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

Wildly popular across Asia for generations as the focus of hundreds of adaptations on page, stage and screen, the Chinese superhero is also the star of a 2023 Netflix animated film, a blockbuster 2024 video game, and right now, a sold-out new opera at San Francisco Opera. Not bad for a character who made his literary debut in a 16th century Ming Dynasty novel.

The monkey who would be king

The Monkey King — known as Sun Wukong in Chinese — first burst fully-formed out of a rock in the classic 1592 novel Journey to the West, widely attributed to the poet Wu Cheng’en.

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

“He wants to be someone,” Frank Djeng, 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 acquires remarkable superpowers. He can ride clouds like they’re skateboards, clone himself, and bash his enemies with a magic, telescoping stick.

But despite these skills, the gods reject him.

“He’s an outcast. He’s a rebel,” Djeng said. “He decides to go up to the heavens and kind of wreaks havoc there.”

Drawn to chaos

The Monkey King isn’t your typical square-jawed, noble superhero. Though he’s on a quest for enlightenment, Monkey is also a loud-mouthed mischief-maker, whose antics include stealing magical peaches from a sacred garden that grant immortality to the person who eats them – and then gobbling them down.

“I think we loved the monkey because of his courage, his longing for freedom, and his defiance against the gods,” said Chinese-Australian tenor Kang Wang, who plays the title role in the world premiere San Francisco Opera production and grew up obsessed with a 1980s live-action Chinese TV adaptation of the Monkey King story. “Also, he’s very playful. He’s always super happy and never sad.”

A still from the 2023 Netflix animated series The Monkey King — one among several major adaptations of the classic Chinese tale to break into the U.S. mainstream in recent years.

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This many-sidedness is key to understanding the character’s wide appeal. In Asia, the Monkey King has been reimagined as everything from a Communist-style proletarian hero fighting an oppressive bourgeoisie in the 1960s Chinese animated film Havoc in Heaven, to a cyborg in Sci-Fi West Saga Starzinger, a 1970s Japanese sci-fi anime series.

American Monkey 

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

“It’s really stunning how the Monkey King is finally pushing through into the American consciousness,” said Gene Luen Yang, a cartoonist whose acclaimed 2006 graphic novel American Born Chinese weaves together the Monkey King legend with a contemporary story about the struggles of being an Asian American teen. Disney adapted the book into a TV series in 2023.

Yang said the character may until recently have seemed “too Asian” for most American audiences. But cultural shifts have changed that calculation, and Yang said he expects more American artists and producers will be monkeying around with the Monkey King in the years ahead.

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

Soleil, a Belgian Sheepdog, has won Best in Show at the 2025 National Dog Show, beating out more than 1900 dogs in this year’s competition.  

The pitch black, six-year-old Soleil appeared calm despite all the activity around her as the crowd and her handler, Daniel Martin from Princeton, North Carolina accepted the award.   

Martin says Soleil’s attitude and movement helped her clinch the title.  “She’s the professional,” he said.  “She loves the crowd and the big arena. Fantastic day.” 

At that National Dog Show in Philadelphia, a Beauceron, Bergamasco Sheepdog and Entlebucher Mountain Dog stand for judging. Three members of the Herding Group, the 2025 winner, a Belgian Sheepdog named Soleil, won Best in the Herding Group before going on to be named Best in Show.

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Soleil beat out six other finalists at the annual canine competition, hosted by the Kennel Club of Philadelphia and broadcast by NBC on Thanksgiving Day from a group of seven categories. That includes the Working, Non-Sporting, Sporting, Terrier and Toy Groups. Soleil is part of the Herding Group.  George, an American Foxhound part of the Hound Group, won the Reserve Best in Show.  

“Soleil was just ‘on’ today,” Martin added. “I knew that this would be a fierce, intense competition. Soleil loves the energy and she feels it. That’s her magic.”

Charlie Olvis, the judge of the competition, praised Soleil, saying she was “on.”.

“Didn’t put its foot down wrong. Didn’t miss a beat. And it is in drop-dead gorgeous condition,” Olvis said.

The American Kennel Club describes the Belgian Sheepdog as highly trainable herders that are “bright, watchful and serious-minded”, adding that “these sensitive souls crave human companionship and abhor neglect”. Their average lifespan is between 10 and 14 years.

The National Dog Show was founded in 1879 and has been held annually since 1933. It’s been televised since 2002, and has become a popular Thanksgiving tradition, with an estimated 20 million animal lovers tuning in to watch, according to Purina, which presented the show. 

A number of additional competitions are held behind the scenes including a barking contest.