King Kong Palm!

Iron Monkey Starring: Nobody whose name you can pronounce or remember Director: Woo-ping Yuen Rating: !! Where you Can Find It: Madison Public Library, Bongo, 4-Star Video Heaven I don’t have enough experience with Kung-Fu to tell you what kind of martial arts is used in this film, what significance the characters have in Chinese folklore, or even how to pronounce their names. All I know is this: Iron Monkey made me laugh. Not a “There’s Something about Mary” kind of laugh--those laughs that are sometimes uncomfortable (both because you laughed so hard, and because the scenes were so vile that you had a hard time stomaching it). The kind of laughs that Iron Monkey provokes start as a seedling idea, and spread from the brain to pull at the corners of the mouth. At some point, the laughs are no longer recognized as individual, but rather a collection of pure enjoyment as you wait for the next trap, the next slap, the next vase in the face. Let’s begin with the director (since he is the one part of the movie that most of us have experience with). By now, Woo-Ping Yuen is legendary, and you might even have one of his movies in your collection. He began his career as an actor in the 1960’s, and moved on to director and fight choreography. He has become most famous for the latter. In the last 10 years, Yuen made a name for himself in America by choreographing the fight sequences in The Matrix trilogy, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, and most recently Kill Bill (Vol. 1&2). If you liked any of those fights, with high flying effects and lots of quick reflexes, you’ll be sure to enjoy this one. What about the plot? It’s really quite straight forward. A doctor (Rongguang Yu) doubles as a Robin Hood known as Iron Monkey, taking money from corrupt Chinese leaders and re-distributing it to the peasants. He catches the attentions of high ranking Governor Cheng, who wishes to catch and kill the good doctor. When young Wong Fei-Hung is captured by the governor, his father (Donnie Yen) must track down Iron Monkey in order to have the boy released. It is up to Iron Monkey, his assistant Miss Orchid, and the boy’s father to save the child from certain doom. In the process they must teach the governor a very valuable lesson about abusing power. And then there is the fighting. Because the filmmaker is a martial arts choreographer, the fights are phenomenal. There are some pretty impressive scenes involving staffs, swords, umbrellas, benches, and very sharp tacks. One of the more exciting scenes occurs when a pile of papers is blown from a table and Iron Monkey and Miss Orchid must retrieve the papers from midair. The dance that follows is a truly beautiful piece of camera-work. Though there has been discussion that the story was changed for the American release of the film (presented by Quentin Tarantino), it really doesn’t make much of a difference. People in the know will talk about the historical significance of the characters, the edits made by Miramax in the American release, and the improper translation from Cantonese to English. But really, who cares? Since most people in these parts probably couldn’t tell the difference between Mandarin, Cantonese, Shiatsu, Hibachi, Mitsubishi, or Moo Shoo Pork, I’m not going to pretend like it matters that some dialogue has been cut or mistranslated. If you’ve never seen the original edit, then you won’t even notice these differences. The movie rings in at around 90 minutes, and assumedly most of the edits were made to hit that valuable cut-off time. Make no mistake; the fights are where this film shines. But Iron Monkey is as much about family values, government corruption, and the indomitable human spirit (*sigh…a tear) as it is about a swift kicks to the midsection and beautiful camera work. I would go so far as to say it is a family film, aimed at anyone who wants to recapture the enjoyment that can be found in the great fantasy films of America (Star Wars, LOTR, Dunston Checks In). At the very least, you can sit back and laugh at the crazy dialogue and surprised looks on the character’s faces as they get hit with random objects.