Overall rating: ****
Director: Yuen Wo Ping
Starring: Rongguang Yu, Donnie Yen, Jean Wang, James Wong, Sze-Man Tsang
Tagline: One of the best movies about people kicking each other ever made.
So the girlfriend and I just got back from seeing Iron Monkey. After getting over my initial disappointment that the film was not a sequel to the 1986 Beastie Boys hip-hop hit Brass Monkey, I am happy to report that this is quite possibly one of the best movies about people kicking each other ever made.
Film: Iron Monkey stars Rongguang Yu as the Iron Monkey, a Chinese Robin Hood who robs from the rich governor and gives to the poor. The governor isn’t just rich, he’s truly evil. as is evidenced by his large, bushy, evil eyebrows which appeared to be made out of yarn.
Much like Batman, Zorro or J. Edgar Hoover, Iron Monkey has a secret identity. By day, he is a prominent local physician named Dr. Yang. The doctor business is thriving as he constantly fixes up the guys that he kicked the crap out of the night before. He is assisted by the lovely Ms. Orchid, a former prostitute turned nurse who is a major kung-fu bad-ass in her own right. It was unclear to me whether or not Ms. Orchid was actually Mrs. Iron Monkey. She did appear to be living at the monkey house.
After the Iron Monkey struck a blow for justice by lopping off one of the governor’s freakish eyebrows, the despot arrests Wong Kei-Ying, another kung-fu doctor visiting the province with his son Wong Fei-Hung. His son will be kept in the dungeon until Wong Kei-Ying captures the Iron Monkey.
So then the two good guys fight each other for a little bit–neither one noticing the other has perfectly normal, non-evil eyebrows–before they decide to team up to rescue Wong Fei-Hung.
Before they can do that, an even more evil bad guy shows up, with larger, more grotesque eyebrows. He leads a group of disgraced Shaolin monks against the Iron Monkey. So Iron Monkey, Mrs. Monkey, the other doctor and the kid all start beating the crap out of people in extremely artistic ways.
The action is directed by Yuen Wo Ping, who Western viewers may recognize as the choreographer of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and The Matrix. All of the numerous fight scenes look amazing. Let’s put it this way, Woo-ping Yuen actually managed to make Keanu Reeves look good. The man is a god.
A few notes about the film: Quentin Tarantino somehow managed to weasel his way into the opening credits, even though he was probably still asking people to “be kind, please rewind” when the film was originally released in Hong Kong in 1993. The boy Wong Fei-Hung was played by a girl for some reason. The movie is subtitled, which beats the crap out of the lousy dubbing they normally do for these things.
Wong Fei-Hung was a real guy. He is one of China’s most revered heroes. Jet Li played him as an adult in the acclaimed Once Upon A Time In China series and Jackie Chan played him in Drunken Master, also directed by Woo-ping Yuen and the best damn kung-fu movie of all time, Drunken Master II, which got released over here as Legend of the Drunken Master.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go trim my eyebrows.
The Adventures of Robin Hood – Screw Kevin Costner, Errol Flynn will always be Robin Hood, even if he was a closet Nazi sympathizer. For extra fun, check out “the Skipper” as Little John.
Drunken Master II – Belatedly released in the U.S. as Legend of the Drunken Master, this Jackie Chan gem closes with an amazing 20-minute fight seen that is probably the best ever put on film.
Fight Club – Why am I recommending this film? I’d tell you, but the first rule of fight club is to never talk about fight club.
Old Episodes of “Kung Fu” with David Carradine – Watching Carradine try to look like he knows kung fu is fun. Watching him try to portray an enlightned Chinese monk is a riot.
Any Which Way But Loose – Clint Eastwood and Clyde, the real “Iron Monkey.”
Tags: donnie yen, martial arts
HEY
“Quentin Tarantino presents” is a load of bull crap. That charlatan bastard acts like he made the movie. He was always a fan of Asian cinema, like the works of Akira Kurosawa and John Woo. He admitted in trying to cosplay Chow Yun Fat’s character from The Killer. Even his Kill Bill series was a bootleg from Lady Snow Blade. What’s with the stupid cover anyway? Dr. Yang and Orchid never even held a damned sword. Anywho, the original Iron Monkey released from Tai Seng is the best. Even the one with English dubbed was better than the P.O.S. release with his name on it. What they did was took the dubbed version and muted the dialogue and add their own subtitles. The BIG problem here is, while the dialogue was muted, the original soundtrack (ost) was muted as well. There were lots of scenes with no sound effect/ music. I have both the original movie in Chinese with English subtitles (which they should have released instead) and the English dubbed version (which was not that bad I might add). ^_^