A Chinese Odyssey Part One: Pandora's Box (1995) on Netflix
NR19951h 27mActionAdventureComedy
Monkey betrayed the Longevity Monk and was reborn as Joker, an outlaw chief with no memory of that life. Two demonesses attack his gang, and Joker falls for Bai Jingjing.
- Netflix3.8/5
- IMDb7.5/109,650 votes
- Rotten TomatoesNot available
Trailer
Plot summary
Five hundred years ago, Monkey grew tired of escorting the Longevity Monk to fetch the Buddhist scriptures and turned on him. Guanyin subdued Monkey and gave him another chance after the Longevity Monk pleaded for mercy and sacrificed himself. Monkey has since been reborn as Joker, an outlaw chief who remembers nothing of his past life. Two demonesses, Spider Woman and Bai Jingjing, attack his gang. Joker's second-in-command learns of their plan to eat the Longevity Monk, and Spider Woman forces him to serve her. Joker falls in love with Bai Jingjing. Grandpa Buddha appears to warn Joker of danger and hands him a magic mirror that reveals a being's true form. When Bull King attacks, Joker and his second-in-command flee with both demonesses to a cave, where the demonesses quarrel over Joker.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about A Chinese Odyssey Part One: Pandora's Box (1995)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- The shoot of the two films was chaotic because the Hong Kong crew spoke only Cantonese and the Chinese crew spoke only Mandarin; actors including Lu Shuming and Wu Yujin said they had very little idea of what was going on.
- In 1994 Stephen Chow set up his own production company and asked Jeffrey Lau to write and direct his next film; Lau told him he would never find popularity with female audiences unless he played a romantic lead, and pitched him a two-part adaptation of Journey to the West, which Chow agreed to.
- To shoot on locations in China, the movie became a China-Hong Kong co-production between Chow's Choi Sing Company and Xi'an Film Studios, which was home to Fifth Generation arthouse directors like Zhang Yimou and Chen Kaige and was reluctant to work with a commercial Hong Kong production until cuts in government subsidies forced it to seek new financing.
- In the late 1990s and early 2000s the films became a cult favourite in China, with their phrases, expressions and memes becoming a foundational part of early Chinese internet culture; this was partly called the Stephen Chow Phenomenon (周星驰现象).
- The line "10,000 years" from the film became one of the most popular buzzwords for Chinese-language films, with a Google search count of 21.9 million.
