646f9e108c A Hong Kong variation on Robin Hood. The corrupt officials of a Chinese village are continually robbed by a masked bandit know as "Iron Monkey" named after a benevolent deity. When all else fails, the Govenor forces a traveling physician (Donnie Yen) into finding the bandit. The arrival of an evil Shaolin monk, brings the Physician and Iron Monkey together to battle the corrupt government. A martial artist/doctor steals from the corrupt authorities as a masked thief to give to the poor while another martial artist/doctor is forced to hunt him down. But a major threat unites them as a powerful and traitorous shaolin monk takes over the authorities. While IRON MONKEY boasts some outstanding production values, it's this budgetary largesse that seems most to blame for the film's shortcomings. Well laid out (in the fashion of ROBIN HOOD or ZORRO or THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL, et al), with some beautiful cinematography and special effects, IRON MONKEY nonetheless falters when it comes to its very reason for being- the martial arts sequences themselves. Reality never rears its ugly head (it rarely even comes close): the mechanically-enhanced martial arts mayhem blatantly defies the laws of physics to an astonishing degree. This undermines the solid all-around performances by the actors. The final battle, for instance, reminded me of the lyrics from a song: "They swing through the air with the greatest of ease- those daring young men on the flying trapeze." Instead of a realistic, nail-biting hand-to-hand battle, we end up with cgi-enhanced acrobatics. Again. (I saw this one first on DVD, then again during its theatrical run- but it wasn't until I saw it again just recently that the over-the-top action called to mind The Big Top itself.) Had the martial arts sequences been better done, I would've had no compunctions about rating IRON MONKEY a ten. For all you people who've only seen the matrix, CTHD, and think fight club features the best fighting ever, you ain't seen nothing yet. Iron Monkey features Hong Kong movie making at one of its best. For those of you who couldn't find a plot, I don't know what kind of movie you saw or how well you pay attention to a movie but I found the plot to be about a good doctor who helps the poor, and the oppressive govt official that's after him. And it gets complicated by Donnie Yen's character. And sorry, for those of you who don't know, there's no literal Monkey made out of Iron in this movie just like there are no crouching tigers or hidden dragons in that movie. But Iron Monkey is a martial arts classic. Despite my ignorance of Hong Kong, I'm convinced that Iron Monkey could be the best, most entertaining martial arts film I may ever see. Besides the occasional just mentioned differences only highlighted when there's a remarkable difference, the US Version contains more than 100 cuts.
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