The Economist.
What does a Disney comedy series for teenagers
have in common with a popular Korean travel reality show?
The answer is a Chinese classic written in the 16th century.
Xiyouji, A Journey to the West,
or The Monkey King, as is often known to audiences outside China,
is a fantastical retelling of a pilgrimage
undertaken by a monk and his three disciples,
a monkey, a pig, and a hairy muscle man.
Their quest in search of sacred scriptures and the ways of Buddhism
may well be China's most celebrated story
and one of China's more successful cultural exports,
spawning everything from Lego sets to blockbuster video games.
Back home, a recent re-imagining of A Journey to the West
became China's highest-grossing film of all time.
I'm Jiehao Chen, the Economist's China researcher and drum tower producer.
And I'm joined by Rosie Blau, co-host of The Intelligence.
For the return of our Drum Tower Film Club,
we're bringing you some of the manifold interpretations of this classic,
and we're asking,