Iron Monkey (1993)

aka Iron Monkey: The Young Wong Fei Hung

Original title: 少年黃飛鴻之鐵馬騮

A provincial town in Northern China is hard-pressed by the shenanigans of corrupt officials – turns out nine concubines get costly on a governor’s salary – whose corruption does of course trickle down to potentially okay but weak men like the local captain of the guard Master Fox (Yuen Shun-Yi). As the film tells it, corruption is absolutely endemic in China at this point, too, so there’s no higher authority to apply to for recourse.

A masked kung fu master calling himself the Iron Monkey (Yu Rong-Guang) is doing his best with a bad business, and spends his nights stealing from the corrupt – and therefore rich – and giving to those in need in a thoughtful and effective manner that avoids what British highwayman/philosopher Dennis Moore would call the “lupine problem”. By day, Iron Monkey is actually local doctor Yang, who applies the same principles in his medical work, assisted by his kung fu disciple, nurse and friend, the former prostitute Miss Orchid (Jean Wang Ching-Ying). Things become rather more difficult for our hero when a former shaolin disciple and doctor arrives in town. Wong Kei-Ying (Donnie Yen) does of course come with his son – and martial arts disciple – Wong Fei-Hung (Angie Tsang Sze-Man, who is a little wonder here, in one of their only two movies), and finds himself pressed into service against Iron Monkey, with his son taken as a hostage.

Further complicating things is the arrival of a group of royal investigators. These charming people are even more vile and corrupt than our cartoon evil governor (James Wong Jim), for they are parts of the traitors responsible for the burning of the shaolin temple, and therefore corrupt, murdering rapists who also happen to be really great at kung fu.

Even though it may sound like it, Yuen Woo-Ping’s Iron Monkey is not a plot-heavy film. As it befits one of the comparatively small number of films (though some of those films were rather important for the development of the genre) directed by one of the greatest and most influential martial arts choreographers, every bit as important as his compatriots Sammo Hung and Jackie Chan for the post-Shaw Brothers style of kung fu movie, this is a film very much all about the martial arts fights. There’s some humour and character work outside of these scenes, because Yuen clearly understands you need some of that to give your fights emotional resonance beyond the “that’s awesome!”, and it’s more than enough to hang a film on.

Or at least it is when you belong to Iron Monkey’s assumed audience and understand much of the characters’ backgrounds and motivations through other stories about them, other movies, martial arts folklore and popular history. When the burning of the Shaolin temple only leaves you to shrug helplessly and when seeing a young Wong Fei-Hung relate with his Dad and kicking ass leaves you cold and a little confused, this might not be the film for you. Rather, Yuen made this one with everyone knowledgeable or better steeped in this part of Chinese popular and folk culture in mind. As someone who isn’t an expert but has at least seen his share of martial arts and wuxia films taking place around and featuring some of these characters and these settings, the film gains a lot of emotional resonance, rather like a Marvel movie of the here and now does when you’ve seen everything else belonging to the universe.

That the martial arts sequences are absolutely fantastic, so fantastic I would even have been rather happy with the film without its resonance with other parts of martial arts culture, needs barely to be mentioned, I believe. Yuen drives his highly capable – in fights and in tear-jerking – cast through every type of martial arts fight imaginable, with quite a bit of the physical humour you’ve come to expect from this line of martial arts cinema and the also very typical imaginative use of props and gimmicks. The fights start out light and increase in bloodiness and brutality once the evil monks arrive. There’s little repetition of moves and staging, instead what feels like a never-ending dance of utmost elegance and precision filmed with a mind on keeping as much as possible of it visible to the audience while still keeping the camera part of the scene. It’s a joy and a wonder.