i must have seen a different film!!

Fresh and Exciting

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

What could possibly be a cheesier name than Iron monkey. One could argue that it is the only thing wrong with this otherwise, flawless piece of entertainment. Flawless entertainment isn't the same of course as a flawless movie. While Iron Monkey is not all that well scripted, no film delivers martial arts combat as skillful and inventive as this film which is essentially Zorro in Ching Dynasty China (late 19th century)So why does Iron Monkey work so well? For the obvious reason it is directed and staged by the world's greatest choreographer of combat. It helps of course that much of the movie is shot at 48 frames per second, but it's fluid. In too many movies, speed equals chaos, but not here. It also helps that the film has a great sense of slapstick humour. The ways in which people get their butts kicked by everyday objects such as sliding cafe tables, medicine bowls, umbrella's and even pieces of food, is very clever. Iron Monkey is a great film to show your friends, certainly much more honourable than most of the American junk, that pilfers from these film (Quentin Tarantino, not included of course). Even when it's over, you may find yourself eager for more

The amazing Iron Monkey! This movie has a legendary status amongst martial arts fans, and for good reason!Iron Monkey is the Chinese robin hood and he owns in this totally cool martial arts flick directed by Yuen Woo Ping. The action is super fast paced (again, it's like a Donnie Yen movie trademark) and filled with wires and unrealistic stuff like that. But Donnie and Rongguang excel and shows true ass kicking moves. T he story is not really special or anything, but it suffices and the acting is good. I think about 70 % of the movie consists of fight scenes, 25% dialogue and acting and 5% classic Chinese actors making funny face at the camera. If you like unrealistic and speedy martial arts flicks, then this is the movie for you.

I saw this movie a couple of years ago and just watched it again. With 14 years since its release, I think it's safe to start calling this a "classic" of martial arts cinema. Granted, the plot is very simple, there's no real surprises. And it doesn't have the visual beauty of a film like "Hero" or "Seven Swords" but it is entertaining from start to finish with some really fantastic kung fu action (Donnie Yen coupled with martial arts director Yuen Wo-Ping - need I say more??). And it's not just Donnie Yen - the kid who plays the young Wong Fei-Hung, "Miss Orchid", and the "Iron Monkey" are all fantastic and really showcase the beauty of the art form known as kung fu.My only real complaint is that with Donnie Yen's skill, they didn't need to speed up some of the fight scenes the way they did.Also really interesting is the importance that food plays throughout the whole movie - rice, steamed buns, stewed mutton, peking duck... I wonder if this as some special significance in the Wong Fei-Hung stories?? Humour is sprinkled throughout which adds to the entertainment. There are some really great one-liners that are probably more elegant in Cantonese, but in English they are hokey and I love it... for example "You will die soon as you have been hit by my King Kong Fist!", and "You, failure! Come try that again!". You gotta love it!! My only warning is that if you aren't a martial arts film fan and are expecting Crouching Tiger, you will probably be disappointed. This is straight-up 1970's and 80's style kung fu cinema.

This was a surprise, being more entertaining than I expected. Like most Hong Kong action films, this mixes comedy in with all the martial arts violence. When I saw this in 2002, I could safely say no film - among the thousands I have seen - has action scenes quite like this! It was the wildest kung-fu/Crouching Tiger- type action I had ever seen....and plenty of it. In fact, too much. At least the film was short at 85 minutes but, man, it still needed some lulls in here.This is so cartoon-like, it could have been labeled such, especially with the dubbed in version in which the voices and dialog just don't seem to add up. It's so corny, so bad, that it's hilarious! And those action scenes? Well, you just have to see them to believe it.