Iron Monkey (1 Viewer)

[Steve Christou]

Iron Monkey alongside The Prodigal Son are sometimes considered the greatest martial arts flicks ever by aficionados [love that word, afissionnadoes] like me, these movies are not for everyone.
Allen, may I recommend the movie Evolution as an antidote to all those dizzying
high-wire hi-jinks.

 

[Allen Skurow]

Evolution! Loved it! I give it and :star: :star: :star: :star:! Ranks right up there with Lord of the Rings, Brotherhood of the Wolf, and Steel Gorilla for steller entertainment! Screw those so-called 'quality' guys! Anything genre is gold! Harry Potter - masterpiece! Spiderman - Hall of Fame! Stars Wars AOTC - now typing with one hand!

 

[Holadem]

physics-defying

I haven't seen Iron Monkey, but I have some trouble understanding why anyone would cite the above a flaw in a Hong Kong Martial Arts movie.

It's as absurd as bashing LOTR because hobbits and wizards do not exist.

--

Holadem

 

[Geoff_D]

For grounded kung-fu shenanigans (without Jackie Chan style comedy antics), Prodigal Son is fantastic. But for wire-fu, Iron Monkey is the king. Sure, it's about as realistic as a Looney Tunes cartoon, but it's a wire-fu classic.

 

[Stephen_L]

Complaining about the unbelievable action in a kung fu picture is like complaining that musicals and opera are unrealistic because characters stop periodically to sing and dance. All movies to some extent are fantasy. Some aspire to realism, others revel in the absurd or fantastical. Kung fu flicks (and especially wire-fu) might not be to everyone's taste; like musicals, the story basically stops periodically to allow the artist to perform (a singer in the musical or martial artist in a kung fu picture) It's okay not to like that kind of picture, but don't complain about the realism; it misses the point of the movie.

The best kung-fu picture I ever saw was the Matrix, because it gave a semi-plausable reason for the incredible martial arts skills of the heroes.

 

[Yee-Ming]

sorry, I can't agree with the suggestion that the fighting in CTHD is better than Iron Monkey.

just remember that neither Chow Yun-Fat nor Zhang Ziyi are trained martial artists; Michelle Yeoh was a trained ballerina but was able to pick up martial arts relatively quickly.

in contrast, the likes of Jet Li, Jackie Chan and Donnie Yuen are trained martial arts exponents who've been doing what they do since childhood (heck, even Samo Hung). it makes them capable of performing stunts (with or without wire-assist) that other actors can never hope to replicate, even with intensive training covering months, even a year.

I will be the first to congratulate Chow and Zhang on putting up a relatively good show in CTHD, and for that matter Keanu Reeves, Carrie-Anne Moss and Hugo Weaving in the Matrix as well, but lets not get carried away, they'll never match Jet Li.

 

[Jeff Kohn]

Chow Yun Fat is clearly no martial arts expert, but Zhang did pretty well. And of course it's not like this is the first movie Michelle Yeoh has done martial arts in.

To me the thing that was so good about the fight scenes in CTHD was the cinematography and editing. There were lots of shots from a distance lasting several seconds where you actually got to see them fight, particularly in Michelle and Zhang's two fights. Contrast this to so many movies where fight scenes consist of a series of split-second closeup shots showing the random foot or fist without really giving you a big picture. Maybe that's a style some people like, but it seems to me like this is also a way to piece together footage from multiple takes. Not all Hong Kong movies are bad in this regard (I thought Iron Monkey was pretty good), but most of them don't have as good of choreography and editing as CTHD did IMHO.

 

[Alex Prosak]

I agree that Chow Yun Fat is no expert, or even a beginner for that matter although this could have changed. There was nothing special about his fight scenes. While Zhang Ziyi has not had martial arts training, she, like Michelle Yeoh, has had formal dance training which I think served her very well. Very few people will ever compare to Jet Li or Jackie Chan but the second fight scene between Michelle and Zhang in CTHD is special, partly for the cinemetography and editing as Jeff noted but also for the emotion they express in the fight.