page_title: Journey to the West
section_title: Media adaptations
hierarchical_section_title: Journey to the West / Media adaptations
caption_attribution_description: English: A en:Peking opera performance by Jilin Peking Opera House (吉林省京剧院) in en:Tianchan Theatre, Shanghai, China, starring Yang Xuebin (杨雪斌) as en:Sun Wukong
context_page_description: Journey to the West is a Chinese novel published in the 16th century during the Ming dynasty and attributed to Wu Cheng'en. It is one of the Four Great Classical Novels of Chinese literature. It has been described as arguably the most popular literary work in East Asia. Arthur Waley's popular abridged translation, Monkey, is well known in English-speaking countries.
  The novel is an extended account of the legendary pilgrimage of the Tang dynasty Buddhist monk Xuanzang who travelled to the "Western Regions", that is, Central Asia and the Indian subcontinent, to obtain Buddhist sacred texts and returned after many trials and much suffering. It retains the broad outline of Xuanzang's own account, Great Tang Records on the Western Regions, but the Ming dynasty novel adds elements from folk tales and the author's invention, that is, that Gautama Buddha gave this task to the monk and provided him with three protectors who agree to help him as an atonement for their sins. These disciples are Sun Wukong, Zhu Bajie and Sha Wujing, together with a dragon prince who acts as Tang Sanzang's steed, a white horse.
context_section_description: Saiyūki (西遊記) also known by its English title Monkey and commonly referred to by its title song, "Monkey Magic," a Japanese television series starring Masaaki Sakai, produced by Nippon TV and International Television Films in association with  NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corporation) and broadcast from 1978 to 1980 on Nippon TV. It was translated into English by the BBC.
  In the 1980s, China Central Television (CCTV) produced and aired a TV adaptation of Journey to the West under the same name as the original work. A second season was produced in the late 1990s covering portions of the original work that the first season skipped over.
  In 1997, Brooklyn-based jazz composer Fred Ho premiered his jazz opera Journey To The East, at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, which he developed into what he described as a "serial fantasy action-adventure music/theater epic,” Journey Beyond the West: The New Adventures of Monkey based upon Wu Cheng’en's 16th-century novel. Ho's pop-culture infused take on the story of the Monkey King has been performed to great acclaim.
  It also made its way to the Mass Electronic Entertainment Media (Reimagined Video game adaptation) in 2009, titled Enslaved: Odyssey to the West, which was released in October 2010 for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. It was developed by Ninja Theory and published by Bandai Namco Entertainment. The main protagonist 'Monkey' is voice acted by Andy Serkis.
  On 20 April 2017, Australia's ABC, TVNZ and Netflix announced production was underway in New Zealand on a new live-action television series, The New Legends of Monkey, to premiere globally in 2018. The series, which is based on Journey to the West, is made up 10 half-hour episodes. While there has been enthusiasm for the new series, it has also attracted some criticism for "whitewashing", since none of the core cast are of Chinese descent, with two of the leads having Tongan ancestry while only one, Chai Hansen, is of half-Asian (his father is Thai) descent.
  More recently in 2017, Netflix has hosted a South Korean show called A Korean Odyssey; a modern comedy retelling that begins with the release of Sun Wukong/Son O-Gong and the reincarnation of Tang Sanzang/Samjang
  In August 2020, Game Science Studios announced a video game adaptation called Black Myth: Wukong.
caption: Sun Wukong and other Mount Huaguo monkeys as portrayed by Peking opera performers, from a performance in Tianchan Theatre, Shanghai, China on 19 December 2014.
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