Who can ever forget the legendary Monkey King?
To revive your memory, here’s a quick background of the story just in case you can’t seem to remember (But… how can you not?!).
Journey to the West tells the classic tale of a Buddhist monk and three fallen gods with mystical powers.
The original story was birthed from a Chinese novel written by Wu Cheng’en that dates all the way back to the 16th century during the Ming dynasty.
The novel is also considered one of the ‘Four Great Classical Novels’ of Chinese literature.
With such a great story, Journey to the West was remade into multiple versions for TV and movies over the decades.
One particular version created by a Japanese studio in 1978, Monkey Magic quickly became a favourite among Western audience, in which the monk was played by a female character.
Almost 40 years later, Netflix decided to produce its own retelling of the epic Chinese tale in its new 10-part series titled Legend of the Monkey.
However, many people weren’t exactly thrilled when the announcement was made mainly because of the fact that the cast are… not Chinese.
Naturally, this piece of news created quite a stir amongst Chinese audiences everywhere.
Loyal fans of the original Journey also took to Twitter to voice their displeasure:
Waiting for ppl to splain how The Legend of Monkey is not whitewashing cos it has non-white actors & that none are Chinese is irrelevant
— jennifergearing (@jennifergearing) April 20, 2017
Journey to the west, by white people. Will only watch if the female 唐僧 got nude scene. https://t.co/q6GupKopvH
— Kang Rui (@iamthekang) April 26, 2017
IM SOOOOO ENRAGED ABOUT THAT LEGEND OF MONKEY BULLSHIT SUN WUKONG WAS MY CHILDHOOD HERO I WONT STAND FOR THIS DISRESPECT
— final project hell (@saltkath) April 25, 2017
#LegendofMonkey was one of my fave Chinese legends when I was a kid. Flabbergasted a Chinese lead has not been #cast https://t.co/qnLDpCAeej
— Erica Long (@e_longie) April 23, 2017
Interestingly, some people also pointed out that Chai Hansen, who plays the iconic role of the Monkey, is half-Thai, and two of the other male characters Luciane Buchanan and Josh Thomson are of Maori descent.
Still, they’re not Chinese.
The series follows a teenage girl named Tripitaka who is accompanied by three fallen gods, Monkey, Pigsy and Sandy on a journey to the west (LOL) to fight demonic chaos and terror and restore balance to the world.
We’re not sure how this series will pan out given that the casting could have been much better.
We’ll find out when Legend of the Monkey airs in 2018.