Oh hell yes: the 1980s cult classic series Monkey, commonly known as ‘Monkey Magic’ thanks to its iconic theme song, is being rebooted and it looks like it’s gonna be fucken siiiick.
Based on the classic 16th century Chinese novel Journey To The West, Monkey will be familiar to anyone who spent long stretches of time in front of the ABC as a kid – it aired on and off from 1981 to 2000. The show rapidly became a cult favourite for its hammy acting, ridiculous dubs (it was originally Japanese), and cool martial arts sequences.
Rather than try to sum up the plot for you, I’ll just drop in the very excellent original theme tune right here and that should get you up to speed:
Now award-winning production company See Saw Films have acquired the rights to do a lush 10-episode reboot, which is currently filming in New Zealand.
Called The Legend of Monkey, the show will follow a different plot to the original series, but it still features the four famous main characters: Monkey (Chai Hansen), Tripitaka (Luciane Buchanan), Pigsy (Josh Thomsen) and Sandy (Emilie Cocquerel). It’s set to debut on the ABC, TVNZ and Netflix next year.
Andrew Shaw from broadcaster TVNZ has described the show as a “big budget fantasy drama series“. Considering New Zealand’s pedigree for shows of that sort – looking at you, Xena and Hercules – here’s hoping it’s at least a little bit camp, too.
Source: The Age.
Image: Supplied.
