剧情

There are surprises every year in China’s embattled indie sector, but few as unexpected as this one. Li Luo has taken three chapters of the Ming Dynasty novel Journey to the West (aka Monkey) and adapted the story of the short-term death of Emperor Li Shimin to the modern China of officials, bureaucrats and gangsters. The Dragon King perverts the course of nature and is punished with execution; the emperor tried to step in to prevent it happening, but he didn’t allow for the power of dreams. Now Li is lying on his deathbed, beset by stray ghosts. Can he be saved? The storytelling explores several layers of "reality," but coalesces into an image of China’s perennial absurdity: a new-old world where peace always breeds wealth. Brilliant, straight-faced political satire. The "ungrammatical" title, by the way, references a Chinese movie of 1927.