What I find most enduring about this version of Journey is how understandable it is. I can watch this without subtitles and still know what's going on, it's truly masterful
It seems that Erlangshen in this version of the TV series was not originally an actor, but actually a military instructor. The director of this TV series searched for actors nationwide and felt that his demeanor was very suitable, so he was chosen to play the role.
Wukong wasn’t even fighting seriously and yet Erlang who has one more transformation than the Great Sage is going all out. Erlang got outsmarted by the Monkey.
@@redgraves4030you're right. I can't remember exactly but in the original novel the fight went extremely hard for many rounds. Erlang Shen then managed to dominate Sun Wukong, forcing him to use his spells to shapeshift and run away, which is correctly shown in this episode.
@@An-zn8ri In the original work, Erlang Shen and Wukong fought without a winner. Later, Erlang Shen and his six brothers also joined the battle, but they did not defeat Sun Wukong. Later, the Heavenly Lord (one of the founders of Taoism) attacked Sun Wukong with his weapon, the Diamond Bracelet (a very powerful weapon), and Erlang Shen finally captured him.
Erlang was not defeated, he was outsmarted by Wukong. Basically Wukong can transformed into 72 animals. Erlang can also transformed into 72 animals, but he has a pet dog which represents the 73rd animal.
Between the two, Erlang was the stronger of the two and is generally more experienced of the fighters, but Wukong is more creative with his usage of the powers of the 72 transformations (not animals). That's why he spent most of their battle on the run; he can't take Erlang in a straight fight, but he can easily keep him on the ropes indefinitely. The difference is that Erlang's intervention gave heaven the opening that was needed to catch him by surprise.
Opposite. Wu Kong definitely used full power and lost. Sun Wukong was a bandit Xia at this point. We support him because he is the MC and we project ourself to him. He was personification of unrestraint freedom at this point. We love and fantasies to be free like him. That would be "fun and fulfilling". However, we definitely do not like other people that free and wreck us with "the sttick" in their drunken state of freedom and become "collateral damage" in the wake. You know what I mean. Meanwhile, Erlang Shen was human paragon of morality. Too perfect and "boring" because most of us can't relate to at all. Essentially the superman archetype. However, the dude was officially sanctioned as the protector god of Chinese nation . A human who has cultivated human virtues to the very max. Monkey king was a fiend god born of five color stone, a unique chosen one and nobody will be able to be like him no matter how we cosplay him. The fact that erlang Shen was able to beat monkey king is that Chinese people are human supremacists all the way. We consider our human race the greatest and most powerful. By the way, buddha was human. The end of Journey to the west, the monkey was no longer of a personification of freedom, he become a buddha, a paragon , the same level as Erlang. At the time of "Havoc at heaven", Erlang was more powerful lore wise (ie the book). The adaptations overpowered MC and nerfed 4 heaven kings, jade emperor etc to get dramatic effect as plot armor. To put him to the very peak of the curve just to get smack down as dramatic effect. After 500 years of imprisonment under five fingered mountain, our MC was not that overbearing powerful throughout the main journey to west. Super bosses like Bull demon king, Yellow brows, the peacock, six eared monkey etc. were exceedingly powerful and MC was not able to overpower them at all. The like of Laozi, Buddha, KuanYin etc are ever more powerful and definitely notchs above our favorite MC.
