A Chinese Odyssey is a two-part 1995 Hong Kong fantasy-comedy film directed by Jeffrey Lau and starring Stephen Chow. The third film was released in China on September 14. The films are very loosely based on the Wu Cheng’en novel Journey to the West.
The first part
A Chinese Odyssey Part One: Pandora’s Box
大话西游之月光宝盒
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Fantasy adventure about the arrival of Buddhism in China. When the Goddess of Happiness tosses the Longevity Monk and his disciples out of heaven (because the Monkey King tried to attain immortality), the Monkey King is reincarnated as the Joker. He now spends his time chasing two jealous women. When one of them is dying, the Joker goes back in time in an attempt to save her.
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Tubi
Watch from Mainland China
爱奇艺
The Second Part
A Chinese Odyssey Part Two: Cinderella
大话西游之大圣娶亲
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The convoluted continuation of the adventures of the time-traveling, now-human Monkey King, who attempts to fulfill his divine destiny.
Watch with English subtitle
Tubi
Watch from Mainland China
爱奇艺
The Third Film
大话西游 3
It won the Golden Angel Award for Film at the 12th Chinese American Film Festival. The film is a sequel to parts one and two of A Chinese Odyssey.
Taking place in an alternate timeline, Fairy Zixia used the Pandora’s Box to travel forward in time to see the consequences of leaving a tear drop in Joker’s heart, which led to her “demise” and Joker being revealed as the reincarnation of the Monkey King. Fearing for her life and Joker’s mental well being, she denounced her relationship to Joker, which led to him asking about what happened in the future. Zixia revealed to him the fact that she left a mark in Joker’s heart, leading to Bai Jing Jing realizing that Joker will eventually stop having feelings for her, leading him to fall for Zixia.
However, Zixia withheld the information about Joker being the Monkey King’s reincarnation and tried to make things right by forcing Joker into meeting with Bai Jing Jing much earlier than in the original timeline.
Unfortunately, Joker had already stopped having feelings for Jing-Jing and prevented Zixia’s plan from going any further resulting in a slap from Zixia. After having a talk with Qingxia (Zixia’s twin sister trapped in her body), Zixia decided to go the Bull Demon King and marry him so Joker can stop falling for her so she left Joker – who was looking for her after being slapped – alone by himself.
Joker continues his search for Zixia in the desert, where he witnessed this timeline’s version of the Monkey King being subdued by Guanyin, with the difference being that the Longevity Monk used the Pandora’s Box to escape from being killed by the Monkey King and the time to subdue the Monkey King took longer than expected. After Guanyin left with the subdued Monkey King, Joker found himself left with the returning Longevity Monk and both were caught together by the Bull Demon King, being happy about having a second wife and the Longevity Monk being captured.
Watch with English subtitle
Watch from Mainland China
百度
Bibliography：
周奕, 浅析《大话西游》的美学意蕴,2017. DOI:10.19395/j.cnki.1674-246x.2017.05.102