A+Chinese+Odyssey

Analyze This: A Chinese Odyssey Director: Stephen Chow

//A Chinese Odyssey// is briefly based off the Chinese ancient novel “Journey To The West”. 500 years ago, monkey Sun Wu Kong committed a crime that resulted in a death penalty by the Goddess Guan Yin. However, the monk, Tang Seng, came in and took the death penalty for the monkey. In this case, Guan Yin allowed Monkey to live another life by reincarnating into a human in order to make up for his mistakes he’s made. 500 years later, unaware of his past life, Monkey reincarnated into a leader of a bunch of mountain robbers called Joker. One day, a mysterious woman with very strong powers came into the village asking for a place to stay. Joker hesitantly welcomed her but only to find out that she’s a demon called Spider Woman. Her sister, also a demon named Bak Jing Jing, also came along and asked for a place to stay. Joker later found out that they’re looking for the Monkey that was “buried in a mountain” 500 years ago in order to find the monk (they didn’t know he died) to feed on him to gain immortality. Suddenly, the Bull King storms into the village looking for the monk as well. At this time the Spider Woman and her sister Bak Jing Jing kidnap both Joker and his second-hand to the Waterfall cave. At this stage, Joker finds out that he’s actually the Monkey, but he has to wait for that one person to grant him 3 moles in his foot before fulfilling his true destiny. Later, the bull king finds the four and starts a fight. Joker falls in love with Bak Jing Jing and tries to rescue her multiple times before Bull King kills her. At the end of the film, Joker accidentally transports himself back to 500 years ago, where he meets a woman who grants him 3 moles. The movie continues on in part 2.

Throughout the whole movie, the character, Joker, wants to be with Bak Jing Jing, a demon lady who he fell in love with by accident. Joker/Monkey needs to learn his lesson from the past in order to fulfill his destiny as Monkey to escort his master to the West. The main theme of this movie is that you can never changed the past.

The scene that I’m going to focus on would be the second last scene of the movie, where Joker travels back in time several times in attempt to save Bak Jing Jing from suiciding.


 * Here are the pictures that I used for reference in each analysis: I have trouble uploading them to the wiki so I made it into a powerpoint labeling corresponding numbers: [[file:A Chinese Odyssey Pictures.key]]**

> > > > > > > > >
 * 1) Even though Joker is the main character of this film. This shot suggested that the subject right now that’s causing Joker to go on a series of time traveling is Bak Jing Jing. Here the cinematographer deliberately makes the focus on Bak Jing Jing on the left corner/middle of the shot while Joker’s just a small person unfocused in the back.
 * 1) The back lighting behind Pigsy and his child is a warm color contrasted with the other shots with Spider Woman which is usually a dark color. As Joker time travels more and more, the lighting behind Pigsy turns darker, which implicates that Joker cannot change the past and actually makes it worse if he keeps time traveling.
 * 1) The special effects in the film creates a diegetic sound that implicates the power of time traveling. This diegetic sound was repeated multiple times in the various shots that Joker time travels. This helps suggest that no matter how many times Joker tries to go back and change history, everything is still the same.
 * 1) The cave structure in this shot divides up the subjects in the scene. Here in the middle (which is the biggest portion of the cave) is Pigsy and the Bull King. In the left side of the cave (in the smokes) we can see Joker running across (he’s a bit blurry). The cave structure is used to display which is the most important subject in the shot (which is mostly Pigsy and Bull King). Because this shot was used several times, it shows the continuous efforts both Joker returning to the past and Pigsy looking for his wife within Bull King.
 * 1) The editing of the special effects on Joker’s time traveling also creates meaning towards the film. When Joker vanishes there’s often a red light that follows right after. The color red is symbolized as a “forbidden” way of changing the past.
 * 2) The set outside of the cave is the same exact material (with silk/tree hair growing all over) from the set inside the cave. However, the lighting between inside of the cave and outside of the cave is different. Outside of the cave is dark and blue, while the inside seems to have bit of a “holy” light near the door to the inside. The ironic thing about this that Joker is traveling back in time to go into the cave a few minutes before to rescue his lover Bak Jing Jing who was going to die while in the present time the inside of the cave still has white light but with a dead Bak Jing Jing.
 * 1) The path that Joker runs on has mist that makes the end of the paths blurry. Whenever Joker time travels, he tends to run on that path repeatedly. And since the path is a bit blurry, it indicates that Joker has no idea what he’s getting into by traveling back to the past.
 * 1) The costume color of Joker symbolizes his innocence on everything that has happened in this scene. When Joker stops Bak Jing Jing from killing herself, he in return gets chased by an angry Bak Jing Jing because she thought he cheated on her. Technically, the whole reason she suicided was because of him. This also shows that changing fate can have controversies, especially when you die instead of she suiciding.
 * 1) The two separate lighting of blue and yellow shows the situation of the shot. For example, Joker changed both Bak Jing Jing and his fate when he time traveled to save her from killing herself. The blue light behind Joker symbolized that he is in a dark side and is about to be killed. While the yellow light shows Bak Jing Jing being in power and is alive and well.
 * 1) The light of this show where outside of the cave contains the holy light and the inside containing a yellow light directly shows that Joker was able to change the fate by traveling back in time. In a previous analysis, the outside of the cave was portrayed as a dark place, however, in here, it’s portrayed mysteriously and in a somewhat holy sense.