The Journey to the West: Demon’s Child

The first family of demons take centre stage in Xiong Chen’s retelling of Princess Iron Fan.

“If this battle is destined I won’t step back.”

In recent years there has been an increase in the total number of Journey to the West adaptations. Perhaps it’s the ever decreasing price of VFX, or the increase of funding for Chinese filmmakers allowing them to make a film without really having to write a new story, but we’re getting a new adaptation of the novel every year, some better than others. The City of Demons was a surprisingly good version, but for every one of those there’s a Two Princesses. 2021 saw the release of another retelling, this time keeping a bit more in line with the book.

The story adapts two of the book’s most popular arcs and blends them into one: that is, the stories of Red Boy and the beloved Princess Iron Fan. We get a bit of backstory, showing how Wukong’s escape from Laozhi’s brazier all those centuries back caused shards of that very brazier to fall onto the small Plantain Village, causing the mountain to become a volcano (and a big fire demon to show up). Princess Iron Fan (Raquel Xu), a local immortal, shows up to save the villagers, using her big fan to keep the flames at bay, but her unborn child suffers the effects of the fight against the demon, becoming the fire-tinged Red Boy (Ji Hao).

When Tang Sanzang (Wu Xiao-long) and his adventuring party show up, on their quest to pick up the scriptures from the West, they are met by Red Boy who is keen to kidnap the monk and give him to his mother to eat on her birthday. Naturally Wukong (Xu Huan) and the other disciples are upset by this, and shenanigans ensue. Meanwhile, Iron Fan is concerned that her powers keeping the fire demon at bay are weakening, as Red Boy’s temper and power grows.

I wasn’t expecting all that much going into this film. As seemingly another run-of-the-mill Journey to the West adaptation – and one featuring the most popular demon families in the story – I was ready to put it on and just sort of sit through another uninteresting task. But Demon’s Child surprised me in its first scene. Starting the film 500 years ago, we see the devastating effect Sun Wukong had on the world below, and it immediately puts Princess Iron Fan (already a relatively sympathetic character in the book) in a positive light. We also get scenes of Red Boy, who is impudent and brash but not necessarily bad. Also the Bull Demon King is there because, as the patriarch, he has to be. But he does nothing of note.

This is all before we get any shots of the pilgrims. These opening moments help frame the rest of the narrative and makes the antagonists far more fleshed out than usual, allowing for a more complex story. Now, does it fully utilise the space it made for itself? Not really. A lot of the story borrows from the Red Boy chapters, before switching things up and making this random wolf demon the villain for a bit. It lets characters like Red Boy play both narrative sides but still never really feels like he, or his mother, are explored enough to make this shift in focus worth it.

This increased focus on the villains of the story does mean that a good chunk of the film’s runtime is taken away from the heroes. Wukong naturally gets more screentime than the rest, but he’s a bit … dull in this one. He talks in this intense, gruff, almost Jason Statham-esque voice and storms about, constantly furious. Sanzang is annoying, but not in a funny Chinese Odyssey way, and the other two somehow do even less than usual. It’s a shame that, in order to make one half of the film more interesting, another had to suffer. Oh well.

It’s nothing incredibly special, but it’s different enough to be worth a watch. Seeing the relationship between Princess Iron Fan and her son is something that isn’t really seen typically, as both characters are shown a dozen chapters apart, so it was a good dynamic to explore. And when Wukong and Red Boy face off, both of them are equally dickish and sympathetic, which makes for a more interesting match-up. There are some good ideas, and they’re usually implemented pretty well, and its runtime is short enough that the worse stuff doesn’t overrun it either. In this world where there’s at least one new Journey film a year, it’s nice to see there’s still some gas in the tank for new ideas.

Verdict: Journey to the West: Demon’s Child has a few new ideas, and its focus on the antagonists ensures it is, if nothing else, memorably different.

Overall entertainment: 6.5/10
Violence: An entertaining 4/10
Sex: 0/10
VFX: An expected 4/10
Fire: Good job nothing in this world is flammable
Hell: If Sanzang doesn’t go, then who will?
Gags: Sanzang knowing how to tie his own knots is a good one

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The Journey to the West (2021)
Also known as: 西遊記紅孩兒
Mandarin

Director: Xiong Chen
Writers: Liu You-You, Qin Wei-Dong, Qu Meng-Liu, Liao Yi

CAST

Raquel Xu – Princess Iron Fan
Ji Hao – Red Boy
Xu Huang – Sun Wukong
Mai Er-Dan – Bull Demon King
Zhuang Qiqian – Sha Wujing
Ximen Piaopiao – Wu Bajie
Wu Xiao-long – Tang Sanzang
Liu Zhanling – Old Man
Sun Yi-Ping – Guanyin
Hui Shiu-Hung – Land Master
Zhang Fengjun – Bull-Headed Demon
Hu Dongqing – Spider Woman