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DVDfever.co.uk – Monkey Magic DVD review Dom Robinson reviews
Showbox Media Group Ltd 
DVD: 
Blu-ray:
TV Series:
- Cert:
- Running time: 116 minutes
- Year: 2008
- Released: February 2009
- Region(s): 2, PAL
- Chapters: 30
- Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1
- Languages: Japanese
- Subtitles: English
- Widescreen: 2.35:1
- 16:9-Enhanced: Yes
- Macrovision: Yes
- Disc Format: DVD 9
- Price: £15.99 (DVD); £19.99 (Blu-ray)
- Extras: Trailer, TV Spots, The Journey To The West
- Vote and comment on this film: View Comments
Director:
- Kensaku Sawada
(Monkey Magic, TV: Change, Fukigen na jiin, Koini ochitara, Puraido)
Producer:
- Chihiro Kameyama
Screenplay:
- Yuji Sakamoto
Music:
- Satoshi Takebe
Cast :
- Monkey: Shingo Katori
Tripitaka: Eri Fukatsu
Pigsy: Atsushi Ito
Sandy: Teruyoshi Uchimura
Princess Reimi: Mikako Tabe
Rin Rin: Asami Mizukawa
Roshi: Koji Okura
For this movie comeback, their leader, Tripitaka (Eri Fukatsu) is off to make the journey west in search of magical sutras that could restore peace to the land, accompanied three mythical creatures – Monkey (Shingo Katori), Sandy (Teruyoshi Uchimura) and Pigsy (Atsushi Ito). Due to the fact that Tripitaka is thought of as a legendary figure, their destiny is to go to a great temple in India where she’s asked by Princess Reimi (Mikako Tabe) to reverse the curse that has turned a king and queen into tortoises by baddies King Gold Horn and his brother, King Silver Horn, who have also turned water and greenery into a desert.
It started off as quite amusing, such as when the clan think they’re incurring Buddha’s wrath for trying to climb a king’s burial mound (you’ll find out about that piece of nonsense when you see it), but on reflection I think this would’ve been best brought back as a TV show again, though, as after about 30 mins the novelty wears off and it starts to drag.
Eventually, you’re just waiting for it to end – and at 110 minutes before the closing credits arrive, it certainly runs for longer than it should’ve done. There’s a twist along the way, but nothing to write home about, and the film gets a little violent towards the end to earn its 12-certificate, but the madness does outstay its welcome.
The film is presented in a 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen ratio with no real problems other than looking a little soft at times, and the Dolby Digital 5.1 sound occasionally gets a bit of a treat with some thundering sound on occasion, such as the aforementioned incurred wrath, and some great split-surround effects in the fight scenes, particularly towards the end.
Sadly, little time has been spent on the extras. There’s no discussions about why they brought it back, how the sets were designed, etc, just a trailer (1:44, letterbox 2.35:1) and 16 TV spots (6:30), aka very brief trailers in the main. There’s also something called The Journey To The West, but this is just a page of text about the origin of Monkey, and is quite hard to read given that it’s black text on a bright red background.
To cap it all, there’s no original ‘Monkey’ music and, for those who wanted the same feel as the version we got to see on TV in the UK, no mad audio dubbing either. In the UK, we got to see the TV series with David Collings (aka Silver from Sapphire and Steel) voice the lead role of Monkey, although I never knew that at the time.
On the plus side, the film is very well chaptered with 30 in total and while there’s no option for subtitles, English ones are on by default and cannot be turned off if any Japanese viewers wanted to watch this without them. The main menu contains many clips from the film, although these contain big spoilers about major elements of the movie, so switch away from that as quickly as possible if you haven’t started to watch it.
PICTURE QUALITY
SOUND QUALITY
EXTRAS
OVERALL 
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.