On a whim, I decided to watch this film, and similarly on a whim, I have decided to write this "review". I put the word review in quotations because I don't see this as much of a review, and more of a commenting on the film. This will be a rather short review with no pictures, as detailed below.
Earlier this month, a rather prolific anime youtuber, Caribou-kun, put out a rather interesting video entitled Disney's Mortal Sin, which goes over some interviews comparing the animation styles from Japan, most notably those of Osamu Dezaki and Hayao Miyazaki, to the animation styles of the West, of course taking from Walt Disney. The idea that came from the interviews was that Disney's "mortal sin" was a fear of being boring. Everything has to constantly be animated to keep the audience from realizing what they are viewing is a drawing, and while watching Saiyuuki, I couldn't help but have a similar thought process.
This is a very early Japanese animated feature, it was released in 1960 in fact. A period when Japan was still deeply entrenched in Western culture, and particularly their entertainment. This seems to have resulted in making this film feel like a Japanese Disney production, with it being based on a common Asian myth of sorts (that being the legend of the Monkey King), with plenty of musical numbers for the audience to sing along to, and of course, fluid animation. Though, I feel the fluid animation here is too much of the focus, as it results in a film that you only watch for its animation. Very rarely is there a singular shot that will stick in your mind, let alone one that is wholly memorable. There is a very clear desire to want to show this film's strengths as an animated feature, but it has limited its strength to just the animation. I can completely understand why, this is Japanese animation in its infancy, but I just don't feel engaged with this, as I'll call it, "over-animation". I want the film to slow down and give me a gorgeous shot rather than a gorgeous slice.
I know I am definitely asking too much of an anime film from before Tetsuwan Atom (let alone Ashita no Joe or Dororo to Hyakkimaru), but my biases will be my biases. I still think this is a very interesting film, but I don't see it as monumental a piece for Japanese animation as the three mentioned earlier in this paragraph. I guess I would talk about the story here, but come on, it's The Monkey King, everyone has heard of this one.
If you're interested and/or want some "Classic anime" cred, I guess you could watch this. This is a full theatrical piece, it's 90 minutes long and in a "theatrical" resolution (forgive me, I'm tired). But, I don't recommend it as a piece of "historical anime". It may be a landmark of sorts, but it is nowhere near as important (in my eyes) as the works of Osamu Dezaki, Hayao Miyazaki, Yoshiyuki Tomino, and so many others.