...it’s quite good and — out of cultural context — winningly idiosyncratic...

| Jan 24, 2023

Mutates from touching, to funny, to downright violent in mere seconds.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 29, 2019

Filled with comedy, but also boasting extensive action and unexpected moments of horror.

| Original Score: 8/10 | Aug 14, 2019

We are even transported by Tsai's ecstatic play of light, space, and time-cinema at its purest.

| Oct 2, 2017

Stephen Chow's Journey To The West: Conquering The Demons is a thoroughly entertaining action comedy that suggests, a la Woody Allen, a promising new life behind the screen for the actor-director.

| Mar 30, 2016

Chow breaks out one elaborate set-piece after another.

| Original Score: B+ | Jul 14, 2015

It makes good use of computer animation and slapstick action comedy.

| Original Score: B | Dec 11, 2014

Stephen Chow's inimitable chops for comedic action are on full display in Journey to the West.

| Original Score: 7/10 | Aug 18, 2014

It is a work that appears to ask so little from its audience (not much more than patience and an alert eye), but gives a heck of a lot back.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Jul 3, 2014

Another exquisite, snail-paced cinematic perambulation from Tsai Ming-liang and Lee Kang-sheng.

| May 14, 2014

A kung fu comedy, a Chinese fairy story, a Buddhist action movie, a prequel to a mega-series that makes James Cameron's ambitions look puny, Chow's Journey to the West is everything that is good about China's mega-blockbuster inclinations.

| Apr 21, 2014

Liang's ravishing conceptual film achieves a rare blend of sensuous delight and documentary specificity.

| Apr 14, 2014

Journey to the West is an episodic picaresque epic, moving from set piece to set piece without the traditional Western screenplay-101 contrivances, allowing for a more casual, freewheeling, adventurous tone.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Mar 14, 2014

Characteristically bug-eyed and silly, by turns creative, clever, and exhausting.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Mar 12, 2014

The cast is extremely funny and the movie will entertain viewers new to his work, but happy as I am to see anything from the multi-talented Stephen Chow, for this longtime fan, the movie feels a bit empty without his comedic onscreen presence.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Mar 7, 2014

While we don't get to see him personally up there amongst the heroes and demons, (Chow's) stamp is all over Journey to the West. It's what makes this flight of fantasy so much escapist fun.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Mar 7, 2014

Journey to the West works so well because Chow has a flair for grand comic-action set pieces, and his imagination seems to actually draw energy from these rapid-fire tonal shifts.

| Mar 7, 2014

There's not an actor in this movie, from the leads down to the extras, who doesn't mug like crazy, and there's not a moment onscreen that isn't utterly ridiculous. That, however, was clearly the goal

| Mar 7, 2014

There's a grandness to the action sequences, playful allusions to 'Jaws,' and a great feel for the spectacular. It's just a shame its story gets lost in translation.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Mar 7, 2014

By turns daffy and dazzling, awkward and artful, "Journey to the West" takes an ancient tale and gives it contemporary flair.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Mar 7, 2014