#1964 uproar in heaven

[sketching-shark]

I was curious to know, is there a specific adaptation of JTTW that you particularly enjoy? Whether its good or accurate isnt important but more like in your personal taste

AUGH going to be honest @seasonalsummers in that I don't feel like I can pick just one...there's so many excellent retellings! But I will take this opportunity to present some of my favorites.

So first up we have the 1986 Journey to the West tv series. It is in many ways very goofy and gaudy, but there's just as many reasons why it's considered one of the best retellings out there, from its genuine heart to the adherence to the og classic. And needless to say its Sun Wukong really set a standard for cheeky scheming monkey behavior. You can start watching it here:

Next up is 2016s The Monkey King 2. While this film is one of those retellings that gives the White Bone Demon a lot more prominence than she has in the og classic--and definitely has its own silly stupid moments--it also stands as one of the very few retellings that directly addresses the paradox of Tang Sanzang's mission: that he's trying to get the sutras to help mortals achieve a state of peace all while abhorring violence, and yet its only because of the violence of his disciples, especially Sun Wukong, that he's able to right a number of wrongs or simply go from day to day uneaten. You can watch it here:

And now it's time to give kudos to 2015's Monkey King: Hero Is Back. While this film is FAR from a faithful retelling and (usual refrain) has its own silliness, pretty simple plot, and gross-out humor, it also has so much heart and stands as a wonderful embodiment of the dad Wukong characterization. One also has to give it credit for its main child character, Jiang Liuer, being a genuinely charming kid who's wonder at the world and desire to do good drives the story forward in a sincerely lovely way. You can watch it here:

More recently--and in a work that is at best only loosely following the plot of Xiyouji--is 2022's Lighting Up the Stars. This film follows the story of a Li Nezha coded little orphan girl Wu Xiaowen and a Sun Wukong coded funeral director Mo Sanmei as they go from a very tense relationship to a genuinely loving father-daughter relationship. While there are moments of this film that feel kind of overwrought, it's an honestly wonderful exploration of what goes into dealing with death and the importance of love in all its many forms during life. I also have a soft spot for Mo Sanmei, who from what I've seen is the very peak of explicitly shitty cringefail loser who then genuinely works hard to become a better person Sun Wukong out there. It can be watched here:

Turning away from film and animation for a moment, I simply have to give proper kudos to Chaiko Tsai's comic The Monkey King. Between the gorgeous art, fun character designs, a good sense of how to translate many of the stories of Xiyouji into comic format, and a resolution to the Sun Wukong vs. Niu Mowang fight that I actually prefer above that in Journey to the West itself, this is definitely a comic worth going through! You can purchase it here for about $30.00

And last but certainly not least, one simply has to give due credit to 1964's Uproar in Heaven. It's an absolute gem of stylized Chinese animation, a work with the very rare allowance on the Monkey King getting to go full grandpa for tons upon tons of monkeys at Mt. Huaguoshan, and it's very faithful to the first half of the og classic with the difference that here Sun Wukong does his havoc in heaven and gets away with it. All around its a really fun work to watch and does have a lot of importance from both an animation and a historical perspective. You can watch it here:

So those are my favorite adaptations of Journey to the West! It's but a fraction of the adaptations out there, but I hope other people found these as fun as I do.

[annaberunoyume]

Sun Wukong being a Protector of the Horse, indeed.

[lotus-duckies]

i fear the man holding the tower

[teddy-bear-queen]

Watching the 1964 Havoc in Heaven movie and my sister comes in-and-out to watch it (she is 8). She can’t quite keep up with the subtitles, but knows enough about monkey king to get the general idea.

It’s kind of neat explaining to her that “heaven in China is different to Australia” (ik its a religion thing but she’s too young to understand those specifics). I told her there’s many different gods in China, and she says “like Jesus?” NUDNDJS

Idk it’s cute

I did my best to explain to her, but it’s just interesting seeing how she doesn’t quite understand these things. My family isn’t religious, btw. Jesus/God/etc. are just the only heavenly deities she knows.

Anyway, I thought it was interesting and kind of goofy, so yeah

[the-monkey-ruler]

Havoc in Heaven (1961) 大鬧天宮

Director: Wan Laiming

Screenwriter: Li Kewei / Wan Laiming

Starring: Qiu Yuefeng / Fu Runsheng / Bi Ke / Shang Hua / Yu Ding / more...

Genre: Drama / Animation / Fantasy / Costume

Official website: https://site.douban.com/136555/

Country/Region of Production: Mainland China

Language: Mandarin Chinese

Date: 1961(Mainland China) / 1964(Mainland China) / 1978(Mainland China) / 2012-01-11 (3D version in mainland China) / 2017-10-13 (2D rerun in mainland China)

Duration: 113 minutes / 44 minutes (Part 1) / 69 minutes (Part 2) / 84 minutes (40th Anniversary Edition) / 90 minutes (3D version) / 88 minutes (2D version)

Also known as: Havoc in Heaven Part 2 / 大闹天宫 上下集 / The Monkey King / Havoc in Heaven / Uproar in Heaven / 大闹天宫

IMDb: tt0059855 / tt11941418

Type: Retelling

Summary:

It is said that there is a mountain of flowers and fruits in the Aolai country of the east, and a stone monkey on the mountain absorbs the sun's essence and moonlight and turns into a god monkey (voiced by Qiu Yuefeng), commanding the monkey grandsons in the mountain. In order to obtain a satisfactory treasure, the god monkey Sun Wukong sneaked into the Dragon Palace, and forcefully begged Golden Cudgel of the Sea God Needle from the King of East China Sea when he was controlling the water. The Dragon King of the East China Sea (Bi Keyin) was unwilling, so he appealed the matter to the Jade Emperor (Furun Shengyin).

The Jade Emperor ordered Taibai Jinxing (Shang Huayin) to recruit from the lower realms, and to give him a title. Unaware of the fraud, Sun Wukong went happily, but found that it was BiMawen who was in charge of raising horses. Realizing that he had been cheated, Sun Wukong angrily smashed the horse fence, destroy the peach feast, Return to Flower Fruit Mountain and claim to be the Great Sage Equal to Heaven. As a result, there was a thrilling battle with a hundred thousand heavenly soldiers and generals...

This film is adapted from the story in the classic "Journey to the West". It took 4 years to create, and won the Special Short Film Award at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival in Czechoslovakia in 1962, the Outstanding Film Award at the London International Film Festival in 1978, and the 1982 Film Award at the London International Film Festival. The third prize of the 4th Ecuador International Children's Film Festival, and the Best Art Film Award of the 2nd Chinese Film "Hundred Flowers Awards".

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Havoc_in_Heaven

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hu0XosgxCyU

[justforbooks]

The battle to remove censorship from the British stage was fought primarily at the Royal Court theatre in London during the mid-1960s. The plays of Edward Bond, one of the most important British dramatists of the 20th century, who has died aged 89, were an essential part of that story and that struggle.

Bond had submitted plays to George Devine’s recently established English Stage Company at the Royal Court in 1958 and, as a result, was invited to join the theatre’s Writers’ Group. His first performed play, The Pope’s Wedding, was given in a production without decor on 9 December 1962, and Devine then commissioned a new play, which Bond submitted in September 1964.

That play, Saved, was presented privately for members of the English Stage Society in November 1965 after the lord chamberlain – the official censor to whose offices all new theatre plays had to be submitted – demanded cuts in the text. The play was the most controversial of its day, not just because of the explicitness of the sexual swaggering and dialogue, but because of a scene in which a baby is stoned to death in its pram.

The stays of middle-class propriety in the contemporary theatre had already been given a good vicious tug in the work of David Rudkin and Joe Orton, but this was something else. There was uproar in the theatre, and in the reviews, and a visit by the police. The theatre was hauled into court after an alleged minor breach of the club licensing laws, and many notable witnesses, including Laurence Olivier, spoke in the play’s favour. Penelope Gilliatt wrote in the Observer that the play was about brutishness, not brutish in itself: “The thing that makes Saved most painful to watch is the fact that the characters who won’t listen to other people’s desperate voices are in despair for lack of a listener themselves.”

Bond’s next play, Early Morning, was banned outright. It was a surreal fantasy, featuring Queen Victoria and Florence Nightingale as lesbian lovers, two conjoined twin princes, and cannibalism in heaven. Again, the vice squad paid a call, performances were cancelled and a private dress rehearsal arranged for the critics in April 1968.

By now the theatres bill was on its way in the House of Commons, becoming law in September. Plays were finally removed from the control of the lord chamberlain, who had held censorious sway over the nation’s entertainment since 1737. Violence, sex, political satire and nudity were bona fide subjects at last for the modern theatre.

William Gaskill, the artistic director of the Court in succession to Devine, mounted a Bond season in 1969 that established his reputation both in Britain and abroad, during a tour to Belgrade and eastern Europe. Saved was given 14 productions in West Germany and opened to acclaim in the Netherlands, Denmark, Japan, Czechoslovakia and the US.

This period was one of defiance at the Royal Court, and the experience marked everyone who worked there for life, none more so than Bond and Gaskill. Bond was acknowledged as the inheritor of Brecht’s legacy in the flintiness of his writing and the uncompromising artistic vision of his scenes and stage pictures.

He wrote many fine plays in the subsequent decade: his Lear (1971) was a majestic, pitiless rewriting of Shakespeare, with Harry Andrews unforgettably scaling a huge, stage-filling wall at the end; Bingo (1973) and The Fool (1975) drew chilling portraits of English writers – Shakespeare (played by John Gielgud at the Court – and by Patrick Stewart in a 2010 revival at Chichester) and the rural poet John Clare (Tom Courtenay) – at odds with their societies, driven respectively to suicide and madness; and The Woman (1978), the first new play to be produced on the National’s new Olivier stage, was an astounding, panoramic survey of Greek myths and misogyny.

Bond was born in Holloway, north London, one of four children. His parents were farm labourers in East Anglia and had come to London looking for work. Bond was evacuated during the second world war, first to Cornwall and later to live with his grandparents near Ely, Cambridgeshire. He attended Crouch End secondary modern school in London in 1946 and left when he was 15. “That was the making of me, of course,” he said, “you see, after that nobody takes you seriously. The conditioning process stops. Once you let them send you to grammar school and university, you’re ruined.”

He enjoyed the music hall and was impressed by Donald Wolfit as Macbeth at the Bedford theatre in Camden Town in 1948: “I knew all these people, they were there in the newspapers – this was my world.”

After school he worked as a paint-mixer, insurance clerk and checker in an aircraft factory before beginning his national service in 1953. He was stationed in Vienna and started to write short stories.

Once Saved had been performed and he knew he would always work in the theatre, he bought a house on the edge of a small village, Wilbraham, near Cambridge, and lived there contentedly with his wife, the German-speaking Elisabeth Pablé, a writer, whom he married in 1971 and with whom he collaborated on a new version of Wedekind’s Lulu based on some newly discovered jottings and manuscripts in the early 90s.

His early plays were often based in situations and societies he was familiar with, whatever their period setting, but Bond’s later work took on a more resonant, prophetic, some felt pompous, tone. Put simply, according to Richard Eyre and Nicholas Wright in Changing Stages, their 2000 account of the British theatre, Bond used to ask questions; now he gave answers.

He acquired a reputation as a rather remote guru, and his later, proscriptive epics about the failure of capitalism and the violence of the state were more often performed by amateurs than by the leading companies in Britain.

The Worlds (1979), for instance, was first given by amateurs in Newcastle, but its scope was immense, charting the collapse of a successful business operation riddled with strike action, terrorism, kidnappings and long speeches. In one of these, a terrorist defines the two worlds as one of appearance and one of reality. In the first, she says, there is right and wrong, the law and good manners. In the second, which controls the first, machines and power.

Before going into what he called voluntary exile from the British theatre establishment, Bond wrote the “pastoral” Restoration (1981) for the Court, an often witty inversion of a Restoration comedy, with Simon Callow in full flow as Lord Are, and Summer (1982) for the National, a comic, modern rendering of The Tempest set in the sunny Mediterranean.

Bond was a dapper, withdrawn man who could be intimidating, but disarmingly gnomic and self-deprecating when he was in the mood. Sympathetic interviewers could be treated to bilious attacks on directors such as Sam Mendes – whose 1991 revival of his 1973 comedy The Sea, a beautiful play of madness and dehumanisation in an Edwardian seaside town, he loathed – and Trevor Nunn (who, he said, turned the National Theatre into “a technicolour sewer”), though he never raised his voice and often dissolved into mischievous chuckling.

Even the collapse of eastern European socialism could not stem the flow of Bond’s writing. “Before, as a socialist writer,” he once told me, “you knew there was a framework, a system to which the play might eventually refer. But now, the problem of the last act has returned! And I was always a critic of the system to start with. That’s why I wrote my version of King Lear.”

More recently, you had to hunt pretty hard to find his new work. There was an intriguing season of six plays at the Cock Tavern in the Kilburn High Road, north London, in 2008, and several more performed by Big Brum, a theatre-in-education company in the Midlands, between 2012 and 2014.

Jonathan Kent directed a revival of The Sea at the Haymarket, starring David Haig and Eileen Atkins in 2008, while Sean Holmes provided the first London production of Saved in 27 years – still harrowing, more pertinent than ever – at the Lyric, Hammersmith, in 2011.

Following the example of Brecht, Bond was prolific in supplying his work with the extra apparatus of poems, prefaces and notebooks, though, unlike Brecht, a giant of an intellectual all-rounder in comparison, and a far superior poet, he was always better when restricting himself to stage dialogue.

He also wrote for films, including the screenplay for Nicholas Roeg’s Walkabout (1971), set in the Australian outback and starring Jenny Agutter and David Gulpilil, and the Nabokov adaptation Laughter in the Dark (1969), as well as contributing dialogue for Michelangelo Antonioni’s Blow-Up (1966) and Nicholas and Alexandra (1971).

At his best, he was a genuine poet of the stage, and exerted an enormous influence on at least two generations of theatre workers after him. It is possible that some of the unknown plays of his later, post-nuclear apocalyptic period will be ripe for assessment. The place of at least 10 of his earlier plays is secure in the national literature and they are certain to be revived. He remains much admired and often performed in France and Germany.

Elisabeth died in 2017.

🔔 Thomas Edward Bond, playwright and director, born 18 July 1934; died 3 March 2024

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at Just for Books…?

[nimph03]

1964【大闹天宫】-上集 (超清4K修复 The Monkey King: Uproar In Heaven)

[fairynwoodcutter]

Uproar in Heaven (1961–1964), dir. Wan Laiming and Tang Cheng, Shanghai Animation Film Studio

Beautiful animation of fairy that looks very similar to Korean fairies. I wonder what the origin of these fairies are. They have specific hairstyle and clothes…

[loyaltykask]

Does anyone know where this Wukong screenshot is from?

I was told it was a commercial but for the life of me I cant find it and I super want to see it. If anyone has any leads please hit me up I tried putting this in google images and all I got was pics from the 1964 movie and not this kind of animation

[velvet-vhs]

from 𝑯𝒂𝒗𝒐𝒄 𝒊𝒏 𝑯𝒆𝒂𝒗𝒆𝒏 (1961/64) also known as 𝑼𝒑𝒓𝒐𝒂𝒓 𝒊𝒏 𝑯𝒆𝒂𝒗𝒆𝒏

[sketching-shark]

I've heard that each character of JTTW --of the bunch of representations it has-- has also a representation of social classes, so what does each one represent?

Thanks for the question anon! That said, I'm going to have to hand this one over to @journeytothewestresearch if he'd like to answer, as while I am familiar with the concept I'm less sure about which specific class each pilgrim is supposed to represent. My general knowledge on the subject is limited to A) Tang Sanzang being somewhat of a caricature of a fussy upper-class Confucian scholar (in terms of being able to recite a lot of doctrine but often not thoroughly understanding it) and B) Sun Wukong being a (monkey) man of the lower-class people. The last point is something that the 1964 animation "Uproar in Heaven" really capitalized on (having been created in the midst of the Chinese communist revolution), with a Sun Wukong who clearly loves and supports the monkeys of Mt. Huaguoshan first stealing the riches of an elitist Heaven to share with the other monkeys and then ultimately defeating the Heavenly forces for the good of his people.

[wildwitche]

Films and animated films about Monkey King

(I once made a list of movies about the Monkey King and decided to update it and add links to each movie)

Please read the warning below the list before you watch the movie!

The Monkey King 1 (2014)

The Monkey King 2 (2016)

The Monkey King 3 (2018)

Wu Kong (warning. I could not find a free version of the film in English, but if you understand Russian, feel free to watch)

Monkey King (2020)

Monkey king reincarnation

Monkey king: The one and only

Monkey king: Uproar in Dragon palace

Revival of the Monkey king

True and false Monkey king

The Monkey king: The true Sun Wukong

Journey to the West: Demon Chapter

Monkey King: The Volcano

The Monkey King: Demon City

The Forrbiden Kingdom (2008)

Journey To The West ( tv series 1996 )

Journey to the West ( tv series 1986)

Animated films:

Monkey king Reborn (2021)

Monkey King: Hero Is Back (2015)

New Gods: Nezha Reborn (2021) ( Sun Wukong appears there)

Journey to the West - Legends of the Monkey king ( series)

Havoc in Heaven (1964)

Alakazam the Great (1960)

The Four Monkeys: The Return of Sun Wukong ( trailer only )

The Monkey King: The Demon Monkey ( trailer only )

Warning!

Finding a site where you can watch for free and with subtitles is very difficult. Some sites have a lot of advertising, so be careful when you include.

On other sites, when you start the video, you may be redirected to another site before uploading the video, don't worry, just close the tab and return to the site where the movie is

If you know another site better than the one I suggested, please email me, I'll change the link

if the site knocks out an error, it is likely that this site will not open in your area

Sorry for the inconvenience, I hope for your understanding

P.s There is a site where I watched most of the movies in October 2021. I enjoyed watching it and the site itself is very convenient. However, when I decided to look again in 2022, it turned out that now everything is paid and you need to buy a VIP. If you want to watch without unnecessary ads, etc. I will leave a link here

[dorkshadows]

hey there! i hope you don't mind but since i consider you the resident Journey to the West expert i figured you were the best person to ask! my brother is totally unfamiliar with the story and wants to watch a movie adaptation - which version do you most recommend i share with him?

Hello! Thanks for stopping by (and for your faith in me haha)! If nothing else, I do have a passion for sitting through every jttw adaptation known to man LOL

There are a lot of fun adaptations that don't necessarily require you to know the story beforehand. But I also think the fun comes from being able to tell the differences between the adaptation and the source material (in this case, the 1592 novel).

I'd recommend your brother start with Havoc in Heaven (1964), sometimes translated as Uproar in Heaven. It's an animated film that details Sun Wukong's rise to power quite nicely. More or less accurately too! I think it's the most interesting and best intro. to the story for someone who might not want to start with a TV show yet.

It also has two sequels that get into memorable stories from the book: Ren Shen Guo (1981) and The Monkey King Conquers the Demon (1985). All animated in the same style!

[the-night-writer1]

Kind of an au with time line one begging. where Macaque finds out Wukong’s pregnant with Shanyao and Mk (Maybe also pregnant with eclipse but you choose I just really love her) Macaque convinces Wukong into becoming evil again (“they’ll have better life’s peaches” “think of how powerful we are imagining what it would be like with two/three more” “it would be easier for me to protect them to protect you if aloud me to kill more brutality” “begging evil means we the four/five of use can have anything we won’t Conquer kingdom Conquer the world together the four/five of use” kind of thing) Anyways Macaque convinces him. Wukong also reconciles with Dbk and pif who is also pregnant with Red son. Red son and Mk are evil child hood sweat harts.

The second time line would be Pre jttw Wukong and Macaque jttw doesn’t happen because Wukong wins havoc in heaven kinda like the ending of uproar In heaven (1964) staying evil then gets pregnant etc etc with ruffle the same things.

I just like evil power couples who are madly in love but also adore there children and both Wukong and Macaque can be scary when they want to be.

I am really sorry this was so long and it was kind of renting as well you don’t need to answer this or even Read it but you’ve probably read it if your reading this part. Anyways sorry agin.

These are officially evil timeline A and evil timeline B of the dusk, dawn and twilight au because the Monkie triplets is too close to the Monkie twins in name

(Shanyao is dusk, mk is dawn and Eclipse being twilight)

[nako-doodles]

tagged by @1tooru to list my seven comfort movies (tenri i dont ask much from you.......just..........one (1) rsvp to a movie night?)

howls moving castle (2004)

mulan (1998)

the emperors new groove (2000)

ratatouille (2007)

erneste et célestine (2012)

the tale of princess kaguya (2013)

a silent voice (2016)

song of the sea (2014) 

uproar in heaven (1964)

over the garden wall (2014) (shhh mini series count too ok)

tagging:  @cafejoon @stargazingjin @jincentvangogh @lifegoesmon @jaehyukkies @taemaknae @jinbestboy @jiminswn @jimimon @suhdays & literally anyone who wants to rec me some good movies 💖💖

[ghost-mantis]

Please enjoy this armored crab warrior goodboi I found while watching the Chinese animated film Uproar in Heaven (1964). He guards the dragon palace with another crab friend, but is unable to keep out Sun Wukong. He is trying his best.