Nobody expects much from a loose adaptation of a children's anime from the 70s. This film proves that expectation wrong by finding something genuinely funny in watching a wise monk navigate absurd situations with perfect deadpan calm. The humor comes from restraint, not noise, a character who has already figured everything out, watching everyone else panic around him. It's comedy built on patience instead of punchlines. You're not laughing at jokes; you're laughing at the gap between what Ikkyuu knows and what everyone else is frantically trying to understand.

Congming de Yixiu Zhi Fan Dou Gongzhu is a 2014 Chinese comedy movie. Made in China, the film is a version of Ikkyuu-san, the anime originally produced in Japan, brought to the screen as a single feature.