洪楗華: Take My Western Scripture (取我西经) - OST - Journey to the West II 1998 (西遊記 (貳)) - English

Translating the sub song (片尾曲) "Take My Western Scripture" (取我西经) from the Journey to the West II 1998 (西遊記 (貳)) into English. Original Cantonese Song by Ian Hung (洪楗華). This 1998 series is the TVB adaptation of the "Journey to the West" (西遊記) novel written by Wu Cheng'en (吳承恩). The series is also the sequel to the "Journey to the West 1996". The novel itself is very popular and has countless adaptations in opera, film, TV and in gaming. The most recent being "Black Myth: Wukong". I personally grew up to the Japanese TV series simply titled "Monkey" which I loved and watched numerous times. It took me a while to get used to the TVB productions of 1996 and 1998 as they changed plot elements from the novel. I also found the special effects to be cheesy. It was not as "wholesome" or as "philosophical" as the Japanese adaptation. Instead the focus was on comedy. The 1998 sequel was mostly enjoyable as well. As mentioned before, the "Journey to the West" novel itself is the fictional retelling of the account of the pilgrimage of the Chinese Buddhist monk Xuanzang, who journeyed to India in the 7th century AD to seek out and collect Buddhist scriptures. The novel retains the broad outline of Xuanzang's own account, in the Great Tang Records on the Western Regions, but embellishes it with fantasy elements from folk tales and the author's invention. The majority of the cast for 1996 returned for the 1998 sequel except for Dicky Chueng (張衛健) who thought he deserved much higher pay following the huge success of the 1996 series. Dicky was therefore replaced by Benny Chan (陳浩民) as Sun Wukong (孫悟空), which means "Monkey King". Benny loved the novel as a kid and agreed to play the role for a lot less money. I found his performance to be pretty solid. However, I liked Dicky's version better. He just moved and behaved like a monkey more. Benny at times just looked like a man in a monkey costume. That is, he didn't make the character come alive... Wayne Lai (黎耀祥) returned as Zhu Bajie (豬八戒), affectionately known as "Pigsy". I enjoyed Wayne's performance much better in the sequel. It is probably because I had gotten used to his costume and his character grew in depth. Evergreen Mak (麥長青) also returns as Sha Wujing (沙悟淨), affectionately known as "Sandy". I really didn't like how Sandy was portrayed in this series. His character was pretty whiny, and annoying and had little growth or development throughout the series. Kong Wa (江華), whom I thought was a standout, also returned as Tang Sanzang (唐三藏), the Monk. He put in another solid performance and made a usually dull and boring character very interesting. That is very hard to do. It was a shame that some of the supporting cast did not return to reprise their roles. But it was a pretty big cast and some of them played more than one role. The notable mentions are Rebecca Chan (陳秀珠), Rain Lau (劉玉翠), Joe Ma (馬德鐘), Derek Kok (郭政鴻), Kingdom Yuen (苑瓊丹), Joyce Chan (陳彥行), Angie Cheong (張慧儀), Melissa Ng (吳美珩), Mimi Lo (羅敏莊), Ron Ng (吳卓羲), and Mariane Chan (陳妙瑛). Of the supporting cast, I really enjoyed the performances of Joyce Chan and Angie Cheong. The fifth a final "official" song from the series is "Take My Western Scripture" which was also the main ending song from the series. I originally thought this song was also sung by Benny Chan, but it turns out the singer was Ian Hung, who has a very similar sounding voice. The song also features a passage from the "Diamond Sutra" and the "Heart Sutra". I just hope I did th translation justice. p Anyway, please enjoy... I am willing to take requests to translate other TVB or wuxia songs in the comments section. Also please subscribe and share with your friends and help grow this channel. The more subscribers, the more songs I'll translate to English! Please Note: It's hard work translating and making videos. If you use my video or translation, please provide a link to my video. Thanks.