Director Craig Irvin
Starring Chai Hansen, Luciane Buchanan, Josh Thomson, Emilie Cocquerel
Rated PG
Score 0.5/6

A girl uncovers a statue of the legendary Monkey King, but in order to release this ancient God from his stone prison she must first find his golden crown, a crown that has fallen into the hands of Demons.

In a review I wrote a little while ago for Monkey Magic I said that the cast and crew should please remember that your deeply in don’t screw it up territory. My first thoughts of the series was ‘???????’ but considering missed what I originally thought was the first ten minutes (what actually turned out to be an episode and a half) I thought that I needed to watch what I missed before writing my review.

From what I have read about the whitewashing claims against The New Legends of Monkey it seems that writer and director Craig Irvin has come up with a rather creative defense in one article I read about these claims Mr Irvin said when the team adapted the show, they set it in a mythical world, rather than ancient China. He said he knew people would understand what the series was trying to do once they saw it (I don’t think Mr. Irvin wants to know what I think he was trying to do to the series or what I think of his abilities). And to those people who have defended this series by saying that this is just another adaption in the long list of projects 16th century Chinese novel, Journey to the West, by Wu Cheng’en, your right and your wrong in the same breath considering that particular adaption was inspired by the series that ran from 1978 to 1980 comparisons between the two series are bound to be made. It should be noted that in recent years the words ‘inspired by’ have become dirty words when it comes to the field of film and television production, there almost a short hand for ‘lazy and incapable of an original idea’.

Now getting back on track it seems that those involved with the production of The New Legends of Monkey ventured out of don’t screw it up territory and have taken up permanent residence We Dropped the Ball Hotel Bar and Grill and on a personal note I would like to say that i actually feel as if more then a few of my brain cells have died after binge watching the ten episodes in the space of about 12 hours (yes none of the episodes where longer than half an hour, but I needed a very long nap after watching the fourth episode).

I get that this is kids series designed to expose a new generation to the story and just purely face value it is clear that this adaption had the kind of production values that Monkey Magic could have only dreamt of, and the money that was spent production was the only good thing about the entire show, because there was some gorgeous sets and special effects. It became clear pretty quickly that The New Legends of Monkey was going to be nothing like Monkey Magic, as there did not even seem to be the slightest effort to slip any fan-service into the series to appease any fans of the original series. The action sequences I know that there are limits with what you can do with a PG rating, but I am fairly certain there are more satisfying action sequences to be found in an episode of the Power Rangers.
At best the acting was average, the only decent bit of acting in the entire series came in the third episode from a speech that was given by Pigsy who was played Josh Thomson. I am torn as who gave the worse performance Chai Hansen who played Monkey or Luciane Buchanan who played Tripitaka both Hansen and Buchanan gave what could only be described as wooden performances. As for the humor? Well there where times when they tried to be funny.