Anarchism, Daoism, and the Great Sage: A Review of Black Myth: Wukong
From Notes toward an International Libertarian Eco-Socialism by Javier Sethness
The marvelous PC and video game Black Myth: Wukong (2024), created by the previously low-profile Chinese company Game Science, is a spirited blockbuster adaptation of Wu Cheng’en’s epic fantasy novel, Journey to the West (c. 1592). Considered one of the four classic Chinese novels, Journey to the West presents a mythological spin on the monk Xuanzang’s unsanctioned seventh-century pilgrimage from China to India to recover Buddhist scriptures. While both Xuanzang and his literary counterpart Tang Sanzang are absent from Black Myth: Wukong, the “Great Sage” Sun Wukong—the novel’s beloved trickster monkey god and Sanzang’s main bodyguard—plays a prominent role.