Mestre Kam - A Lenda 2

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.

Inspector Cool Head (not my translation), an honest cop who suspects a frame on someone accused of murder. It's the kind of movie you keep telling yourself, I'm just going to watch it for another 5 minutes.....next thing you know the movie is over. At times the DVD picture was clean, but more often than not it seemed I was watching a tape in extended play. I would recommend a rental instead of a purchase.

Just how does the THIS channel find such cinematic crap? I'm wondering if the films in Universal Studios that got destroyed in the fire were any better, & if not, it could be a blessing. But back to "Iron Monkey II." Normally I see substandard kung fu or marital arts films on Spanish-language stations like Telefutura or Telemundo. Somehow I discovered "Iron Monkey 2" on THIS, & unfortunately had to hear the ridiculous English dubbing. The action scenes were decent in comparison to better or worse martial arts movies. Certainly the foley artist has quick ears & quick hands on the buttons. & not a single actor could be recognized, not even the white actors. But this lackluster film was meant to be stumbled upon while channel-surfing, not to be rented or downloaded and seen on a big screen or computer.

There was the first Iron Monkey that featured Chen Kuan Tai in the lead role. Chen was very good as the Iron Mokey. In this, Donny Yuen plays the role of Iron Monkey. The two movies are not connected in any ways.

This movie is made by a little known Hong Kong company called the Gold Rush. It's a period piece taking place just before the second world war. The production is very derivative with little bit of Jackie Chan's Project A, and other movies of this genre. The movie is shot very low quality, and other details are equally of lower quality. It's like the '70s movie made in the '90s, and looks dated. I've never seen the actors that starred in this movie before or since except Donny Yuen.

Story is mostly about nothing - not much happens except for lot of dialogs between the actors. Japanese are portrayed as the bad guys, and so are the Russians.

So unfortunately, this one doesn't measure up to the original Iron Monkey in any ways, nor does it measure up to other Hong Kong movies of the same era.

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.