A CHINESE ODYSSEY: CINDERELLA (1995)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *comedy*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *metaphysical, psychological*

Well, Part 2 isn't nearly as good as Part 1, particularly with respect to the trope of "love vs. higher duty." But the second film exceeds the first one in one respect: the folkloric reference in the subtitle makes ever LESS sense. 

So at the conclusion of PANDORA'S BOX, Joker, the 500-years-later mortal reincarnation of Monkey King has been caught between a rock and a hard place, consisting of two demon-sisters who want from him information on his earlier self. Joker falls in love with one sister, Jing Jing, while his associate Pigsy accidentally impregnates the other sister, Spider Woman, though the whole topic of this demon-mortal pairing just gets dropped in Part 2. Jing Jing commits suicide, but the goddess Kuanyin gives Joker a time-travel box that might save Jing Jing's life. But after a couple of misfires, the box hurls Joker back 500 years. Though the audience sees many of the same myth-figures that existed in this time-- Monkey's allies Pigsy and Sandy, and enemies Bull King and Princess Iron Fan-- Monkey himself does not appear, perhaps having been banished or confined by the goddess. Monkey's absence will eventually open the door for Joker to eventually retro-incarnate himself, re-assuming his godlike identity in place of the mortal one.

Jing Jing and Spider Woman both exist in this time period as well, though neither has ever met Monkey's mortal form before. So does Joker get to approach Jing Jing and seek to convince her of the true love they share?

Ah, no, Joker meets a totally different woman, the fairy Zixia (Athena Chu). She knocks Joker around, takes his time-travel box from him, and declares him to be her slave. Joker keeps trying to recover the box, and over time Zixia begins to show evidence of the Takahashi Rule: "knowing that the guy belongs to someone else makes him interesting." It helps that she has a special sword that only her true love can pull from its sheath, and guess who unsheathes the sword without even knowing he's doing something special?

So there's no impediment to Zixia falling in love with Joker, even though she like Jing Jing has a mean sister who shares the same body (nothing interesting is done with this). But why does Joker fall out of love with Jing and in love with Zixia? Writer-director Jeffrey Lau utterly fails to sell this new relationship, even though he once more has the services of the two actresses who played the demon-sisters in the first film. 

Meanwhile, Bull King is still around in this archaic period, but his current project is to put aside his first wife Princess Iron Fan and to get married to the fairy Zixia. Joker, who's not yet conscious of his having fallen for Zixia, gets pulled into this comedy of errors. This includes the development that Iron Fan recognizes Joker as the reincarnation of Monkey, and since she once "dated" Monkey, she tries to get Joker to rendezvous with her.

Longevity Monk is around too, and Bull King wants to devour his flesh in order to become immortal, just as he will 500 years in the future. Joker finally becomes resigned to the fact that in order to save the Monk and defeat Bull King, he must retro-incarnate and become Monkey King once more. However, that means subsuming his later identity so that he once more assumes all the historical duties of Monkey King, such as protecting the Monk on his journey to the west. He must also don a special metal ring around his head that causes him pain when he tries to return to his old romantic habits-- which doesn't exactly sound like the idea of Buddhist enlightenment to me.

Though there's a cool battle between Monkey and Bull at the climax, the ending is very confusing. I think Monkey journeys back to the future, where Jing Jing and Spider Woman have become mortals and are married to the descendant of Pigsy (maybe the baby got erased by time-alterations?) and a mortal version of Zixia is married to a descendant of Joker. Sad, sad, sacrifice for the hero of the story, roll credits.

Stephen Chow is uniformly good even acting through the monkey-makeup, and glamorous Athena Chu provides strong support even though her character is underwritten. But whereas Part 1 benefited from its similarity to the popular "White Snake" narrative, Part 2 doesn't hold together. I still give it a fair mythicity rating because the story touches on the trope of "love vs. duty," but it isn't as affecting this time around.