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After enjoying the previous renditions of this Monkey King franchise. I went into this movie expecting some fast paced action sequences, but was pleasantly surprised it actually had some heartfelt depth to the story. The special effects and CGI were top notch and helped to bring the magical world of Journey to the West alive and they did a splendid job at it. This tale is but just one of the many events our main lead group encounters on their Journey to the West in trying to obtain Buddhist scared scroll scriptures to help humanity and get themselves everlasting nirvana. Journey to the West is like the chinese Lord of the Rings. It has that much weight in chinese history and literature and maybe even more. The world of the nuer guo, or loosely translated as a country of only female human species was wonderfully depicted, and the essence of the original old tale was intact and brought to life with a modern take on it. Zanilia Zhao, or also known as Zhao Lying is as stunning as ever, and she captures the mood very well. She never misses. When even not talking, she can speak volumes only by looking at her expressions. She made her role believable and endearing. I think Soi Cheang is the director of the previous Monkey King renditions aswell. But if that is so then I wouldn't mind Soi Cheang will be directing the future parts of the Journey to the West story aswell, as he obviously know the perfect mix between action, melodrama, special effects and just good heartfelt story telling. Well done!

Though it had the potential of being an engaging film, however the execution left to be desired. The entire ordeal lacked story telling. Songs were catchy, but that alone could not sugar coat the fact that the plot was very flimsy. This rendition could have been so much more. It could have been in the magical style of The Grand Budapest Hotel, it had that vibe and potential. What a waste of the talent in this movie. The lead actors and support actors were all great and witty. And not sure why Hugh Grant as an oompa loompa was so small. In the world of inclusion and diversity, they could have employed a real midget actor to depict. Peter Dinklage is a well established actor as a choice, While Hugh Grant did his part great, but not necessary to have Hugh Grant play that part, as there are alot of other viable options. To summarize this movie, it's a hatful of dreams, and it stayed a hatful of dreams and nothing more....

The film was wonderfully shot in an down to earth manner. No fancy over glorifying scenes, but just raw and gritty. And the direction of the movie to depict Napoleon Bonaparte as a flawed man and not the over glamorized general as people like to think he was, is an excellent decision. Napoleon Bonaparte was in fact in real life a flawed man aswell. While though unquestionably being a strategic military talented man, but people cannot possibly think Bonaparte was a genius man 24 hours a day 7 days week. This movie was about the man behind the General. Bonaparte was in fact a petty, egocentric, perverted and brutal dictator that is flawed in every aspect of the word and lead millions into their deaths because of his ambitions. Napoleon victories were in fact not victories, because it was due to the cost of huge amount of losses of lives. His marriage was also a mess, even though it is said he did genuinely love his wife Josephine, but even that was questionable. While not depicted in the movie but Bonaparte was said to have committing adultery right before his coronation, he also had an affair during his campaign in egypt right after knowing Josephine was having an affair back home in Paris. So the relationship between Josephine and Napoleon was an utter mess. There was also several assassination attempts against Napoleon Bonaparte, and thus shows he was not as loved and adored as people think. However the movie was for the most part historically accurate, both the events of Bonaparte aswell as the brutal battles and the senseless treatment of loss of lives and gives us a window how immoral times it were back in the days.