:22:01
This man lived five hundred years ago,
in the world of humans above.
:22:06
His name was Wu Cheng-en.
:22:09
He wrote "Journey to the West"
:22:11
You remember.
:22:14
Come. Let us enter his world.
:22:16
Through...
:22:24
Author Wu lived in an age of senseless
cruelty and repression.
:22:36
The Emperor had declared that
all progress must cease
:22:40
that China must return
to the values and traditions of its past.
:22:47
Writers were only allowed to retell
the old tales, over and over again.
:23:02
You cannot stop this.
:23:05
We can change the present,
even the future
:23:08
but never the past.
:23:10
The Chief of the censors was
Chung-Shing Shu.
:23:13
Enemies of the Middle Kingdom!
:23:15
He made certain no one
wrote any new stories...
:23:18
You have spewed filth...
:23:20
...on pain of death.
:23:21
...and called it art.
:23:25
Your writings weaken the moral fiber
of our kingdom.
:23:30
Now, we will correct your thinking
...permanently.
:23:36
All his life, author Wu had tried
to obey the censors.
:23:41
But when he grew old, he decided
to set down
:23:44
the tales he had heard
from the common people.
:23:47
About a naughty Monkey god
and his adventures.
:23:52
A book he called,
Journey to the West.
:23:58
But Shu's gang of critics,
the Five Traditional Masters