Le singe fou du kung-fu

Another feather in the cap of director Liu Chia Liang, who delightedly co-stars playing an old Sam Seed-style master to youthful whippersnapper Hsiao Hou. Hou is amazing in this film as the impoverished youth who becomes a martial arts master; he might be a Jackie imitator but his physicality and finesse easily makes him the equal of even Bruce Lee. The two hour storyline takes us through an initial betrayal through to buffoonish hijinks, lots of training, and finally a highly satisfying denouement. Good casting with Kara Hui and Lo Lieh in support, and excellent choreography and fight staging. Great stuff!

Feng Hou, or Mad Monkey Kung Fu as its English title is known, is deceptively well crafted. On the surface, a classic master and student Kung Fu story well known to those familiar with Shaw brothers films and Kung Fu cinema in general, but underneath the incredible martial display, athleticism, and humour of the film lies an incredible meditation on succumbing to one's vices, pride, and the inevitable fall that follows.

Lau Kar Leung needs no introduction, as one of the finest martial artists and martial arts choreographers, he also directs this film in addition to playing one the leads, the crippled Kung Fu master Chen. Lo Lien also puts on an exceptional performance as the conniving and thoroughly evil, Tuan. Another staple actor of Shaw brothers films, Hsiao Ho, shines in a rare performance as a lead as the eponymous Monkey. His acrobatics and good natured performance as the outsider, Monkey is amazing and endearing.

Smitten with the pretty sister of martial arts expert Chen (Lau Kar-leung/Liu Chia-Liang), evil gang-boss Tuan (Lo Lieh) does whatever it takes to make the woman his concubine: with some help from his equally scheming wife, Tuan frames Chen for rape, a crime punishable by drowning, but spares him this fate when Miss Chen (Kara Hui) declares that she is willing do whatever is necessary to save her brother's life. True to his word, Tuan allows Chen to go free, but not before making sure that the poor sap's hands are brutally crippled to ensure that he cannot seek retribution.

This being a traditional Shaw Brother's revenge tale, however, such dastardly deeds do not go unpunished: working as a street performer, Chen meets petty thief Little Monkey (Hou Hsiao) to whom he teaches the secrets of his powerful Monkey Fist kung fu (allowing for some really entertaining training scenes); after a few run-ins with local villains who have been causing trouble in town, Little Monkey confronts their boss, who—surprise, surprise—turns out to be none other than that scheming scoundrel Tuan! Major ass-kickery ensues...

It's been over twenty years since I first heard about this film from a friend, but I've only just gotten around to seeing it; if I had known at the time it was a Shaw Brothers production and that it starred HK cinema legends Lau Kar-leung and Lo Lieh I probably would have checked it out pronto, but alas, access to IMDb was still years away and I had no way of finding out any details about the film. Still, better late than never, and I'm glad to say that the wait was worth it: Mad Monkey Kung Fu is an excellent slice of old school fight action, a brilliant mix of expertly timed physical comedy and very impressive martial arts mayhem that, even at a massive 116 minutes long, never delivers a boring moment.

Monkey style always makes me laugh, what with all that comical twitching, scratching and screeching mid-fight, and this film sees Hou Hsiao giving it his all, acting the complete fool with ease whilst performing incredible acrobatics and dishing out some serious drubbings; Lau Kar-leung is just as impressive as his sifu, performing lightning fast moves and breath-taking somersaults; and Kara Hui also displays some impressive moves during her brief fight scene. Meanwhile, Lo Lieh proves why he is one of the finest baddies in the history of Hong Kong cinema, being utterly loathsome and simply begging for a bashing (which, of course, he duly receives before the final credits roll).

Take my advice, don't leave it two decades before YOU check out Mad Monkey Kung Fu!

Liu Chia-Liang or Lau Kar-Leung learned martial arts from his father who was a student of Lam Sai-Wing who was the number one student of Wong Fei-Hung. He learned fight choreography on the set of the early Wong Fei Hung movies starring Kwan Tak-Hing. I consider him to be the greatest man in the history of martial arts movies and dub him the Grandmaster.

A perfect martial arts movie is composed of these elements – real martial arts, Chinese opera, puppetry and storytelling. More specifically, those are the elements essential to a perfect fight sequence.

First element is real martial arts. This is obvious because the fight has to appear to be real. The individual moves have to actually work. However, the fight cannot be too real. Real fights are all the same and pretty much boring to watch. First the fighters throw a few moves from distance to close, then they fight in a clench, then they go to the ground. The audience gets bored starting at the clench.

Chinese opera keeps the fight from becoming boring. It adds an element of acrobatics that serves to keep the fight at a distance and thereby avoids the clench. Even if fighting close the action can keep going and even on the ground the elements of Chinese opera keep the fight interesting to watch instead of looking at two guys rolling around on the ground until they get tired.

China is also famous for puppetry. This element added the wire work to the fights. The actors could do gravity defying acrobatics and even the props could be controlled to follow specific paths of action.

The last element is storytelling and there is nothing specifically Chinese about it. In a good fight the viewer should be able to tell why these people are fighting and the story should be advanced by the fight. John Kreng calls this the art of non-verbal dialogue. This element is the most difficult and is often missed altogether but the greats like Liu Chia-Liang made some of the best movie ever by adding this element.

I consider these the Grandmaster's greatest movies, in chronological order: "Challenge of the Masters", "Executioners from Shaolin", "Heroes of the East", "The 36th Chamber of Shaolin", "Dirty Ho", "My Young Auntie", and "Legendary Weapons of China". I consider "Legendary Weapons of China" the greatest martial arts movie ever made and have reviewed it and rated it a perfect 10.

I am often asked "What was the best fight scene ever?" This question is really impossible to answer. It is totally subjective and how does one even define the qualities that make the best fight scene ever? Recently I began a project of watching every martial arts movie ever made in chronological order. I came to one conclusion from that effort. I believe absolutely that on May 7, 1976 (the release date of "Challenge of the Masters") the best fight scene ever filmed as of that day was the fight scene in that movie with Lia Chiu-Liang against his brother Lau Kar-Wing. The runner–up would be his fight against Gordon Liu in the same movie. Since then there are thousands of possible best fight scenes.

Where does "Mad Monkey Kung Fu" take its place in all this greatness? Off the list. It opens with Uncle Chan's downfall due to his character flaw of drinking. The circumstances are contrived and unbelievable yet presented as good entertainment so despite the stretch of believability it all works. The action for the first 48 minutes is minimal and the sequences short. Hsiao Ho gets on the ropes in the training sequence and kicks it up a notch. Greatness begins at about 1:02 minutes with the comedy fight against the protection gang and continues to the brothel. Another contrived and cliché scene this time involving eavesdropping) ties up the plot.

The final fight is back at the brothel and runs about ten minutes. It is really good yet many fight scenes in many movies were really good.

I like this movie and recommend it for anyone. Critically, though, it does not make the list of the Grandmaster's best movies.

This is another great movie I had the good fortune to see for the first time on the big screen (thanks to Rick Baker et al). Back in the late 80's I was a relative newcomer to the genre and only really knew about the big three JC, SH & YB. I wasn't sure what to expect when I paid my hard earned money to see this in a "Triple bill of Classics" at the old Scala. I need not have worried, I was left breathless by this movie. If you're a fan of Hong Kong Action / Kung Fu movies and haven't seen this movie, do so NOW!

I recently watched this movie again, bit of a nostalgia weekend (May 2011), and was blown away all over again. Really is a top notch Kung Fu movie, they don't get much better! I'm pretty sure I will not be leaving it quite so long before it gets another viewing!