Jie tou sha shou

I was zapping through, looking for something to watch in a post-lunch Sunday afternoon when I stopped at this TV show which usually airs martial arts films. I stood in rapt amazement when I saw that this week film would be "Iron Monkey II". I had rented the first film (from 1993, remastered by Tarantino in 2002, I think) and had really enjoyed it. So I thought: "Ok, Donnie Yen kicking asses throughout the film"... how wrong I was! The plot is somewhat hard to explain: a brother and a sister cheat a just-arrived-in-town guy to help them rob some weapons. Then they get in trouble with the "mafia-like-bad-guy" of the film. Meanwhile, the cheated guy is looking for his dad and bumps into Iron Monkey.

The first film depicted the Iron Monkey as a sort of ninja, concealing his identity. Donnie Yen played a support role there. Here, he's the Monkey, but he wears no mask (except in one scene but you can't even get if it's him or someone else), and wanders around trying to save the day with his face revealed. Furthermore, the action, if any, is focused on the two brothers and the other guy, and the Monkey does not appear much. The rest is the usual fighting scenes Asian films have accustomed us to. It managed to keep me watching, but merely to see something spectacular happen (and I'm still waiting) A BIG problem here is that the movie does not fit much with the first one: the 1993 film was set in the 19th century. This one goes in the 20th, and the Monkey is probably the only link to the other. I'm inclined to believe this was a script (how rare it sounds here) for something else, and they turned it into this sequel. If so, they should not have stained the previous movie with such a mediocre result.

Conclussion: if you like Donnie Yen, try and watch "Heroes among Heroes", his cameos in "Shanghai Knights", "Highlander:Endgame", "Blade II", or the original Monkey (All but Blade are recommended) rather than this. If you like martial arts, watch it without expectation and you might end up not THAT disappointed, like me.

I give it a 3.

Well compared to the brilliant Iron Monkey 1... This sucks! Compared to most other martial arts movies... it still sucks! The movie is totally weird. They said on the cover Donnie Yen starred in it and Yuen Woo Ping directed it, but apparently Yuen Woo Ping had nothing to do with the entire project and Donnie is only there for a minute or 20. So basically we're dealing with some unknowns whose fights scenes are silly, are acting badly, portraying a story that is totally ridiculous and filled with plot holes so big you can run Eddie Murphy's repertoire of yo-mama jokes through it.

The only thing from keeping this movie from a 1 are the fight scenes where Donnie and Billy are in. Donnie fights a bunch of baddies hand to hand and with a rope dart, beating them all up in a fairly nice manner. The fight is cool, although sped up to an incredible extent. Donnie's fast, but not that fast. It's strange how he (or they) speed up all his fights that much. Then Billy and Donnie duke it out, the piéce de la résistance of the finale. Cool, but still so super fast and therefor less cool then it could have been.

It is possible to enjoy this movie. The first and most important thing to do is to forget that it has anything to do with the movie Iron Monkey. In fact, looking at it I'm not entirely convinced that it was intended to. There is no reason to believe that Donnie Yen's character is supposed to be Wong Kei-Ying. Donnie Yen's character (supposedly the Iron Monkey) isn't even the central character in the movie. I suspect that this may be a case much like American releases entitled Rumble in Hong Kong or Return of the Dragon, trying to cash in on the fame of better, unrelated movies. That's speculation on my part, though.

Still, there is some very good classic-style action in this movie, and if you can't see past the attempt to cash in on another, admittedly better movie, you're missing out. There are some very good action sequences in this movie, comparable to those in the masterpiece Once Upon a Time in China. Yes, the production value is kind of low, but if that upsets you that much you can't be much of a fan of Hong Kong cinema.

There is a lot of talent in this movie and it is definitely worth watching. Sadly, the American DVD release is only available in pan and scan with an English dub. It's always terrible to have the sides of the frame hacked off an action movie, but at least the dub isn't that bad (as they go). If you're a fan of more "old-school" Hong Kong action I'd recommend this movie, especially if you can get a widescreen and subtitled version.

Iron Monkey would not have been so bad if it had been subtitled instead of dubbed over, but it would still have been awful.

The fight scenes are crappy and everything else is unintentionally funny. The direction is...well... bad. Many things about this movie are BAD. The cinematography, if you can call it that, is choppy, crappy, uneven and fake. Most parts when they are trying to make it look like something is falling into place, it looks like they shot it falling (or CGI'd it) then shot a seperate cut with it in place. Really REALLY crappy movie.

This is one of the worst martial arts movies I have ever seen. It's not even funny, just painfully bad. I'll give it 2/10 just because some of the fight scenes were mediocre, not terrible.

Iron Monkey was great. Zoro, Robin Hood, meets the Matrix and Crouching Tiger. This one is stupid monkey meets Plan Nine from Outer Space.

A huge let down after Iron Monkey. This film is just plain bad. Don't even waste the cost of a rental and your time to see the first few minutes, when you will be certain you've made a mistake.

We tried to give this film a chance, on the strength of Iron Monkey, but in the end it is just awful. The direction is terrible, the fight scenes are dull--trying to be exciting--the acting is either flat or over the top, the film editing makes it impossible to follow the story, and the film quality is miserable.

Enough said? In other words, rent something else tonight.