Sinopsis
A young girl plays by the river and was frightened by her father in the river pretending to be a fish demon. The young girl cries and the father tries to please her by doing water ballet. The father is killed by a real fish demon. The villagers quickly become afraid of the river and then they hired a Taoist to avenge the death of the villager. The Taoist mistakes a stingray for the demon, but announced that the village was safe. A demon hunter, Tang Sanzang (Wen Zhang) informs the Taoist that he is wrong, and that the demon is still in the water. After the Taoist pushes his reluctant disciple into the lake to prove that the demon is gone, the demon strikes again. Sanzang tries to save everybody, and eventually the village kills the demon. The demon is transformed back to his human form. Sanzang sings "300 Nursery Rhymes" to the demon, trying to convert the demon to good. He does not succeed and the demon starts to attack Sanzang. Another demon hunter, Bai Gu Jing (Shu Qi) comes to save him, and traps the demon in a demon containment sphere with ease. Bai Gu Jing asks Sanzang how he became a demon hunter - Sanzang says through the "demon catching handbook" which as it turns out, is actually the "300 nursery rhymes" collection. She laughs at him and tells him off, while accepting the adulation of the villagers.
A man and woman go to an empty restaurant, and eat their specialty meal, roast pig. The woman asks the waiter who cooked the pig, and the waiter points to the chef. The woman tries to make the chef talk, and the chef reveals himself to be a pig demon. The man and woman run and hide, but see a sharp 9-toothed rake hung on the wall. The pig demon kills the man and woman after they try to escape. Sanzang comes to the same restaurant, now filled with people. The waitress escorts Sanzang to a table, where Sanzang, because of his monk like abilities, sees instead the rake and dead bodies everywhere instead of food and candles. Sanzang tells the waitress that he knows she's a demon. The waitress threatens him, but Gu Jing comes to save him again. All the customers turn out to be demons, too, and Gu Jing destroys them all. Gu Jing attempts to capture the pig demon and enlists the help of Sanzang. He tries to help but proves to be useless as he cannot bring himself to suck out the essence of the pig demon. He accidentally kisses the pig demon which triggers the suction of its essence. Bai Gu Jing kisses Sanzang to retrieve the essence and tries to contain it in the demon containment sphere, but it proves to be too strong and it escapes and chases them into the wild.
Sanzang embarks on his mission to find Monkey King, but in the forest, he is captured by a gang that captures demon hunters and demons. Sanzang finds Bai Gu Jing and other demon hunters chained onto the trolley, bloodied and beaten. The gang threatens all of them and tells them that they kill all demon hunters. They kill the first one, accusing him of lying since he is out at night when demons are out. Sanzang's turn comes to be asked if he is a demon hunter, and Sanzang is about to relucantly respond when Bai Gu Jing comes to save him by telling them that Sanzang is her husband and that they had an argument and she ran away. To prove it, she asks him to bring out the nursery rhyme book to show that he is not a demon hunter. The gang decides that - to prove that they are a couple, they should "do it" in front of them. Sanzang is reluctant and is slapped several times by another gang member to force him to get undressed. Another demon hunter gets killed, and Sanzang tries to force himself to undress, but Bai Gu Jing gets into it and tries to help him undress. By doing so, she accidentally reveals that her hands are not nailed together as earlier shown. Sanzang eventually finds out that everything is a ruse and that all of them are actually part of the same gang with Bai Gu Jing as the leader. She berates them all, then admits to Sanzang that she is smitten by him. Sanzang tells her that he is only a simple demon hunter and that he has simple dreams. Bai Gu Jing says that she understands him well, and that she also has a dream - to find the man of her dreams, marry him and settle down. Sanzang walks off, declaring her crazy - out of rage she orders her gang members to lock him up. After a series of mishaps, the Pig Demon catches up on them and destroys the chariot. Before the gang can deal with the demon, three demon hunters appear - Almighty Foot, Tiger Claws and Persian Prince.
Sanzang tells the three warriors that the more they bicker, the further the pig demon will get and escape. Bai Gu Jing declares her support for Sanzang, but Sanzang embarrases her in front of everyone by telling her that she is only blocking his path to Buddhahood and demands for his 300 nursery rhymes book. Out of frustration and embarrasment, she tears the book apart and kicks him - she tells him that if it wasn't for her, he would have been dead already. She flirts with the Persian Prince but Sanzang ignores her. She storms off, leaving her crew behind.
After days of traveling to Five Fingers mountain, Sanzang finally finds it. He discovers the hole where the Monkey King(Huang Bo) was trapped in for 500 years. Sanzang asks for a way to defeat the pig demon, and Monkey tries to give him the fire seal, saying that it would destroy any demon or monster. After Sanzang refuses to take it, Monkey reveals that he was also a member of the 13 bandits, being the top bandit - who killed for three days and nights, hacking and chopping without "blinking an eye". Sanzan innocently asks him how he could manage to keep from closing his eyes for three days - Monkey King gets into a fit of temper and starts doing karate chops on the sugarcane that Sanzang carried around. He fails to cut three, then two, until he eventually cuts it down to when there is only one, injuring his hand in the process. He asks Sanzang to bring out more things for him to destroy - Sanzang obeys and brings out a durian fruit. Monkey King immediately calms down upon seeing the thorny fruit, but Sanzang offers it to him again and again. Monkey King losses his temper and tries to escape, but the charm prevents him from escaping, with the roots coming alive to stop him and whips him with powerful lightning laced whip lashes. Sanzang tells him that for him to be truly enlightened, he must perform good deeds to cleanse his spirit, and helping him capture the pig demon could be one way for him to put him on the right path. Using a banana to bait him, Sanzang gets a plan laid out by the monkey king - have a good looking lady dance under the full moon to the song written by the pig demon when he was still human, and he will appear. Monkey King will then take care of him once he falls into his trap. Knowing no other females, Sanzang asks Monkey King what he thinks if he dresses up as a female. Bai Gu Jing interrupts their conversation, and she is eventually taught by Monkey King to dance after flirting with her.
That very night, Bai Gu Jing performs the dance which enthralls Sanzang. However, the Pig Demon appears and is lured into the hole by Monkey King. Bai gu Jing and Sanzang goes back into the hole and finds that the Monkey King has transformed the once ferocious Pid Demon into a piglet, which Bai captures in her demon containment sphere. She then goes on to propose to Sanzang, who rejects her approaches. She eventually forces him to wear her magic ring of infinity as a wedding ring. He threatens to cut off his finger since he could not remove it because of its magical properties. Bai Gu Jing sadly removes it, and returns the torn up 300 nursery rhymes book which is nowhere similar to what it originally was, and leaves, heart broken.
Monkey King tries one last time to trick Sanzang and succeeds. The Monkey King escapes, and appears in his true demonic form. He throws Sanzang from the Mountain, catches him, and declares to him that he has finally escaped from Buddha, berrating Buddha and insulting Sanzang's faith in him. When Sanzang remarks that the Monkey King has not escaped Buddha and motions that Buddha is in the heaven's looking down at them, Monkey King roars out a curse, sending Sanzang flying and coughing blood. Sanzang tries to take the prayer position, but Monkey King orders him to put down his hands. Sanzang refuses and starts to take the prayer stance with difficulty. Monkey King starts tearing off Sanzang's hair violently. At this point, the three warriors appear - Tiger Claws, Almighty Foot, and the Persian Prince. The Monkey King dispatches each one of them easily - he tears and eats the the flesh of Tiger Claws, punches through Almighty Foot's giant foot stomp like a nail through his foot, and dodges all of Persian Prince's Mystic Sword attacks until they eventually break on his steel hardened body. He then let's out a mystic roar that literally burns the two warriors. He then turns his attention back to Sanzang.
Bai Gu Jing appears in the nick of time to try and save her beloved, but she is crippled and eventually killed by the Monkey King. Before she dies, she asks Sanzang if he loves her, and Sanzang finally declares his love, loving her for a thousand and even ten thousand years. She dies in his arms, but the Monkey King takes her and burns her body with a mystic blast, reducing her to energy and ash. Sanzang experiences the pain and suffering of one who loses a loved one, and finally receives enlightenment from Buddha - the 300 rhymes book that Bai Gu Jing has put together turns into the Buddha Sutra manuscript, empowering Sanzang. Using the powers of the manuscript, Sanzang, in mystic form, envokes the Earth Buddha to destroy the Monkey King. The Monkey King however, is able to defeat this form of the Buddha. Sanzang then invokes the Iron Buddha, which encompasses space as well. The Mystic Palm that Falls from the Heavens is used by this form of Buddha, and although the Monkey King is able to stop it in the beginning, it eventually overwhelms him. However, instead of dying, the Monkey King finds that his evil form has dissolved, and an enlightened Sanzang is there to welcome him. He places the ring of infinity on Sun Wukong's (Monkey King's name) head, and Sun Wukong hugs his leg in contrite prayer and pardon.
Sanzang's master praises him and asks him about his view on lesser love and greater love. Sanzang answers - "There is no greater love or lesser love, for they are part of the Universal Love. When one feels pain, he knows how to feel for others, when one is stubborn, he learns to let go". But his real mission is not to save man from the sufferings of this world, but to learn from the 22 sutras in India. His master instructs him to go on his journey to the west and retrieve the twenty two books, accompanied by the three most powerful former demons - Sandy (former Water Demon), Pigsy(formerly the Pig Demon) and Sun Wukong, the Monkey King.
As they begin their Journey, Sanzang sees the form of his loved one Bai Gu Jing, among the sand dervishes, and realises that she will always be there but will never be his. And so ends the movie - Journey to the West, Conquering the Demons.
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