delays, The Monkey King will be released in China during the 2014 Lunar New Year holiday.

“The Monkey King” Trailer

[vsw id=”cqDa5z2bqgM” source=”youtube” width=”500″ height=”375″ autoplay=”no”]

 

Donnie Yen, Chow Yun Fat, and Aaron Kwok at 16th Shanghai International Film Festival

[vsw id=”gQM75Dp2iS4″ source=”youtube” width=”500″ height=”375″ autoplay=”no”]

Source: ifeng.com 

This article is written by Karen for JayneStars.com.

Related Articles

Responses

  1. CGI looks awful but the story does seem entertaining. Hope to see more of the action though for the next trailers.

    1. What do you expect a cross between a man and a monkey to look like?

      1. Benny and Dicky were pretty good looking as Monkey King ^_^

      2. I meant the expression. Out of all pics to use for the article…

  2. I dont think girls would be too interested in this film. Man/monkey looks a bit horrifying

  3. would watch it. out of curiosity more than anythng else

  4. The Donnie Yen Monkey King looks cool and looks better then old tv show but love to see the some real fights scenes.

  5. That picture at the top looks like a monkey just underwent major facelift.

      1. I mean didn’t Donnie get the memo that says you don’t really have to take on every role there is in HK.

      2. Nothing wrong with taking on cast-against-type roles. If Jet Li can do it then so can Donnie.

      3. Because Jet Li can be playful, Donnie is dead serious.

      4. “I love Hong Kong 2012” and “Mismatched Couples”

      5. Doh, not “I love HK”.
        “All’s Well Ends Well” 2011 and 2012.

      6. nobody is better than dicky cheung as monkey king. his body language is unique.

      7. Don’t forget DRUNKEN TAI CHI, TIGER CAGE 2 and WING CHUN.

    1. probably not the best choice if there’s gonna be a lot of action scenes involved

    2. AGREED! I WATCHED WHEN I WAS 8 AND REWATCHED A COUPLE OF TIME.

  6. no offense, without Dicky Cheung as Monkey King, it doesn’t feel right. >.<

  7. Dicky Cheung still can’t be replaced for monkey king.

  8. The ugliest Monkey King is from Stephen Chow’s latest movie Journey to the West.

  9. What are you people talking about? It’s a monkey not Henry Caville! Why are you even discussing about a cute looking monkey??? And if you’re a girl and you can’t go see this monkey because of a scary looking monkey, then you need professional help… 😀

    HOpefully they’ll release this in USA too…would go see it!!!!!

  10. A Monkey King movie? Donnie Yen? I won’t be missing this one.

  11. how many more monkey king series/movies do we need? it been overplayed to the point that the only reason we come to see is? heck i don’t even know what is there to look in monkey king anymore.

    1. foreign viewers can now check out the movie adaptation rather than watching the whole series (:

  12. From the trailer, the CGI looks bad, just like that Stephen Chow’s journey to the west. How it can become a 1 billion Renminbi movie is beyond me.

    Why can’t they perfect the special effects? It makes Chinese films look ‘cheap’ despite the high budget.

    If you can’t do it properly, contract it to hollywood studios. please.

    The end result is the most important, not feeding some mediocre local visual effects shop.

    Think of Chinese pride, and Xi’s Chinese dream. That should be the benchmark, international standard, Avatar standard.

    What a letdown!

    1. sigh i want to see you try and make a movie …..

      1. Sigh, if you ever criticise or comment on any government policy or socail programmes, I want to see you try and be prime minister or president.

        What a stupid comment you gave!

  13. The Chinese legend Monkey king vs Marvel Comics all-American hero Superman, that would make a good movie, hehehe

Comments are closed.