The Monkey King: Havoc in Heaven (1961)

Absolutely the worst movie.

Absolutely Fantastic

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

Saw it twice as a kid and I remember it still. This movie is a wonderful animation from China about the Monkey king and his adventures.The movie consists of several earthly and heavenly adventures as the monkey king tries to (save the world?) or just get along in life (It has been over 20 years...)It just became available for purchasing in Sweden and I am gonna get it...9/10 as I remember it, it may even get 10/10 as a children's movie, but also risk being downgraded (as I said, 20 years) to about 8, but not lower, never...

I saw this movie so long ago that I do not remember it as being subtitled because when I saw it, I couldn't read. The movie was shown in a school theater as a cross cultural event. So I sat through the whole thing even though I couldn't understand what was being said and I still thought it was great.I am still waiting to see it again.

Our knowledge of animation in China is, to say the least, patchy but this is represented as their most important work, an account of the adventures of the painted face monkey king who leads the little monkeys of the Fruit and Flower Mountain, despite the traps and combatants launched by the King of Heaven.It's sobering to realise that the opera tradition that this film's moves and costumes echo is the one shown under attack in FAREWELL TO THE CONCUBINE which is set in the period in which this was made. The childrens' films of the socialist countries were often their only product to be dogma free and it's hard to accept proposition that the drunken, destructive monkey is a rendition of young Chairman Mao upsetting the authorities.The flattened, scroll painting design is one of the film's distinctive features.UPROAR IN HEAVEN doesn't have the animation set pieces of the major Disney films, the zip of the Looney Toons or the sophistication of European cartoons but it has a quality of it's own which appeals and even occasionally impresses - the battle with the gem headed scarlet serpent, the horses bathing in the clouds. Monkey King, who apparently did have a further career, may not make any Journey to the East with Pigsy but he is a more effective cartoon character than Mickey Mouse, Mr McGoo or many of those we know better.Tinies may have difficulty taking two hours of this but segments would be sure to get them in. It is, in a good copy, one of the best examples of the Orwo process even if they never could cope with the violet-mauve-purple bit of the spectrum.

Having gone into watching this without any expectations I must say that I was pleasingly surprised with how the movie captured me and pulled me in to the story. Yes it is an animated movie but it gives a chance to get a glimpse into the otherwise non revealed chinese mythology and legends.Very good for young and old alike.