Taiwan’s short king Wukong faces off against Red Boy, a wheelchair-bound Princess, and a weird frog guy in this messy, but fun retelling of Princess Iron Fan.
“You are a good son to your parents. Harming others to get your way is wrong. You will meditate on your mistakes for three years.”
Seems like a small punishment compared to the half a millennium that Sun Wukong got, but whatever. It doesn’t take long – twenty minutes – for Red Boy (seemingly the film’s main villain) to be subdued, which only leaves you wondering what this adaptation of both the Princess Iron Fan and Red Boy chapters of the story will actually be about.
That’s because this 2005 animated adaptation is doing a bit more than retell those two stories. It reframes the Bull King’s family as a decent, loving one (even if the King himself is a bit of a jerk), where Red Boy will do anything to help his ailing Iron Fan mother, who looks astonishingly like Winona Ryder from Beetlejuice. Princess Iron Fan is being poisoned by some toad attendant, and the only way to cure her is by – what else – boiling Tang Sangzang’s bones into soup. This naturally puts him in conflict with Wukong and the rest of the scripture pilgrims.
But, like I said, this is a film where Red Boy is subdued almost immediately, and is told by Buddha himself not to boil the monk. With a huge vacuum where a villain once was present, there’s room for one of the Spider Princesses to show up, and just sort of be generically evil for the rest of the film. It’s an OK switch, but the end result is one where the heroes end up being much more interesting and watchable characters than its villains.
This is quite a fun movie to watch. I could never tell how much I liked it. On the one hand, the production values were actually really good. Taiwan doesn’t have a huge animation scene, but Wang Films has a extensive history, not only making its own films but also working on absolutely tonnes of outsourced Disney and generally Western productions. It’s no surprise I kept being reminded of Disney’s straight-to-VHS sequels or their animated spin-offs. Wang’s animation capabilities are on point here, which does a lot to keep the movie as entertaining as it is.
Then there are the character designs which are, if nothing else, memorable. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Sun Wukong this tiny before, and this similar to Sonic the Hedgehog. It also puts him eye to eye with Red Boy, which works compositionally, but is kind of odd because one is a child, and the other is a centuries old Monkey immortal.
Taking Fire Ball for what it is, it’s not bad at all. Its sensitivities are fully in the realm of children’s entertainment, and it does suffer a bit for that. It’s designed to be filled with easy to digest lessons (I suppose the original story is too), simple conflicts and boring villains that are either just slimy scumbags or war-hungry spider monsters. It’s very liberal with what it adapts, taking elements from both Red Boy’s story and that of his mother’s, but also takes from the story of the White Bone Demon, and of course throws in a bit of Havoc in Heaven arc, and the result is a film that’s a bit too muddled in its story, but knows more or less what it wants to be, and – thanks to some rock solid animation production – largely succeeds.
Verdict: Despite an uninspired story and tendency to fall into children’s film cliches, Fire Ball is nonetheless a decent Journey film, bolstered by some seriously good animation and curious character designs.
Overall entertainment: 6.5/10
Violence: 4/10
Sex: 0/10
Animation: 7/10
Wula: What in the world is that?
Cloud: Has a face in this. Sure.
Sequel baiting: A bold move, for sure
Meet-cutes: One oddly romantically charged moment between Wukong and Red Boy
Fire Ball (2005)
Also known as: 紅孩兒:決戰火焰山
Mandarin
Director: Wang Toon (or Wang Tong depending on who you ask)
Writers: Wu Cheng’en (novel), Ji Wei-ren (screenplay)
CAST
Han-Ya Liu – Red Boy
Yang Kuei-mei – Princess Iron Fan
Matthew Yen-Shen Tsai – Sun Wukong
Peng Chia-chia – Demon Bull King
Nono Chen – Zhu Bajie
Chien Te-men – Earth god
Hsu Chieh-hui – Spider
Chan Chao-jung – Tangf Sangzang
The Asian Cinema Critic 