Why the Chinese Dissatisfied with Black Myth: Wukong
thechinaacademy.org
Telling Wukong's story is to narrate the story of our times.

According to “Xiaoting Xulu,” Emperor Qianlong of the Qing dynasty ordered Zhang Wenmin to produce a performance, “The Peaceful Raft of Ascension,” depicting the Journey to the West. The script, written by Zhang, was crafted to uphold the idea of “domestic peace,” using the play to reinforce the Qing dynasty’s rule. After Wukong’s defeat by Buddha, the creators added a celebratory scene titled “Taming the Greedy Tiger and Bringing Peace to Heaven.” Wukong, referred to as “the Greedy Tiger,” was portrayed as the disruptive force and enemy of the Qing’s order. The theme of “suppressing the rebellious” ran throughout.

Sounds familiar to Western media tropes regarding revolutionary villains.

  • Awoo [she/her]
    ·
    2 months ago

    The story is basically:

    spoiler
    1. Journey to West happens.
    2. Monkey decides he doesn't like it in heaven. Stays on earth to enjoy simple pleasures.
    3. Heaven becomes mistrustful of this. Sends army to force him to submit to heaven.
    4. Wukong loses because circlet he wears(given to him by heaven in the past) does stuff to stun him. Gets sealed under a mountain and has his senses split into 6 relics and scattered across China.
    5. Monkeys of the mountain he's from regularly send monkey warriors out to try and collect these relics. You play the game as one of these monkeys, not as the true Wukong.
    6. Turns out this broke Wukong into a broken shell. After recovering the relics you fight him. 7a. When you defeat Wukong's broken shell, his circlet drops on the floor. If you didn't recover his memories through secrets in the game you put it on (becoming bound to the celestial court again) 7b. If you recovered Wukong's memories through secrets in the game, you don't wear the circlet (remaining unbound to the celestial court).

    It's sort of unsatisfying and open ended. It doesn't have anything political to say. With that said I also think that if it did have much political to say it probably wouldn't be made though. I personally think the chinese games industry is overly restrictive for fear of art being produced that might harm the state and it has a detrimental effect on the art produced overall. This dev wouldn't have produced anything particularly great or earth shattering in terms of art if they were unrestricted though.

    • newacctidk [none/use name]
      ·
      2 months ago

      Also how political is anyone going to be when adapting Journey to the West? Like you can do vague theming about empires, but it is such a beloved and well known story, and one fundamentally about spirituality, not political intrigue

      • meth_dragon [none/use name]
        ·
        2 months ago

        apocryphally, jttw itself was a satirization of ming bureaucracy through its depiction of the conflict between tang era buddhist and taoist factions of divinity

        a lot of issues were overcome on the journey are the result of some god's pettiness/fuckup

    • meth_dragon [none/use name]
      ·
      2 months ago

      theres a fan theory out there that the game is a plot by wukong and erlang shen to overthrow heaven

      spoiler

      main point is that there is mutual knowledge between the two that wukong can't die if he doesn't want to (since he's like six or seven different kinds of immortal), so the first scene where wukong 'dies' is just creating plausible deniability for part one of their plan to get rid of the jingu curse

      as for why erlang shen needs wukong to overthrow heaven when he can probably do it by himself... idk, unresolved mommy issues probably

    • Belly_Beanis [he/him]
      ·
      2 months ago

      It doesn't have anything political to say. With that said I also think that if it did have much political to say it probably wouldn't be made though. I personally think the chinese games industry is overly restrictive for fear of art being produced that might harm the state and it has a detrimental effect on the art produced overall.

      So does this mean we won't get an FPS out of China where we play as Korean soldiers killing off American invaders?

      😩

      • Awoo [she/her]
        ·
        2 months ago

        Sincerely doubt it. I have a feeling it would be considered to "dishonor the country" to make a videogame because they'd see it as trivialising the death of its soldiers. I don't think that would ever be tested though, I don't think a developer would even risk spending the money to make it to find out that it doesn't get through the regulator for that reason.