The Monkey King is a 2023 animated fantasy action comedy film directed by Anthony Stacchi from a screenplay written by Rita Hsiao and the writing team of Steve Bencich and Ron J. Friedman.

One of his escapades causes a feared demon to pounce from his mountain lair and grab one of the troop's infants for food; as a result, Monkey is banished.

To fetch a more suitable weapon, Monkey dives into the sea realm of the Dragon King, who is about to use a glowing column to eradicate all life on the world's surface.

In a graveyard, Monkey King opens a portal to Hell to get to the Archive of Souls and strike his name off his Scroll of Life and Death, thus gaining immortality.

After realizing the peaches are fake, Monkey King learns from the book that Wangmu, the divine Queen Mother, brews an immortality elixir for the gods.

Although Lin has several chances to steal the staff, she repeatedly returns to help Monkey King, who also demonstrates that despite his rude behavior, he cares about her too.

Five hundred years later, Monkey King is freed from his prison by a monk, a pig, and a river spirit at Buddha's behest.

In October 2017, Oriental DreamWorks, now known as Pearl Studio, announced the film with Steve Bencich and Ron J. Friedman as writers, but it didn't materialize.

Jimmy O. Yang, Bowen Yang, Jolie Hoang-Rappaport, Jo Koy, Ron Yuan, Hoon Lee, Stephanie Hsu, Andrew Pang, Andrew Kishino, Jodi Long, James Sie, and BD Wong were cast to voice the film's characters.

The website's consensus reads: "Often rousing, The Monkey King is an animated blur of tried-and-true -- but still appealing -- archetypes.

[15] Leslie Felperin reviewing for The Guardian rated the film with 3 stars out of 5 and wrote, "Bounces along energetically, and has some exceptionally fun frills around the edges..."[16] David Rooney of The Hollywood Reporter described the film as "a light and bouncy cultural crossover," and wrote, "Some aspects of the cross-cultural mashup work better than others, but overall, this is a charming attempt to distill a centuries-old story into a quirky folktale that all children can enjoy.