Stars : Chi Ling Chiu, Chrissie Chow, Min Hun Fung
Synopsis
A young girl plays by the river and was frightened by her father in
the river pretending to be a fish demon. The young girl cries and the
father tries to please her by doing water ballet. The father is killed
by a real fish demon. The villagers quickly become afraid of the river
and then they hired a Taoist to avenge the death of the villager. The
Taoist mistakes a stingray for the demon, but announced that the village
was safe. A demon hunter, Tang Sanzang (Wen Zhang) informs the Taoist
that he is wrong, and that the demon is still in the water. After the
Taoist pushes his reluctant disciple into the lake to prove that the
demon is gone, the demon strikes again. Sanzang tries to save everybody,
and eventually the village kills the demon. The demon is transformed
back to his human form. Sanzang sings "300 Nursery Rhymes" to the demon,
trying to convert the demon to good. He does not succeed and the demon
starts to attack Sanzang. Another demon hunter, Bai Gu Jing (Shu Qi)
comes to save him, and traps the demon in a demon containment sphere
with ease. Bai Gu Jing asks Sanzang how he became a demon hunter -
Sanzang says through the "demon catching handbook" which as it turns
out, is actually the "300 nursery rhymes" collection. She laughs at him
and tells him off, while accepting the adulation of the villagers.
Sanzang returns to his master. His master tells him the story of the
fish demon: that he was a kind man who had rescued a young child who was
drowning. Unfortunately, the villagers mistook him for a kidnapper, and
so they killed him and fed his body to the fish and animals. The man's
rage turned him into a demon, and he returned to seek revenge on the
villagers. Sanzang ask his master about his demon catching abilities and
the power of the "300 nursery rhymes". His master says that destroying
demons is not the proper way - and demonstrates this by removing the
fangs from a poisonous tree snake - "the evil must be removed leaving
only the good". The 300 nursery rhymes brings out the good in all
beings. Sanzan begins to cry and bewail his inability to save the child
and the mother. His master tells him that when he receives
enlightenment, he will then know the powers of the 300 nursery rhymes.
He only needs that "little something" in order to realize his full
potential.
A man and woman go to an empty restaurant, and eat their specialty
meal, roast pig. The woman asks the waiter who cooked the pig, and the
waiter points to the chef. The woman tries to make the chef talk, and
the chef reveals himself to be a pig demon. The man and woman run and
hide, but see a sharp 9-toothed rake hung on the wall. The pig demon
kills the man and woman after they try to escape. Sanzang comes to the
same restaurant, now filled with people. The waitress escorts Sanzang to
a table, where Sanzang, because of his monk like abilities, sees
instead the rake and dead bodies everywhere instead of food and candles.
Sanzang tells the waitress that he knows she's a demon. The waitress
threatens him, but Gu Jing comes to save him again. All the customers
turn out to be demons, too, and Gu Jing destroys them all. Gu Jing
attempts to capture the pig demon and enlists the help of Sanzang. He
tries to help but proves to be useless as he cannot bring himself to
suck out the essence of the pig demon. He accidentally kisses the pig
demon which triggers the suction of its essence. Bai Gu Jing kisses
Sanzang to retrieve the essence and tries to contain it in the demon
containment sphere, but it proves to be too strong and it escapes and
chases them into the wild.
Bai Gu Jing and Sanzang escape to a nearby riverbank, where she tries
to heal her wound from the fight with the pig demon. She tells Sanzang
that the pig demon commands the highest bounty and that is why she is
after it. She assumes that Sanzang is also after the reward. However,
Sanzang says that he does not care for the reward or fame, but he only
wants to help the people. He thanks Bai Gu Jing for saving him, and she
closes her eyes in an act of accpeting a kiss. Sanzang minsterprets
this, and she explains that when a girl wants a guy to kiss her, she
closes her eyes and offers her lips. She tries to force him to kiss her
but he runs away.
Sanzang asks his master about the pig demon, and his master tells him
the demons name is Zhu Ganglie. He was as ugly as a boar but he loved
his wife very dearly. However, she betrays him to for a handsome man and
they both murder him with a nine pronged rake. His love for her turns
into rage which transofrms him into one of the most powerful demons. He
swears from then on to kill any woman who lusts for handsome looking
men.
Sanzang's master says the only one who can defeat the pig demon is
the Monkey King. Sanzang's master tells him the only way to get to
Monkey King is at the Five Finger Mountain. He should make the journey
there and he will find a temple where in front is a buddha statue 13,000
feet long and 3000 feet high. He also wanrs Sanzang that the Monkey
King is devious, evil and crafty, and that he should be careful. Sanzang
asks him how he can get him to help - his master holds up the 300
nursery rhymes book.
Sanzang embarks on his mission to find Monkey King, but in the
forest, he is captured by a gang that captures demon hunters and demons.
Sanzang finds Bai Gu Jing and other demon hunters chained onto the
trolley, bloodied and beaten. The gang threatens all of them and tells
them that they kill all demon hunters. They kill the first one, accusing
him of lying since he is out at night when demons are out. Sanzang's
turn comes to be asked if he is a demon hunter, and Sanzang is about to
relucantly respond when Bai Gu Jing comes to save him by telling them
that Sanzang is her husband and that they had an argument and she ran
away. To prove it, she asks him to bring out the nursery rhyme book to
show that he is not a demon hunter. The gang decides that - to prove
that they are a couple, they should "do it" in front of them. Sanzang is
reluctant and is slapped several times by another gang member to force
him to get undressed. Another demon hunter gets killed, and Sanzang
tries to force himself to undress, but Bai Gu Jing gets into it and
tries to help him undress. By doing so, she accidentally reveals that
her hands are not nailed together as earlier shown. Sanzang eventually
finds out that everything is a ruse and that all of them are actually
part of the same gang with Bai Gu Jing as the leader. She berates them
all, then admits to Sanzang that she is smitten by him. Sanzang tells
her that he is only a simple demon hunter and that he has simple dreams.
Bai Gu Jing says that she understands him well, and that she also has a
dream - to find the man of her dreams, marry him and settle down.
Sanzang walks off, declaring her crazy - out of rage she orders her gang
members to lock him up.
The gang discusses outside about Sanzang, each with their own opinion
on his behavior. A female gang member tells her that by rejecting her,
he actually showed his true quality - that he knows the kind of woman he
wants. Bai Gu Jing agrees but also praises him because unlike all of
them, he is not after fortune nor fame, but he is truly just out to help
people with only his book of 300 nursery rhymes as a weapon. The female
gang members advises her to be more ladylike - after demosntrating her
fighting stance, Bai Gu Jing is given some instruction on acting like a
lady. The lady gang member sticks an obedience charm on Gu Jing's back,
and tells her to go into the trolley where Sanzang is, and she will copy
her dance moves. However, a gang member, whose blood spurting device
has had a mechanical failure, approaches her while he is in the midst of
starting her dance moves. This triggers her "mistimed reactions" which
is mimicked by Bai Gu Jing with her interaction with Sanzang - who
reacts negatively to her approach. The obedience charms gets dislodged
from Bai Gu Jing and eventually falls on Sanzang's back.
At this stage, the two male gang members enter the holding carriage,
and the female gang member starts her erotic dance. Sanzang, with the
charm attached to his body, starts mimicking the movements, and the two
male thugs beat him, thinking that he was going gay on them.
The pig demon triggers one of the traps, and in a rage, unexpectedly
starts chasing the gang. They get into their automated vehicle and
starts up the "iron blood" system. After a series of explanations, it
turns out the system is run by one thug blowing into an airbag, and
hammered by three other thugs, which forces the air out into an exhaust
system that runs the machine. They manage to outrun the pig demon until
the "blower" is accidentally hit on the head by one of the other members
with the hammer. The Pig Demon overtakes them, and Bai Gu Jing orders
them to crash into the demon. She uses a a tai chi move to push sanzang
out of the chariot before it crashes head on into the demon.
Bai Gu Jing fakes her death and wakes up when Sanzang is holding her,
and tries to make him admit that he loves her, too. Too dumbfounded to
asnwer, Sanzang just hugs her back, mixed emotions showing on his
bewildered face. The Pig Demon, dazed but otherwise unhurt, returns.
However, Tiger Claws and Almighty Foot appear. Tiger Claws battles the
Pig Demon who escapes after receiving a powerful kick. Almight Foot
interrupts when Tiger Claws gives chase. Before they can gith each
other, The Persian Prince appears, carried by his consort of "lovely
ladies" who are actually old women, throwing petals.
Sanzang tells the three warriors that the more they bicker, the
further the pig demon will get and escape. Bai Gu Jing declares her
support for Sanzang, but Sanzang embarrases her in front of everyone by
telling her that she is only blocking his path to Buddhahood and demands
for his 300 nursery rhymes book. Out of frustration and embarrasment,
she tears the book apart and kicks him - she tells him that if it wasn't
for her, he would have been dead already. She flirts with the Persian
Prince but Sanzang ignores her. She storms off, leaving her crew behind.
After days of traveling to Five Fingers mountain, Sanzang finally
finds it. He discovers the hole where the Monkey King(Huang Bo) was
trapped in for 500 years. Sanzang asks for a way to defeat the pig
demon, and Monkey tries to give him the fire seal, saying that it would
destroy any demon or monster. After Sanzang refuses to take it, Monkey
reveals that he was also a member of the 13 bandits, being the top
bandit - who killed for three days and nights, hacking and chopping
without "blinking an eye". Sanzan innocently asks him how he could
manage to keep from closing his eyes for three days - Monkey King gets
into a fit of temper and starts doing karate chops on the sugarcane that
Sanzang carried around. He fails to cut three, then two, until he
eventually cuts it down to when there is only one, injuring his hand in
the process. He asks Sanzang to bring out more things for him to destroy
- Sanzang obeys and brings out what looks like an enormous unripe jack
fruit with big spikes. Monkey King immediately calms down upon seeing
the thorny fruit, but Sanzang offers it to him again and again. Monkey
King losses his temper and tries to escape, but the charm prevents him
from escaping, with the roots coming alive to stop him and whips him
with powerful lightning laced whip lashes. Sanzang tells him that for
him to be truly enlightened, he must perform good deeds to cleanse his
spirit, and helping him capture the pig demon could be one way for him
to put him on the right path. Using a banana to bait him, Sanzang gets a
plan laid out by the monkey king - have a good looking lady dance under
the full moon to the song written by the pig demon when he was still
human, and he will appear. Monkey King will then take care of him once
he falls into his trap. Knowing no other females, Sanzang asks Monkey
King what he thinks if he dresses up as a female. Bai Gu Jing interrupts
their conversation, and she is eventually taught by Monkey King to
dance after flirting with her.
That very night, Bai Gu Jing performs the dance which enthralls
Sanzang. However, the Pig Demon appears and is lured into the hole by
Monkey King. Bai gu Jing and Sanzang goes back into the hole and finds
that the Monkey King has transformed the once ferocious Pid Demon into a
piglet, which Bai captures in her demon containment sphere. She then
goes on to propose to Sanzang, who rejects her approaches. She
eventually forces him to wear her magic ring of infinity as a wedding
ring. He threatens to cut off his finger since he could not remove it
because of its magical properties. Bai Gu Jing sadly removes it, and
returns the torn up 300 nursery rhymes book which is nowhere similar to
what it originally was, and leaves, heart broken.
Monkey King tries one last time to trick Sanzang, this time asking
him whether the full moon is beautiful. Sanzang answers yes, and the
Monkey King tells him that he cannot remember the last time he saw the
moon since the lotus plants block the entrance to the cave. Sanzang
removes the lotus flowers, which burns up all around him. This turns out
to be the Lotus Charm that Buddha has put on the cave to seal it and
prevent the Monkey King from escaping.
The Monkey King escapes, and appears in his true demonic form. He
throws Sanzang from the Mountain, catches him, and declares to him that
he has finally escaped from Buddha, berrating Buddha and insulting
Sanzang's faith in him. When Sanzang remarks that the Monkey King has
not escaped Buddha and motions that Buddha is in the heaven's looking
down at them, Monkey King roars out a curse, sending Sanzang flying and
coughing blood. Sanzang tries to take the prayer position, but Monkey
King orders him to put down his hands. Sanzang refuses and starts to
take the prayer stance with difficulty. Monkey King starts tearing off
Sanzang's hair violently. At this point, the three warriors appear -
Tiger Claws, Almighty Foot, and the Persian Prince. The Monkey King
dispatches each one of them easily - he tears and eats the the flesh of
Tiger Claws, punches through Almighty Foot's giant foot stomp like a
nail through his foot, and dodges all of Persian Prince's Mystic Sword
attacks until they eventually break on his steel hardened body. He then
let's out a mystic roar that literally burns the two warriors. He then
turns his attention back to Sanzang.
Bai Gu Jing appears in the nick of time to try and save her beloved,
but she is crippled and eventually killed by the Monkey King. Before she
dies, she asks Sanzang if he loves her, and Sanzang finally declares
his love, loving her for a thousand and even ten thousand years. She
dies in his arms, but the Monkey King takes her and burns her body with a
mystic blast, reducing her to energy and ash. Sanzang experiences the
pain and suffering of one who loses a loved one, and finally receives
enlightenment from Buddha - the 300 rhymes book that Bai Gu Jing has put
together turns into the Buddha Sutra manuscript, empowering Sanzang.
Using the powers of the manuscript, Sanzang, in mystic form, envokes the
Earth Buddha to destroy the Monkey King. The Monkey King however, is
able to defeat this form of the Buddha. Sanzang then invokes the Iron
Buddha, which encompasses space as well. The Mystic Palm that Falls from
the Heavens is used by this form of Buddha, and although the Monkey
King is able to stop it in the beginning, it eventually overwhelms him.
However, instead of dying, the Monkey King finds that his evil form has
dissolved, and an enlightened Sanzang is there to welcome him. He places
the ring of infinity on Sun Wukong's (MOnkey King's name) head, and Sun
Wukong hugs his leg in contrite prayer and pardon.
Sanzang's master praises him and asks him about his view on lesser
love and greater love. Sanzang answers - "There is no greater love or
lesser love, for they are part of the Universal Love. When one feels
pain, he knows how to feel for others, when one is stubborn, he learns
to let go". But his real mission is not to save man from the sufferings
of this world, but to learn from the 22 sutras in India. His master
instructs him to go on his journey to the west and retrieve the twenty
two books, accompanied by the three most powerful former demons - Sandy
(former Water Demon), Pigsy(formerly the Pig Demon) and Sun Wukong, the
Monkey King.
As they begin their Journey, Sanzang sees the form of his loved one
Bai Gu Jing, among the sand dervishes, and realises that she will always
be there but will never be his. And so ends the movie
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