Iron Monkey 2

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.

Donnie Yen returns in this "sequel" to the 1993 classic that was considered by many to be one of the best kung fu movies ever. This one however, is a far cry from that status. The storyline takes place probably 40-50 years after the first one did. Donnie Yen replaces Yu Rong Gwong as the Iron Monkey and does battle w/ some corrupt warlords and arms dealers.

There are a lot of characters in this movie, many of which don't seem to have a real place within the structure of the story. Billy Chow is made out to be a major character but doesn't appear until the end of the movie. The Iron Monkey character is not defined and really doesn't have a huge part in the movie. A lot of the story concentrates on a pair of con artists and a man looking for his father.

Now let's discuss the fight scenes. The fight scenes are really fast and high-energy. Donnie Yen uses a lot of wing chun and his usual tae kwon do/wushu kicking. He's impressive, as is his co-star. Billy Chow's kickboxing is impressive as well. The wires aren't overdone (a complaint made against the original Iron Monkey film). The main problem is constant speeding up of the camera.

In conclusion, this movie fails as a sequel to Iron Monkey, but as just a kung fu movie, it's pretty good. 7/10

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.

If you want an example of what happens in Hong Kong when an Original movie succeeds watch this one. Iron Monkey 1 did fabulously well. Which leads me to believe that the Hong Kong tradition of spurting out another sequel (or in this case a seeming knockoff) is painfully obvious here.

This piece of garbage looks like it was shot in 1964. I honestly jumped on the net and looked up when this film was shot. There is no way in hell that this can even be compared to Iron Monkey 1. I think a better name for it would be Masked Monkey.

Fight scenes almost made it worth it. Almost.

Rent it if you must. Don't Buy it. Not even for $1.99 . In fact don't rent it. :)

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.