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Iron Monkey

Iron Monkey

List Price: $19.95
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Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: The Original Iron Monkey-- A Masterpiece
Review: Iron Monkey is one of the masterpieces of the kungfu genre. Many connaisseurs of this genre think that the finest kungfu films were produced by the Shaw Brothers, but this film proves them to be wrong. Directed by the hero of the film, Chen Kuan Tai, the film is truly a classic. The scene in the opening credits sets the mood for the film; cross cutting between a monkey style practicioner and an eagle claw practitioner fighting, and a real monkey and eagle fighting ferociously.

The story is simple; the hero's family is killed by the Manchus because they are accociated with rebels, but the hero escapes. He seeks refuge in the Shaolin Temple, and learns the Monkey Boxing technique. He then joins the Manchu government in order to get revenge for his family.

The costumes and sets in the film are excellent, better than any other kungfu film I have seen. The cinematography is also very good, adding to the excellence of the film. The film is full of excellent kungfu; no comedy, magic, or corny tricks, only straight martial arts. I have not seen Chen Kuan Tai in any other films before this, but he is certainly one of the best actors and martial artists in the genre, equalling the famed Shaw Bros. stars such as Gordon Liu and Lo Lieh. The film is not only has good martial arts, but is is good as a movie. The VHS version is widescreen and dubbed in English, and the picture quality is good.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: The Original Iron Monkey-- A Masterpiece
Review: Iron Monkey is one of the masterpieces of the kungfu genre. Many connesiurs of this genre think that the finest kungfu films were produced by the Shaw Brothers, but this film proves them to be wrong. Directed by the hero of the film, Chen Kuan Tai, the film is truly a classic. The scene in the opening credits sets the mood for the film; cross cutting between a monkey style practicioner and an eagle claw practitioner fighting, and a real monkey and eagle fighting ferociously.

The story is simple; the hero's family is killed by the Manchus because they are accociated with rebels, but the hero escapes. He seeks refuge in the Shaolin Temple, and learns the Monkey Boxing technique. He then joins the Manchu government in order to get revenge for his family.

The costumes and sets in the film are excellent, better than any other kungfu film I have seen. The cinematography is also very good, adding to the excellence of the film. The film is full of excellent kungfu; no comedy, magic, or corny tricks, only straight martial arts. I have not seen Chen Kuan Tai in any other films before this, but he is certainly one of the best actors and martial artists in the genre, equalling the famed Shaw Bros. stars such as Gordon Liu and Lo Lieh. The film is not only has good martial arts, but is is good as a movie. The VHS version is widescreen and dubbed in English, and the picture quality is good.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: one of the best
Review: Right up there with The Swordsman II and The Legend of Fong Sai Yuk as one of my favorite Hong Kong Martial arts flicks. As with those others, its a strange combination of low comedy and high tragedy. And of course, the fighting sequences are deep.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: buy this you will not be sorry!
Review: stop wasteing time and buy this movie,one of the best I've ever seen.excellent dvd translation.hurry!

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Buy the real Iron monkey
Review: The plot was a bit old. Parents die, child left alone, child learns kungfu, child avenges death, not a lot of action scenes, should move more fluid like during the actions scenes, the fights looked so predictable.I dont recommend this movie to anyone, save your money/

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Very disappointing
Review: The sound effects were downright annoying. The fight choreography looked like just that: choreography. It was very unbelievable. The picture quality was very, VERY bad. I was surprised they didn't try to fix the sound and picture for the DVD version. Overall, a disappointing movie. I was glad to send it back.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: the '78 old-school version
Review: This is enjoyable unless you bought this expecting the '93 Iron Monkey by Yuen Woo Ping. This Chen Kuan Tai film is good because the fights are really good at the end, and even though the revenge story is cliched, you still root for him getting his revenge on those bad guys all by himself. Worth seeing, but maybe not the old-school classic that many make it out to be.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Superb film!!
Review: This is one of the best martial arts film in my all time list. Although you see the same story in most martial arts movies(pupil's family gets killed by the ching, pupil goes to Shaolin and learn some deadly techniques to avenge the death of his family). Chen Kwan Tai was superb, as the ferocious shaolin student who learned the deathly monkey techniques to seek revenge. Great costumes and fight scenes.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Buy the real Iron monkey
Review: While there is no doubt that all the actors in the movie had extensive martial arts trainning, their talents were wasted in the badly choreographed fight scenes. The fighting movements were slow, a trait of old kung-fu movies where directors were still under the impression that audience should be able to see each move of the fight. So don't expect this to be like the jet li movies where the fights were fast and hard. I give a two star only because the plot had the potential of a great movie.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Good plot, poor fight scenes
Review: While there is no doubt that all the actors in the movie had extensive martial arts trainning, their talents were wasted in the badly choreographed fight scenes. The fighting movements were slow, a trait of old kung-fu movies where directors were still under the impression that audience should be able to see each move of the fight. So don't expect this to be like the jet li movies where the fights were fast and hard. I give a two star only because the plot had the potential of a great movie.


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