Transforming Tripitaka: Toward a (Buddhist) Planetary Ethics in Stephen Chow’s Adaptation of Journey to the West

Abstract

In studying Stephen Chow’s innovative reimagining of the Chinese literary and religious classic Journey to the West, this chapter begins by considering the intersections between global Buddhism, Sino-enchantment and the numerous cinematic adaptations of the Ming dynasty classic. Director Chow inverts the epic scope of the literary work by focusing on the personal quotidian specificities of relationality and alterity, accomplished by opening the film within the context of a small idyllic fishing village. He then allows the film to zoom out into the universal, as the Monkey King battles the Buddha. This inverted narrative structure lends the film a planetary ethics of feeling and connection between human and nonhuman life. Through Sino-enchantment as an interpretive lens, this chapter rethinks love and compassion in a posthuman era, thus making Journey to the West relevant to contemporary audiences.