Journey to the West, and its characters, have appeared many times in works of popular culture.
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Princess Iron Fan has appeared as an optional playable character in the Playstation game Saiyuki: Journey to the West. However, she is called Lady Tessen instead of Princess Iron Fan (though it essentially means the same thing). Her element is fire rather than wind and her fan is used (not visibly) in her Fire Fan special attack, where she creates a massive tornado of flames around a group of enemies. Her husband, the Bull King Taurus, is also an optional playable character and her son Red Boy is an enemy character.
Sun Wukong has been a staple character in many forms of media from many East Asian countries, most famously the 1965 Chinese animated film Havoc in Heaven.
UK Touring Circus The Chinese State Circus uses the character of the Monkey King to be used as a light entertainment to keep the continuity between acts.
Many actors including Masaaki Sakai, Liu Xiao Ling Tong, Stephen Chow, Yueh Hua (of Shaw Brothers fame), and Dicky Cheung have portrayed Sun Wukong in films and television shows. Jet Li portrays the character in the 2008 movie The Forbidden Kingdom, which condenses many of the elements of his character (his mischief, his playing havoc amongst the gods, his magical staff obtained from the Dragon King of the Eastern Sea, and his three magical hairs) into a single narrative.
The 1960 Japanese animated feature Alakazam the Great was based on "Boku no Son Goku" (My Son Goku), a manga adaptation of 'Journey to the West' created by Osamu Tezuka.
In 1979-1980, Nippon Television ran 2 seasons of the Japanese television live-action series Saiyūki. This was a more humorous take on the characters, with Masaaki Sakai as "Monkey", though it was true to the parameters of the story, and retained a respectful thread of Buddhist philosophy throughout. Sold to Britain, the series was redubbed into English by the BBC with British actors doing stage-Chinese accents and working from slightly re-written scripts to accentuate the humour. Titled "Monkey", it was broadcast in the UK, as well as Australia and New Zealand. Very popular, it achieved long-term cult status and has been re-run many times. In the UK, is sometimes known as "Monkey Magic", after the hit title song by Japanese band Godiego. Both seasons of the series, including episodes not originally chosen for redubbing, are available on DVD in these 3 countries.
Sun was also portrayed in the 1983 NBC special Big Bird in China. He was the guide of Big Bird, Barkley, and their young friend, Xiao Foo, while they searched for Feng Huang.
In 1985, filmmaker Chris Columbus wrote an early draft for the third Indiana Jones film (which eventually became Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade), which featured the Monkey King. In Columbus' first draft, Sun Wu Kung (sic) is benevolent deity and god to a city of pygmies and apes in Africa; but in the second draft he is a villain. George Lucas eventually decided the character was too unrealistic.[1] The script was leaked online in 1997, and many believed it was an early draft for the fourth film as the date was mistakenly printed as 1995.[2]
In 1986 a Chinese serial called "Monkey King" was filmed (Xi you ji, directed by Jie Yang), which featured 25 episodes of length from 40 to 55 minutes. It tells the story of the Monkey King Sun Wukong from his birth from rock through his journey with the monk.
The manga and anime series Dragon Ball was based on Journey to the West, and the protagonist was named Son Goku (the Japanese way to pronounce the kanji Sun Wukong). Although Goku had a few items in his possession similar to the Monkey King (such as a somersault cloud and an extending magical staff), he appeared to be more human than monkey (he is later revealed to be a member of a race of monkey-tailed aliens called Saiyans), and his initial mischievous behavior stems from his youth and innocence, rather than from arrogance and sometimes outright malice.
The manga Saiyuki (the original Japanese pronunciation of "Hsi Yu Chi", the original Chinese name of the novel) and its subsequent anime adaptions modernize and satirize the general story to appeal to a teenage audience. Like Dragon Ball, the monkey character is referred to as "Son Goku", and the other main characters likewise share names and traits with their legendary antecedents.
The manga and anime Love Hina have both a chapter where characters play the Journey to the West.
Xiyoubu (西遊補 - "Supplement to the Journey to the West", 1640) - A Ming Dynasty addendum to the famous Chinese novel Journey to the West, which takes place between the end of chapter 61 and the beginning of 62. In the novel, The Monkey King faces a representation of his own carnal desires and is trapped inside of a tower full of mirrors, each with its own powers. One mirror causes him to travel forward in time from the Tang to the Song Dynasty. There, some junior devils appear and tell him that the ruler of the underworld King Yama has recently died of an illness and so Monkey must take his place until a suitable replacement can be found. Monkey ends up judging the fate of the recently deceased Prime Minster Qin Hui. He tortures Qin into confessing his sins. These tortures include having millions of embroidery needles shoved into his flesh, being ground into paste, thrown onto a mountain of swords and spears, hacked into bits, forced to drink human puss, and his rib cage ripped apart to give him the appearance of a dragon fly. A demon is charged with using his magic breath to "blow" Qin back into his proper form. Monkey finally sends a demon to heaven to retrieve a powerful magic gourd that sucks anyone who speaks before it inside and melts them down into a bloody stew. He uses this gourd for Qin's final punishment. Meanwhile, Monkey invites the ghost of Yue Fei to the underworld and takes him as his third master. (He claims this completes his lessons on the three religions since: 1) the immortal Subhodhi taught him Taoist magic 2) the Tang Monk taught him Buddhist restraint and 3) Yue Fei taught him Confucian ideals.) He entertains Yue Fei until Qin has been reduced to liquid and offers the general a cup of Qin's "blood wine." Yue, however, refuses on the grounds that drinking it would sully his soul. Monkey then does an experiment where he makes a junior devil drink of the wine. Sometime later, the devil, apparently under the evil influence of the blood wine, murders his personal religious teacher and escapes into the "gate of ghosts," presumably being reborn into another existence. Yue Fei then takes his leave to return to his heavenly abode. Monkey sends him off with a huge display of respect by making all of the millions of denizens of the underworld kowtow before him.[3]
Gene Luen Yang's graphic novel American Born Chinese, uses the legend of the Monkey King as a major metaphor throughout the book. He uses the Monkey King's quest to be equal to a god to compare the feelings the main character, a Chinese immigrant, is having fitting in to American society.
Laurence Yep's Dragon (fantasy series) features a character, Monkey, who is heavily based upon Sun Wukong.
In Alan James Brown's novel for children Michael and the Monkey King Monkey's mythical Journey to the West becomes a modern day quest to save the lives of a young boy's parents.
Sun Wukong has also appeared as a playable character in numerous titles such as Saiyuki: Journey West and Warriors Orochi 2. It is notable that in the latter, he is an antagonist character (albeit along with Himiko certainly the least malevolent of them) since in this game he was freed not by Xuanzang but by Taira Kiyomori, who he then felt obligated to support. The expansion Warriors Orochi Z later features a female Xuanzang, which foreshadows Wukong's true redemption.
He also appears in the Japan-only Shin Sangoku Musou Multi Raid 2 for the PSP as an optional character. The player can unlock Him by gathering 'Community Points' from online play.
In LittleBigPlanet a costume that depicts the Monkey King is available as free DLC.
In Pokémon Diamond and Pearl and Pokémon Platinum, Chimchar's (Hikozaru in Japanese) final evolution is Infernape (Goukazaru in Japanese) which is based on the Monkey King.
In Capcom's game SonSon the title character is based on Sun Wukong. SonSon's granddaughter (with the same name) appears in Marvel vs. Capcom 2 in which she portrays many more of Sun Wukong's traditional abilities.
The character Goku in World Heroes is based upon Sun Wukong.
His weapon is alluded in the Warcraft 3 map Defense of the Ancients as the Monkey King Bar. It is a powerful 4th tier weapon that deals immense damage and is capable of stunning any opponent momentarily.
He also appeared in the game Emperor: Rise of the Middle Kingdom as Hero for the player's city.
The 2010 game Enslaved: Odyssey to the West, written by Alex Garland, borrows several concepts, plot devices, and even basic appearances for the main characters from Journey to the West. The main protagonist Monkey retains several abilities displayed by Sun Wukong.
Buster Rod G, a boss from Mega Man: The Wily Wars, is based on Sun Wukong.
The Monkey King is an upcoming hero in Heroes of Newerth
Wukong, The Monkey King is a playable champion in League of Legends
In the manga Dragon Ball and the anime Dragon Ball, Dragon Ball Z and Dragon Ball GT, there is a pig named Oolong which is loosely based on Zhu Bajie; he is greedy, ugly, stupid and has the shape-changing ability (though Oolong's shapeshifting works only for five minutes, after which he needs an one-minute break), as well as being behind an attempt to kidnap several young girls of a local village when he first appears.[4]
Saiyuki, an anime and manga loosely based on Journey to the West, features a major character named Cho Hakkai is loosely based on Zhu Bajie; indeed, Cho Hakkai is Japanese for Zhu Bajie, as is his previous name Cho Gonou (Zhu Wuneng). Hakkai, being gentle (at least superficially) and polite, and hardly resembling anything but a human, is nothing like Bajie. However, in a team of impostors who take the party's place in a few episodes, Hakkai's counterpart is in fact a slobbish glutton.
In the anime InuYasha, Zhu Bajie's descendant is a demon named Chokyukai (Cho Kyukai "Pig with Nine Prohibitions"; if in Chinese Zhū Jiǔjiè) that abducts young unmarried women and takes them to his palace.
The Capcom arcade game SonSon, also loosely based on Journey to the West, features a character drawn from Zhu Bajie in the form of the second-player character Tonton.
The game Kodai Shiyou/Ether Saga Online is somewhat based on the story of Zhu Bajie.[5]
In Pokémon Black and White The Pokémon Emboar, is based on Zhu Ba Jie
In the game Enslaved: Odyssey to the West, Pigsy is based on the character, being gluttonous, lazy, and spending a lot of time hitting on Trip.