Monkey Magic Movie
Carlee Members
Monkey eats many of the peaches, which have taken millennia to ripen, becomes immortal and runs amok. Having earned the ire of Heaven and being beaten in a challenge by an omniscient, mighty, but benevolent, cloud-dwelling Buddha (釈迦如来, Shakanyorai), Monkey is imprisoned for 500 years under a mountain in order to learn patience.
A dragon, Yu Lung (玉龍, Gyokuryū), who was set free by Guanyin after being sentenced to death, eats Tripitaka's horse. On discovering that the horse was tasked with carrying Tripitaka, it assumes the horse's shape to carry the monk on his journey. Later in the story he occasionally assumes human form to assist his new master, although he is still always referred to as "Horse".
Monkey can also change form, for instance into a hornet. In Episode 3, The Great Journey Begins, Monkey transforms into a girl to trick Pigsy. Monkey's other magic powers include: summoning a cloud upon which he can fly; his use of the magic wishing staff which he can shrink and grow at will and from time to time, when shrunk, store in his ear, and which he uses as a weapon; and the ability to conjure monkey warriors by blowing on hairs plucked from his chest.
The pilgrims face many perils and antagonists both human, such as Emperor Taizong of Tang (太宗皇帝, Taisōkōtei) and supernatural. Monkey, Sandy, and Pigsy are often called upon to battle demons, monsters, and bandits, despite Tripitaka's constant call for peace. Many episodes also feature some moral lesson, usually based upon Buddhist and/or Confucianist, Taoist philosophies, which are elucidated by the narrator at the end of various scenes.
Two 26-episode seasons ran in Japan: the first season ran from October 1978 to April 1979, and the second one from November 1979 to May 1980, with screenwriters including Mamoru Sasaki, Isao Okishima, Tetsurō Abe, Kei Tasaka, James Miki, Motomu Furuta, Hiroichi Fuse, Yū Tagami, and Fumio Ishimori.
Saiyūki was dubbed into English from 1979, with dialogue written by David Weir. The dubbed version was broadcast under the name Monkey and broadcast in the United Kingdom by the British Broadcasting Corporation,[6] in New Zealand by Television New Zealand[7] and in Australia by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Only 39 of the original 52 episodes were originally dubbed and broadcast by the BBC: all 26 of series 1 and 13 of series 2. In 2004, the remaining 13 episodes were dubbed by Fabulous Films Ltd using the original voice acting cast, following a successful release of the English-dubbed series on VHS and DVD; later, these newly dubbed episodes were broadcast by Channel 4 in the UK.A Spanish-dubbed version of Monkey aired in Mexico, Costa Rica, Peru, Argentina, Uruguay and the Dominican Republic in the early 1980s. While the BBC-dubbed Monkey never received a broadcast in the United States, the original Japanese-language version, Saiyūki, was shown on local Japanese-language television stations in California and Hawaii in the early 1980s.
Half of series 2 was not originally dubbed into English, but was dubbed later in 2004 with as much of the original cast as possible. The translation and voicing of the subsequent English voice dub is less erudite and humorous than the original effort; and includes some swear words that feel out of place in the context of the original. The voice of Pigsy is slurred in parts - perhaps reflecting the age and health of the voice actor decades later.[8][9]
The album became one of the group's highest-charting releases, staying at #1 on the Oricon chart for a total of eight weeks from January through March 1979 (it was unseated for most of January by the Japanese release of Grease: The Original Soundtrack from the Motion Picture), and it was ultimately the #1 LP for 1979. For the second series, the ending theme of "Gandhara" was replaced with "Holy and Bright", which was released on 1 October 1979 (the two sides of the single featured a Japanese-language version on one side and an English-language version on the other).
In the UK, BBC Records released "Gandhara" as a single in 1979 (RESL 66), with both "The Birth of the Odyssey" and "Monkey Magic" on the B-side.[10] The single reached #56 on the UK Singles Chart, eventually spending a total of seven weeks on the chart.[11] A second BBC single was released in 1980 (RESL 81), this time featuring an edited version of "Monkey Magic", along with "Gandhara" and "Thank You Baby", but this single failed to chart.[12] The BBC releases of "Gandhara" have one verse sung in Japanese and the other in English. BBC Records also released the Magic Monkey album under the simplified title of Monkey (REB 384) in 1980 but it failed to chart.
Monkey is considered a cult classic in countries where it has been shown, reaching as far as South America.[7] Among the features that have contributed to its cult appeal are the theme song, the dubbed dialogue spoken in a variety of over-the-top "oriental" accents, the reasonably good synchronization of dubbing to the actors' original dialogue, the memorable battles which were for many Western youngsters their first exposure to Asian-style fantasy action sequences, and the fact that the young priest Tripitaka was played by a woman, despite being male.[13][14]
Narrator: In the worlds before Monkey, primal chaos reigned. Heaven sought order, but the phoenix can fly only when its feathers are grown. The four worlds formed again and yet again, as endless aeons wheeled and passed. Time and the pure essences of Heaven, the moisture of the Earth, the powers of the Sun and the Moon all worked upon a certain rock old as creation, and it magically became fertile. That first egg was named Thought. Tatagatha Buddha, the father Buddha said "With our thoughts, we make the world." Elemental forces caused the egg to hatch. From it then came a stone monkey... The nature of Monkey was irrepressible!
The strangest thing for me was when I learned my South African-born partner also watched it. So it didn't just exist on Sunday afternoons in our cold and wintery South Island house??? And yes, it was definitely called "Monkey Magic" in our house, in a Mandela effect world...
I later met someone who worked at the company in the UK (the foundry?) who did all the dubbing on Monkey. They would apparently receive the full episodes from Japan without a script. Four people would then "write" the episode, sometimes on the fly while recording the dubbing. Hence some episodes making complete sense while others... Very much not.
But it was funny. Very funny. Hypnotic too. A magic show. We\u2019d tune in to watch it \u2013 me and my cousins. We were probably too young to watch it, though I don\u2019t remember it being challenging in a gore/horror/violent/scary way. It just seemed funny to us. Funny, mad, surreal \u2013 wonderful.
I\u2019d learn \u2013 later \u2013 that Monkey was a cult show. I guess I\u2019d learn this, first, through finding out, via half-conversations, the other people that had stumbled onto this show (we probably thought, as young kids, that it was playing only and ever for us). It was a hot topic in university hostel bedrooms and the nearly-cartoon lounges of our Young Ones-derived flats.
There was Monkey (\u201Cborn from an egg on a mountain top\u201D) and Pigsy, Sandy, \u201CHorse\u201D and Tripitaka. Tripitaka was the coolest character, or at least the most fun name to say. We\u2019d take turns being Tripitaka, after, in between bounces on the trampoline. We\u2019d try to do our own aerial stunts, half-flips at best, or simple knock-downs falling onto our backs and springing back up. We\u2019d make the sounds \u2013 dramatic attempts at comedy-overdubs as we bounced back into life. And if you were lucky you got to be Monkey or Tripitaka.
The show was bright and loud and your brain burst trying to keep up. It was mad, nearly maddening but beautiful. Wondrous, absurd, bafflingly brilliant. The shapes and colours were always moving, the music was always clanging and it sped by, all of it \u2013 the action \u2013 dizzyingly so. We\u2019d catch it, when we could, on Sunday afternoons. And the parents all thought we were bonkers for watching it. But it gave them some time to finish their quart bottles of beer, and to round off a hand of cards.
I love martial arts movies. The serious and the silly. And I realise, only now, that Monkey was my introduction to martial arts on screen. Long before The Karate Kid.
Before there was movies like Bloodsport (a staple at birthday parties, you\u2019d watch it in the lead up to the pro-wrestling, and then again after if you were still awake) and the early Jackie Chan films, before I would get hooked on anything by Raymond Chow or Gordon Liu or the Shaw Brothers, and then \u2013 part-hooked for life, I\u2019d return via Jet Li or Stephen Chow or Tony Jaa \u2013 there was Monkey.
To my mind, it is the only pure cult show I\u2019ve been hooked on. I\u2019ve watched \u2013 and adored \u2013 plenty of cult films, Monkey being a partial catalyst. But TV shows? Not really. I mean, sure, there are loads of TV shows that get cut short \u2013 and/or buried in late night slots. You\u2019re told after they\u2019re cult shows. Freaks & Geeks, Herman\u2019s Head, The Critic. All great shows. But they were still made for a mainstream audience \u2013 and played out, for the most part, in a conventional way.
I dare not watch it again: revoltingly slow, botched, broken and still baffling but now not in a good way\u2026no thanks. I\u2019d like to hang on to the idea that it\u2019s still wonderful. And by never watching it ever again, I can cradle that truth.
Strange how potent cheap music can be. Like a whiff of Blue Stratos on the night air, all it takes is a few bars of a chirpy novelty hit and there we are, forty years ago, dripping extruded ice cream product on the vinyl seats of a Morris Marina while the rain falls on a pebbled beach. Year by year, these are the songs that have soundtracked our lives.
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