Tang Sanzang, is a careful and loving buddhist monk who is also a demon hunter. Instead of using violence to defeat and capture the demons he uses nursery rhymes to try and defeat them. Furthermore, during his journey he must fight 3 demons in order to protect the village from the demon beings. However, there are other demon hunters that are not like him and do not see the good in the demons or try to save them, instead they capture the demons for ransom or fame. During Tang Sanzang travels he meets Miss Duan who falls in love with him and save s him repeatedly throughout the movie. Tang Sanzang must face the trial of love, good, and bad, and ultimately his own perseverance. Tang Sanzang, unlike all of the other demon hunters, does not use violence to defeat any of the monsters and is a true honest hero. I do wonder why the journey to kill and destroy demons had to be in the westerly direction and not in the east, north, or south. Like does the west have a negative connotation in both the U.S and China? I know that there is the wicked witch of the west in the wizard of Oz and Dorothy and the others must defeat her. Furthermore, I do not think that there is a difference in the United States and China for the use of the west as a negative connotation in their movies context. The film Journey to the west is very high quality and used CGI effects for production so their effects and screenplay is very evidently similar to the U.S.. I believe this happens because the U.S. and China are very developed countries and have the money to make movies look really good, not saying the other countries without the supplements of money could not make movies with high quality but it is definitely much appreciated.

This film was very interesting and funny. The main character Xuan Zang is a demon hunter. He is different from the other demon hunters because he uses a different approach. Instead of using violence he uses a book of nursery rhymes to bring out the innocence in the demons. He meets a lady named Miss Daun who helps him hunt demons. She is always coming in to save him from the demons. Instantly she falls in love with him. Throughout the movie we see her trying to prove to him that she loves him back. Only when he realizes it, it is too late. This helps him come to his ultimate Buddha and find what he has been missing all along. Xuan Chang shows courage throughout the movie because he doesn't give up and believes in the good of the demons. He even manages to defeat the legendary Monkey King. This shows us that anything can be accomplished even when you least expect it.

Journey to the West is about an odd Buddhist monk named Xuan Zang. Xuan Zang is a young demon hunter who must vanquish all of the demons he can find. In the beginning of this film, he is helping a bunch of frightened villagers to take down a giant, hungry, fish that is leaping from the water starting chaos. Xuan Zang has a preferred method of attacking and capturing the demons. He has this book called "300 Nursery Rhymes." Xuan Zang uses this book as a guide to capture and kill all demons. A rival demon hunter named Miss Duan keeps running into Xuan Zang. Miss Duan is a hardcore demon hunter, who is a fearless female that is not afraid of death. Miss Duan fights demons using her magical golden bracelet which is called "The Infinite Flying Rings". She uses these rings to duplicate them and then fling the circles through the air. Xuan Zang and Miss Duan go on many adventures together trying to capture demons. These two characters come across and face many different types of demons. With a sudden change of events Miss Duan finds herself falling hard for Xuan Zang. This film was extremely entertaining to watch. I like how there was so much action involved, and how the plot was constantly changing. One major theme tied into this film was the Buddha.

I have to say that the positive reviews here are baffling to me. Perhaps Chow has succeeded in attracting audience from the West, but he's certainly losing long time Chinese fans like me.A Chinese Odyssey, a two-part movie back in 1994/1995 was arguably Chow's best work as an actor. Knowing that this is a prequel to that series I came in with great expectations. Yet after finishing the movie it left me pretty disappointed, to say the least.Script: The love between the two main characters are forced and unreal. I also don't see a strong theme throughout the movie - the Chinese Odyssey explores the tension between love and responsibility, and portrays that brilliantly (in both a funny and touchy way) throughout the series. This one? I am not so sure.I understand that Chow as a director does not intend to make humorous movies - this is clear when he was making the transition to being a director, e.g. King of Comedy. Yet back in those old movies he was still able to come up catchy/really funny lines which created a strong contrast of the underlying, sad theme. This one - it really is not funny.CGI/Acting: To me the CGI is pretty neat, and the acting is done quite nicely. Kudos to Bo Huang for an excellent portrayal of the Monkey King. But again, personally the script/storyline is far more important than the CGI.