MONK COMES DOWN THE MOUNTAIN

China, 2015, 123 minutes, Colour.
Directed by Chen Kaige.

Chen Kaige has been a celebrated Chinese director, emerging, along with Zhamg Yimou in the 1980s. Some of his significant films include Farewell, My Concubine, The Emperor and The Assassin, Forever Enthralled. He has been a visual chronicler of many aspects of Chinese history.

This film is probably more effective for a Chinese and an Asian audience rather than a Western audience. This is because of the themes as well as the construction of the story in the background of monasteries and monks making their way as well as martial arts.

The film opens with the monk in question trying to prove that he should stay in the monastery but entering so well that the Abbott advises him to leave. He finds himself in Shanghai, does a variety of jobs, but falls on hard times. He is befriended by a former monk but falls foul of the monk’s wife and her lover who murder the former monk.

He becomes involved in various adventures, cared for by a martial arts expert who becomes the victim of thugs.

This offers quite an opportunity for what might be called Jackie Chan kinds of adventures, well choreographed martial arts encounters. Touches of comedy – and touches of the ludicrous. However, the characters and the story telling have much more appeal to a Chinese audience. So, for worldwide audiences, a curiosity item in the career of Chen Kaige.