For a kung fu movie that was released by the "Wu-Tang Collection," I was surprised to see how poorly made this movie was. I have not had the opportunity to see the first Iron Monkey, therefore I don't know what the standard the second movie was set to, so I have a little trouble saying that this movie was not up to par. However, there were many things about this movie that made it one of the lesser enjoyed kung fu movies I have seen.
Of all the things of this movie that made this movie weak, I would say that the film quality was the worst. Everything was grainy, sometimes the movie skipped and repeated a few seconds of footage and the lighting was beyond hope. Other weaknesses were the lack of real explanation for fights. Like in most other kung fu movies, at least a "Hey! You killed my brother!" was yelled, but not here. Not even that was uttered. One time, it was only the protagonist asking his friend "Hey, is this your knife?" and then they fought. No explanation. They just fought. Also, the fighting was pretty lame and slow. It was much slower than the other kung fu movies I have seen. There were also a lot of punches that were portrayed as hits, but were obvious misses. And how about that last fight scene! I have never seen so many people in one room all fighting each other. But what was so bad about that, is that there was very little character development for many of the minor characters, so it was very confusing to understand who was fighting who, and for what reason they were fighting.
Moderate plot, even worse cinematography, terrible lighting, bad fighting... this movie needed more time for choreography and script writing. People say that the first Iron Monkey was great, a legend of it's time, but I haven't seen it, so I can't comment. I can only say, I hope it was better than the second one.
-Scott-
**Final Judgement** More than one person may own a certain type of knife. Don't charge them with murder for it.
