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Journey To The West Conquering The Demons Analysis

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Buddhist elements in Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons
Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons is a fantasy comedy film written and directed by Stephen Chow (Chow Sing Chi), which largely draws on the background of the classic Chinese novel Journey to the West. Taking place before Mahayana Buddhism disciple Xuan Zang embarked on the journey to the West, this film depicted his efforts to attain Enlightenment through conquering the demons and other hardships encountered, representing his growth from a low-level demon-hunter to a real disciple of Mahayana Buddhism. Despite the given criticism over the plot and acting performance, by incorporating Buddhist allegory, the film illustrates the essence of sufferings in the secular world and promotes the right way of reaching Enlightenment, which provides an insight into understanding ourselves and the world.
At the beginning, through presenting the intense among common people, demons, and the demon-hunters, the film suggests the root of all sufferings in our life, that is, the ignorance of ourselves, the hatred towards the outside world and the attachment to desire. The first story happened in the riverside village plagued by a water demon. The frightened villages invited a Taoist priest to conquer the demon. He killed a giant manta ray and insisted that it was the dead demon. When Xuan Zang questioned that the manta ray was not the true demon, the villagers who were beating the dead manta ray with fury turned their
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