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Monkey, Tripitaka, Pigsy, and Sandy continue their ?Journey to the West?
Screen Capture: Josh Thomson, Chai Hansen, Luciane Buchanan, and Emilie Cocquerel as Pigsy, Monkey, Tripitaka, and Sandy, respectively, in Netflix?s ?The New Legends of Monkey?
The New Legends of Monkey, an Australian-New Zealand adaptation, is based on Wu Cheng?en?s sixteenth century Chinese novel Journey to the West, returned Friday, 7 August 2020 with its second season.
Picking up shortly after the first season finale, A Hero to Save Us All, we find the Monkey King (Chai Hansen), Tripitaka (Luciane Buchanan), Pigsy (Josh Thomson), and Sandy (Emilie Cocquerel) being pursued by demons. The second season, with episodes running approximately 25 minutes, consists of ten instalments.
With the four friends having gained the Scroll of Immortality, moving on to the second of six scrolls, Monkey, Tripitaka, Pigsy, and Sandy seek the Scroll of Knowledge. Even though Tripitaka is accompanied by three gods, nothing their approach to life isn?t exactly perfect, it takes a mere mortal to see the object clearly.
Image Credit: IMDb.com
Each episode presents the four friends with news challenges to over come. the fourth episode, for example, sees them momentarily intoxicated with a love position. It is this same episode that they cross paths with a puppet master intent of taking the scrolls for himself.
Tripitaka is trapped inside a puppet. Pigsy senses there is something wrong. Whilst the monk is ultimately saved, it comes at a great cost. A child?s life is seemingly lost. It?s not until episodes later do we discover this boy is captured by the demons.
The choreography in the fight scenes, as we saw in the first season, are well executed. The friends don?t always experiencing triumphs. Tripitaka seems to think she must carry the weight of the world by herself.
There are moments were the whistling of the Monkey theme can be heard. An early adaptation of the Chinese novel, developed and televised during the 1970?s, was title Saiyki. This series, with Masaaki Sakai, Masako Natsume, Peter Woodthorpe, and Gareth Armstrong as the lead characters, is also known by the English titles Monkey and Monkey Magic.
With each scroll discovered, the Journey into the West becomes shorter. Monkey pretending he?s human is hilarious. No human refers to themselves as a human. It isn?t as convincing as Sandy pretending she?s a demon. Sandy, having Pigsy be her personal chef, gets more credibility from her actions that Monkey does as Norman the normal human.
This season?s ultimate big bad is a demon-created shadow duplicate of the Monkey King.The Monkey Kings, with equal abilities, are comparable warriors. The second Monkey King, also known as the Shadow Monkey, is determined to kill Tripitaka. The true Tripitaka, nowhere near as confident as the one we have come to know, shows up in the second season finale. This is the first time we?ve seen him since the series premiere where the title character was released from the mountain.
The only way for the Monkey King to defeat his shadow counterpart is to fly the Shadow Scroll into the sun. The male Tripitaka gives up his life to restore the Monkey King. The rebirth of the Monkey King, as seen in the 1970?s series, happens. This rebirth brings back to life Princess Locke (Bryony Skillington). The second season ends here with this reborn demon declaring that ?it?s good to be home.?
Video Credit: Netflix Official Trailer
