A 400-year-old kung-fu fighting monkey is finally having its American moment

The Monkey King is having a moment in America — and it’s been centuries in the making.

It has been popular throughout Asia for generations as a centerpiece Hundreds of modifications On page, stage and screen, the Chinese hero is also the Netflix star of 2023 Animated filmIqbal 2024 Video gameAnd now, sold completely new Opera At the San Francisco Opera. Not bad for a character who first appeared in a Ming dynasty novel in the 16th century.

The monkey who would be king

The Monkey King – known as Sun Wukong in Chinese – first exploded completely from a rock in the 1592 classic novel.Journey to the West“, widely attributed to the poet Wu Qingyin.

Steeped in Buddhist teachings and symbols, the story follows Sun Wukong’s epic journey toward enlightenment.

“He wants to become somebody,” Frank Deng, a cultural historian who has written about the character, said in an interview with NPR. “So he sets out to learn how to become immortal and powerful.”

The ambitious primate gains fantastic superpowers. He can ride clouds as if they were skateboards, clone himself, and strike his enemies with a telescoping magic wand.

But despite these skills, the gods reject him.

“He’s an outcast. He’s a rebel,” Jing said. “He decided to ascend to the sky and cause some kind of chaos there.”

He is drawn to chaos

The Monkey King is not your typical square-jawed noble superhero. Although he seeks enlightenment, Monkey is also a vocal mischief-maker, and his antics include stealing magical peaches from a sacred garden that grants immortality to the person who eats them—and then devouring them.

“I think we loved the monkey because of his courage, his yearning for freedom, his defiance of the gods,” said Chinese-Australian tenor Kang Wang, who plays the title role in San Francisco Opera’s world premiere, and who grew up obsessed with a live-action 1980s Chinese TV series based on the story of the Monkey King. “He is also very cheerful. He is always very happy and never sad.”

This versatility is key to understanding the character’s broad appeal. In Asia, the Monkey King has been reimagined as everything from a communist-style proletarian hero fighting the oppressive bourgeoisie in a 1960s Chinese animated film.Corruption in heaven“, to the cyborg in”Sci-Fi West Saga Starzinger“, a Japanese science fiction anime series in the 1970s.

American monkey

Some 20th century versions gained popularity outside Asia. But American audiences have been slower to embrace the simian superhero — until now.

“It’s really amazing how the Monkey King is finally creeping into the American consciousness,” said Gene Luen Yang, the cartoonist whose popular 2006 graphic novel, An American Born Chinese, wove the myth of the Monkey King with a contemporary story about the struggles of an Asian American teenager. Disney adapted the book into a TV series In 2023.

Yang said that until recently the character may have seemed “too Asian” to most American audiences. But cultural shifts have changed that calculus, and Yang said he expects more American artists and producers to enjoy the Monkey King in the coming years.

“We all read manga, and we all watch anime,” Yang said. “As Americans, we’re more used to this intersection between East and West.”

Copyright 2025, NPR