The Iron Monkey (DVD)

Yuen Woo-ping is quite possibly the best fight choreographer in the history of martial arts cinema. His amazing talents can be seen in everything from Tsui Harks epic Once Upon a Time in China series, through to the Wachowski Brothers effects heavy throwback to eastern cinema The Matrix trilogy. In fact he has had a major impact on nearly every major martial arts film to come out in the last 30 years. It's hardly surprising then that whenever he takes the directors chair he manages to produce a film that leans almost exclusively toward the martial arts end of the spectrum. Iron Monkey is one such ...

If you are anything like me and your knowledge of martial arts movies extends to something along the lines of "well there's Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and umm didn't Bruce Lee do some once..." then you'll never have heard of Iron Monkey - nor will you have had any interest in checking it out. You will however be missing one of the most entertaining movies released in recent years which I'm sure you will agree is something of a shame. It was originally released in 1993, straight to video but has recently made a reappearance thanks to the success of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, a movie which director Yeun Wo Ping did the choreography for - ...

This film came to my attention only recently with the advert stating "From the creators of "The Matrix" and "Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon" comes "Iron Monkey!" . Hold on. How come I've never heard of this? Next thing I know is that my brothers bought it on the special digitally remastered DVD version . Well I wasn't just going to sit there and look at the box , I immediatley stuck it in the machine. "Iron Monkey" was originally released in 1977 so its no wonder I'd never heard of it. The films plot is fairly basic but brilliant none the less. Government Officer Che'ung is corrupt and wasting ...