Sun Wukong Battles Erlang Shen
A 2007 Chinese animated feature blending puppetry and 3D CG to bring the legend of the Journey to the West to life.
Monkey King vs. Er Lang Shen is a 2007 Mainland Chinese animated feature film produced by Yuancheng Animation and directed by Leung Hon-sum, with a budget of approximately 1 million US dollars. Adapted from the opening chapters of Journey to the West, the film focuses on Sun Wukong's havoc in Heaven and his brutal confrontation with Erlang Shen, Yang Jian, the nephew of the Jade Emperor. The production was highly experimental: roughly 30% of the footage utilized stop-motion puppetry, while the remainder consisted of 3D CG backgrounds and characters composited with the physical puppets, creating a hybrid visual style between puppet animation and computer graphics. The film represents an early 21st-century attempt by Chinese animation to reinterpret classic mythological themes using modern CG technology and was nominated for Best Animated Feature Film at the inaugural Asia Pacific Screen Awards. Although its box office performance in Mainland China was limited, as an independent animated feature centered on the traditional mythological clash between "Erlang Shen and the Handsome Monkey King," Monkey King vs. Er Lang Shen holds a certain exploratory significance during the transitional period of the Chinese animation industry in the 2000s.