The Lost Empire (2001)
American journalist Nick Orton is caught up in the world of Chinese gods and monsters while on a search for the long lost manuscript to 'Hsi Yu Chi' (The Journey to the West) by Wu Ch'eng En. He is accompanied on his journey by a humanoid ape with incredible strength and magical powers, a humanoid pig-man, and his brother-in-arms, an ex-cannibal. Based on one of the greatest stories in Chinese history.
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Reviews
Save your money for something good and enjoyable
Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay
Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.
It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny
An excellent blending of the classical stories of the Monkey King and his friends with the modern world.Whenever a movie is made that attempts to blend classical stories with the modern world you have to give it the benefit of the doubt. The feel of the movie is much more important than the neatly pulling together points from the classical stories by Wu. The Lost Empire (Recently released on the Sci Fi channel as "The Monkey King". Does an excellent job of tying the intent and overall feel of the 4 books of the "Journey" saga into the modern world.For those who like to nit pick movies like this one, they should realize that there is not a classical Chinese movie made which holds up to scrutiny versus the original texts. Movies just are not supposed to be a replacement for reading. This movie does a very good job of giving the feel of the old movies a more than passing homage. I recommend it to anyone who enjoys Fantasy and Classical Chinese stories.
Now I doubt many westerners are familiar with the Chinese novel Journey to the West or with the legendary Chinese character of the Monkey King. So for the uninitiated this might be an interesting story with interesting characters. But despite the fact that they used some Chinese actors and actresses there is a hallow ring to this TV movie. It all seems staged to appeal to Americans and doesn't honestly follow the legends of the original Chinese texts. The casting could have been better. It would have been nice if they picked an actor with more depth than Thomas Gibson for the Nicolas Orton role. The probably chose Gibson for his popularity on network television at the time (in Dharma and Greg) instead of auditioning someone else for the role. Bai Ling is a spectacular woman to look at and a very good actress. She tries her best but she would have been better served if they wrote a better script and gave more emphasis to Chinese authenticity.
How could they make this movie 2.44 hours long??? I tought i was a quite good movie the first hour...not a great movie more of a fun B-movie. But Then...when it never ended and story become stupid, not the kind of story you want to see. Let the good people win! Well then you just got tired and hoped it would end soon.It should have been 1 hour shorter then I would have given it a 5...but now its more of a 2-3.
This movie has a mediocre plot. It doesn't reflect the real story of the real chinese's Journey to the West story. A bit disappointment.The chinese's God is not accurate at all, most deities are not allowed to fall in love at all and in this story we can see not the fact but more on fiction.Maybe the script writer should plan this story earlier and have a total research before producing so that everybody will enjoy this one as its original.