Lost Empire, The |
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Czech Republic / Germany / Singapore / USA • 2001 • 150m •
  • Directed by: Peter MacDonald. • Starring: Thomas Gibson, Bai Ling, Russell Wong, Ric Young, Kabir Bedi, Eddie Marsan, Randall Duk Kim, Henry O, Kay Sui Lim, Burt Kwouk, James Faulkner, Sai-Kit Yung, Kwong Loke. • Music by: John Altman.      An American China scholar's knowledge of Asian mythology becomes astoundingly useful when he is magically transported into other dimensions by terra cotta warriors who come to life. He soon finds himself face to face with a wisecracking Monkey King, a mystical warrior whose martial-arts skills are matched only by his sarcastic one-liners.
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Review:
In this modern version the companions are the same, but the monk is replaced by a modern American sinologist, and the "scripture" is the original manuscript of Journey to the West itself, which is about to be destroyed by the "five traditional masters", who represent the forces of conservatism. Confused? It gets worse; if the book is destroyed, all the human progress that has taken place since the book was written will be reversed and the world will revert to feudalism. To cap it all, the Jade Emperor, Confucius and Kuan Yin, the goddess of compassion, are all weighing in.
With a scenario like this, the film cannot help but being absurd in places, but the absurdity, intentional or otherwise, is part of the fun, as it was in the original Journey to the West, which is a comedy as well as an analogy of the spiritual journey. Viewers who have read Journey to the West will enjoy the references to it; others can sit back and enjoy the visual richness, which as well as some spectacular scenes and SFX, includes Bai Ling as Kuan Yin, looking far more sexy than a goddess of compassion ought to (but then that's one of the twists in this tale as well).
Review by Robin Turner from the Internet Movie Database.
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