"Saiyûki" (1978) TV series 1978-1980

Directors:

Toshi Aoki
Jun Fukuda

Writers:

Motomu Furuta (screenplay)
Hiroichi Fuse (screenplay)

Seasons:

1 | 2 | unknown

Release Date:

1 October 1978 (Japan)

Genre:

Action | Family | Adventure | Comedy | Fantasy

Plot:

Monkey is the story by Wu Ch'êng-ên based on the ancient Chinese legend tracing the origins of Buddhism...

Plot Keywords:

Monkey | Buddhism | Legend | China | India

Cast

 (Series Cast Summary - 5 of 14)

Peter Woodthorpe	...	Pigsy (14 episodes, 1978-1979)
Masaaki Sakai	...	Sun Wu-Kong (Monkey) (13 episodes, 1978)
Toshiyuki Nishida	...	Zhu Ba-Jie (Pigsy season 1) (13 episodes, 1978)
Shirô Kishibe	...	Sha Wu-Jing (Sandy) (13 episodes, 1978)
Masako Natsume	...	Xuanzang Sanzang (Tripitaka) (13 episodes, 1978)

Also Known As:

Monkey (International: English title) (dubbed version)
Monkey Magic (Australia) (informal English title)

Country:

Japan

Language:

Japanese

Color:

Color

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

UK:PG | Australia:M (some episodes) | Australia:PG (some episodes) | Australia:MA (some episodes)

Filming Locations:

China

Company:

Kokusai Hoei

Trivia:

Made with an ensemble cast and on low budget. Sets are clearly recycled from episode to episode, and the supporting cast can be the King one episode, a demon the next, and a gambler in the one after that.

Quotes:

Monkey: [after finding out that Buddha was female] I always thought Buddha was a fella!

Movie Connections:

Referenced in "Spaced: Gone (#2.5)" (2001)

Recommended viewing for fans of silliness.

This series has achieved a cult following and for very good reasons. It's wacky, off-the-wall and just plain weird.

The story focusses on a small band of pilgrims travelling from China to India to fetch the holy scriptures. Leading the party is Tripitaka, a Buddhist priest and played by a girl, Masako Natsume. Following him is Monkey, Sandy and Pigsy. Apart from the priest, all are effectively spirits, cast out of heaven for causing mischief of various forms, and sworn to help the priest in his quest.

Now, the effects are cheesy, the acting is typically overacting, and the script of each episode typically has the band of pilgrims defeating some horde of demons in order to continue on their way. The demons are typically just actors with theatrically painted faces and occasionally horns and goofy teeth.

The English language version is fairly-well dubbed, and you get used to the voices not matching the lips straight off. Of interest to fans of the original LOTR animated movie is the fact that the voice of Pigsy was done by Peter Woodthorpe, who voiced Gollum in the animated film. The voices are virtually identical, except of course, Pigsy never goes on about "his Precious".

Monkey is the main star of the show, though, and has a number of magical powers at his disposal. His fighting staff can shrink or expand at his command (he often hides it in his ear!) and he can summon clouds to ride around on (which is just plain silliness, and brilliant anyhow!). I seem to recall he could also create duplicates of himself by plucking hairs from body.

Pigsy, as mentioned above, sounds just like Gollum, and is hedonism personified. He constantly craves women, food and alcohol to excess, though he rarely ends up satisfied.

Sandy is a fish spirit and is the only "heroic" character I can think of who goes around sporting a necklace of skulls.

Tripitaka is the priest who tries to keep them all under control. In reality, he only appears to have any direct control over Monkey, and he usually keeps the others in line.

In the second series, the actor playing Pigsy changed, though the voice remains the same. Also a new character appears in the form of Tripitaka's horse, which is apparently a dragon spirit (though he's a pretty cowardly dragon) called Yu-Lung.

The fight sequences are silly, and the weapons are very obviously rubber for the most part. But there is something about "Monkey" that transcends this and entertains you regardless of its technical failings. In the end, all the silliness just becomes part of the fun of the show and you watch it mainly for the interplay between the characters, not the plot or anything else.