The Monkey King and Fruit of Immortality

Sun Wukong does what he does best and causes complete mischief, in the second part of Shanghai Animation’s trilogy.

“Turns out you want me to bring your sacred tree back to life. What’s so hard about that? If you had told me earlier, we could have avoided all this.”

With so many adaptations of Journey to the West being, well, not adaptations but new stories featuring beloved characters, occasionally it’s nice to see something stick to the source material, and simply tell a story from the book. Sometimes they change events and characters to fit the format of film, and provide more excitement and sometimes they just take the book, call it a screenplay, and call it a day.

Based off of the events of chapters 24-26, The Monkey King and Fruit of Immortality, sometimes known as just Ginseng Fruit, tells of the group’s arrival at a monastery, where the Daoist lads offer Sangzang some ginseng fruits, shaped inexplicably like babies. The tree only bears about 30 fruit every ten thousand years, so getting one is a pretty big deal. Incensed he has not been offered one, Wukong steals three (and destroys one accidentally), and shares them with his brothers. When he’s confronted by this, he gets so mad that he destroys the tree.

This is arguably one of the most straightforward adaptations of any Journey chapter I’ve ever seen. It retells the story pretty much as it is in the book, with very little variation, except where things would be cut for time or extended to make best use of the animation format. However, it’s also one of the few chapters in which Wukong is completely in the wrong, and is kind of a dick about it the whole time. Without any changes to the adaptation, he just comes off as more of a jerk than usual, which makes it hard to really root for him.

It’s a strange choice of source material, though it does provide some fun visuals, notably the inspired design of the ginseng fruit that resemble babies. I always pictured them a lot fleshier, but there’s something a lot more divine and serene about their depiction here, and coupled with a unique choice of tree design helps sell the mystical element of the story when, for most of it, this is not the most fantastical of plots.

That said, in its production values it doesn’t compare well to Havoc in Heaven and even the third entry – The Monkey King Conquers the Demon – was more entertaining. As far as Journey films, this one is both short (under 45 minutes only) and not really inspired. It’s not bad by any means, and the animation is still pretty impressive (for the most part. To say the action is lacking would be generous), but it feels like the company felt obligated to make this more than they had a particular passion for it.

It’s short enough to be worth checking out, for sure, and while it doesn’t work as a standalone movie, it does as a companion piece to one of the more iconic events of the Journey to the West. I’ve definitely seen far worse animated Journey films. This one does retain a fair bit of the charm from Havoc and I’m happy to have spent a bit more time with this opera-styled Wukong and his immediately less interesting companions.

Verdict: A step down from its predecessor, Ginseng Fruit is still a halfway decent retelling, if a boring standalone film.

Overall entertainment: 6/10
Violence: 3/10
Sex: 0/10
Animation: 7/10, some fun creative moments
Lore accuracy: 9/10
Laugh out loud moments: The seemingly endless whipping scene, even more so when they start again
Guan yin: Oh look who goes and saves the day again. Jeez, Wukong, maybe you can solve your own problems once in a while

Monkey King and the Fruit of Immortality (1981)
Also known as: Ginseng Fruit
Mandarin

Director: Ding Xian Yan
Writers: Wun Cheng’en (novel), Ding Xian Ya

CAST
Honestly, fuck if I know. There’s no information anywhere