Story – Robert McKee's Creative Storytelling Magazine Issue 005 – Drew Carey | Page 50

FILM
REVIEW

stroy that kind of idealism and to
discover the real causes and the
real human nature underneath all
of that.
Kung Fu Hustle is one of my favorite films of all time. I have
seen it repeatedly. I laugh every time and thoroughly enjoy
it. At the end of Kung Fu Hustle,
the protagonist is, in some fashion, transcendent. But, he really
earns his transcendence. There is
a sense of fun in the climax that
he grew and changed and that
the filmmaker had his tongue in
his cheek and we were having
fun with that whole idea. But not
so in Journey to the West. Here it
got really earnest and preachy.
The sense of the filmmaker having a wink in his eye saying, "All
of this is to be taken with a grain
of salt," was absent.
The best character in the film,
without question, is the female
protagonist, Miss Duan. She is
great because she gets it. There
are no transcendent values in
her. She understands and wants
the reality of love, so she sacrifices herself repeatedly for this.
She is the only one with her feet
on the ground, realistic and balanced. Comedy is an attack on
that kind of empty idealism. She
loved him even though he was
a kind of a childish idealist. Ultimately, when she was gone out
of his life and out of the story,
the movie was over.

Story Magazine // Issue 005