#Da Peng

[the-monkey-ruler]

Journey to the West: The Demons Strike Back (2017) 西游伏妖篇

Director: Tsui Hark Screenwriter: Stephen Chow / Li Sizhen / Tsu Hark Starring: Wu Yifan / Lin Gengxin / Yao Chen / Lin Yun / Bao Beier / Battle / Yang Yiwei / Dapeng / Wang Likun / Wang Duo / Zhang Mei'e Genre: Comedy / Action / Fantasy / Costume Country/Region of Production: Mainland China / Hong Kong, China Language: Mandarin Chinese Date: 2017-01-28 (Mainland China) Duration: 108 minutes Also known as: Journey to the West: Demon Chapter 2 / Journey to the West: Demon Chapter / 伏妖篇 / 西游降魔篇2 / 西游·降魔篇2 / 西游·降魔2 IMDb: tt5273624 Type: Reimanging

Summary:

The monk Tang Sanzang finds himself as a giant in a city in India. His master congratulates him on reaching India and retrieving the Sutras, and gives him a halo as a reward. The halo, however, malfunctions and Tang awakes from his dream to find himself in an alley in a village of circus performers with his three disciples: Sun Wukong; Zhu Bajie; and Sha Wujing. Tang encourages Sun Wukong to perform for the villagers, but the disciple refuses. Angered by this stubbornness, Tang provokes Sun Wukong by calling him a "bad monkey", which causes Sun Wukong to smash the village and damage the villagers' homes in his temper. The terrified villagers present the group with money and food for their travels, but Sun Wukong continues wreaking havoc, sending Zhu Bajie and Tang flying through the air. That night, Tang whips Sun Wukong for his disobedience.

The next morning, Tang goes to find water for their breakfast congee and comes across a house. Its host, a beautiful woman in a splendid outfit, welcomes them all in for breakfast with her companions. Sun Wukong, however, sees through their disguises as spider demons; he purposely provokes them until she and the others show their true form. During the subsequent battle, the demons come together to form one huge spider. After being poisoned by the spider, Sha Wujing falls ill and slowly bloats into a fish-like creature. Sun Wukong defeats the spider and Tang attempts to exorcise her, but Sun Wukong smashes in the demon's head with one blow. Once more, Tang is annoyed at Sun Wukong's disobedience and whips him again that evening. Later that night, the enraged Sun Wukong discusses with the other disciples his plans to kill Tang, but the others fear Tang's mighty Buddha Palm powers. Tang overhears this conversation and prays to Buddha to help him and also confesses that he actually does not know, or have, Buddha Palm powers. Zhu Bajie overhears this admission and tells Sun Wukong, who challenges Tang to a fight. Just as Sun Wukong is about to strike, a blinding ray of light shines from the heavens and he retreats.

The next day, the group pass into the capital city of the Biqiu Kingdom and a minister comes out to greet them and bring them to see the king: an immature and childlike man who likes to play games. The king orders Tang to perform for him but the monk does not have anything to showcase. Sun Wukong therefore pastes an "obedience sticker" on Tang allowing Tang to copy his actions and perform stunts for the king. Sun Wukong, however, goes too far and makes Tang slap the king continuously, who throws them all out. Tang orders Sun Wukong to return and apologize, but it is revealed that Sun Wukong purposely provoked the king to make him reveal his form as the demon Red Boy. They fight and Sun Wukong defeats Red Boy, also freeing the true king of Biqiu from his cage under the throne. As a reward for helping him, the king presents them with a beautiful girl, Felicity, to accompany them on their travels. As Felicity dances for them, Tang is reminded of his deceased lover, Duan.

The group set off and on the way, Sun Wukong realizes that Felicity is actually a demon. In the meantime, Felicity takes out the nose plugs on Sha Wujing, allowing him to sneeze out the poison and turn him back into his human form. Tang, however, does not believe him, so they set off to visit Felicity's home village. Sun Wukong becomes enraged with Tang's lack of trust in him and that night he destroys the whole village, killing everyone. Tang stops him from killing Felicity, further angering Sun Wukong, who attacks Tang, but Felicity finally confesses that she is actually the demon White Bone Spirit and that the whole village was an illusion conjured by her. Sun Wukong flares up and turns into a giant Monkey King demon and swallows Tang. At that moment, the minister and Red Boy arrive and see Sun Wukong has fallen for their trick.

They had deliberately sent Felicity with the group to cause strife between Tang and Sun Wukong, so Sun Wukong would kill his master. Sun Wukong spits Tang out, however, as they had known this all the while; they only played along so that the minister would reveal her true form. They battle and the minister creates an illusion of Buddhas surrounding Sun Wukong, using them to fight him. The real Buddha, however, uses his giant palm to destroy the false Buddhas and reveals the minister's real identity as the Immortal Golden Vulture.

After the battle, Tang heads back to find a dying Felicity. He has no choice but to free her soul as there is too much demon in her. Before she dies, Felicity asks Tang if he loves her. Tang replies that he has only one person in his heart. The animosity between Tang and Sun Wukong has finally dissolved; together with Sha Wujing and Zhu Bajie, they continue their journey to the West through a desert.

In a post-credits scene, breaking of the fourth wall is invoked with the appearance of a modern movie theater, where theater employees tell both the viewer and the in-story audience that it’s time to leave and there is no post-credits scene

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journey_to_the_West:_The_Demons_Strike_Back

Link: https://ww5.0123movie.net/movie/journey-to-the-west-the-demons-strike-back-19438.html?play=1

[yibocheeks]

Historical Background for 《无名》 (Hidden Blade)

A very brief summary of historical details of note for understanding the context of the film:

The film is set during the Second Sino-Japanese War and WWII. There are several powers in play at this time: the Chinese Communist Party, the Chinese Nationalist Party or Kuomintang, and Imperial Japan. Imperial Japan invaded Manchuria (located in northeastern China) in the early 1930s and established the puppet state of Manchukuo. It was here where they hoped to establish a base from where they would continue their expansion into Asia.

In 1937, after many years of conflict, Japan occupied Shanghai, Nanjing, and Beijing. The Nanjing Massacre occurred at this time. After the fall of Nanjing, which had been the capital of the Republic of China at that time, the Kuomintang moved the capital west to Chongqing, under Jiang Jieshi's leadership. During this time, the Chinese Communist Party and the Kuomintang formed a temporary alliance, suspending the years of civil conflict between them, although their vie for power continued. The Chinese Communist Party set up their base in Yan'an.

In 1940, Wang Jingwei, who was once a member of the Kuomintang but had always been in opposition against Jiang Jieshi, collaborated with Japan to establish the Wang Jingwei regime. They claimed to be the leadership of the Republic of China, when in fact they were a puppet government of Japan, overseeing the Japanese-occupied territory in eastern China, under Japan's control. They established their capital in Nanjing and used the Kuomintang flag. The Axis powers recognized the Wang Jingwei regime, while the Allied powers still recognized Jiang Jieshi as the leader of the Republic of China.

From 1937-1941, Japan had left a few neighbourhoods in Shanghai unoccupied, because that was where the American-British joint settlement and French Concession were located. Many people fled to this area to live at that time. After Pearl Harbor in 1941, the entirety of Shanghai became occupied by Japan. Many cities were bombed during these years, including Guangzhou, which experienced bombings for 14 months in 1937-1938.

During this era of war, which is also called the War of Resistance in China, espionage networks were established to try to undermine the enemy. Hidden Blade tells a story about these individuals.

Characters in the film (spoiler-free):

Director He (Tony Leung): Director of the Political Security Department for the Wang Jingwei regime

Mr. Ye (Wang Yibo): A subordinate under Director He, works for the Political Security Department of the Wang Jingwei regime

Captain Wang (Wang Chuanjun): A captain working for the Political Security Department of the Wang Jingwei regime, under Director He

Minister Tang (Da Peng): Minister of the Political Security Department of the Wang Jingwei regime, Director He's cousin

Officer Watanabe (Mori Hiroyuki): Head of secret service in Shanghai, claiming to be a follower of Ishiwara's faction (Japanese general who believed in the Pan-Asianism ideology)

Mr. Zhang (Huang Lei): A secretary of the Chinese Communist Party's underground network

Ms. Chen (Zhou Xun): A messenger of the Chinese Communist Party's underground network

Ms. Jiang (Jiang Shuying): Kuomintang agent assigned to assassinate Minister Tang

Ms. Fang (Zhang Jingyi): Disguised as a dancer, she worked together with other progressive youth to try to assassinate Japanese officers

[journeytothewestresearch]

Anthony C. Yu

I've mentioned in one of my articles that I shared an email correspondence with Anthony C. Yu (d. 2015), a comparative religion scholar and translator of Journey to the West. I was reminded of this fact while looking for something in my old emails just now. I thought I would share one of his last messages to me before his death.

[yibo-wang]

Ahahaha this is hilarious 😂 okay so idk how many of you remember this but back in Yibo's white peony era Da Peng posted a picture of Yibo with the caption:

Entertainment businesses is really very stressful. The boy band member behind me already has a head of white hair with his young age.

They went ahead and showed this picture at Douyin movie night and look at Yibo's face when Da Peng is reading out the tweet 😂 I LOVE HIM he's so unintentionally funny lmaoo

They even re-enacted the picture fjfkfkf

[yibo-best]

Cr:  交友不慎丨0805x1005

[accio-victuuri]

from this short video in a one and only roadshow today with da peng, he mentioned that he looked through the hot search tag “Wang Yibo fans bring their babies to watch the excitement”. babies meaning the bjyx dolls and because of that movie channel feature that showed viewers who had dolls with them.

he was really curious and so someone even raised the doll to show him. da peng is really so nice! he has always been genuine and loved to interact with the audience. it’s no accident that DP is loved by most of the general public and his works both as an actor and director touches people’s heart. and i guess why wyb got along with him so well and trusted him enough to do this project with him.

so anyway, i guess this answers the “rumor” / black propaganda some people have been passing around that bjyx dolls are not allowed to be taken in the cinemas and road shows. i mean. come on. doll culture is not exclusive to turtles. it’s cute. people who see it love them. just stop being bitter and put all the energy in supporting yibo 💓

[thehellishtrinity]

The transmigrator themself!

[zhansww]

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Da Peng: Yes perfect! Let’s have one more shoot. CZX: We are short of budget. DP: Just one! CZX: Okay maybe one more. Yibo: We are indeed really short of budget. DP: Babe. Just one!

[melo466lol]

Drawing exchange with @ilhamiman, the person who asked me anonymously what I wanted was something like that, then I do it, it's funny. Anyway, I liked how what I ordered turned out; Azure x Peng, why not uwu

[kikichibee]

i couldn’t tell you why my brain has been begging me to draw the bird man so here he is

[littlewonders7]

Other sketches I drew , majority being drawn today 😊

[the-monkey-ruler]

I think someone said Peng was related to Buddha? But I don't know how true it is (or I'm wrong and it was another god that he was related to)

Yes, he is! I have talked about this before but you have to know about the Golden Peng's sister, the Peacock. Just know that yes they are different species but their mother was a Phoenix so a little bit of species leeway is allowed.

Peacock was actually the one to have a relationship with Buddha himself as she once swallowed the Tathagata into her belly. The Tathagata planned to kill Peacock in a fit of rage after he cut open the peacock's back to escape. But the other Buddhas believe that the Tathagata killing Peacock would be like harming one's own mother considering that Buddha escaped her living body. As such instead of killing the one that ate him, Buddha granted Peacock the role of his godmother, considering that he learned another lesson and gave her the position over him.

Because of this connection, Golden Peng has said that he is the Buddha's Uncle as his sister is his godmother. This is what makes Golden Peng to be the highest amount of the Camel Ridge Demons and thus making him an equal for Wukong to fight when they were doing their 3 verse 3 battle.

[yibocheeks]

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230124 Movie News - Wu Ming Cast Interview With Da Peng, Cheng Er, Wang Yibo and Wang Chuanjun Part 1: Cheng Er talks about how he decided on Yibo first out of the cast, they discuss Yibo’s fight scene with Tony Leung Part 2: They discuss the “Dumb and Dumber” pair (Wang Yibo and Wang Chuanjun), they bring out some of Yibo’s props

[chineseredcarpet]

Ni Ni shares pics with Da Peng at 2024 Weibo Movie Night

[yibo-wang]

One And Only Weibo Update (230612)

[yibo-best]

Cr: 洛洛山河0805x1005