Iron Fisted Monk

Required viewing for fans of The Fat Dragon, Iron Fisted Monk is Sammo's directorial debut and a film well worth the time for any fan of martial arts cinema. The fights are well-choreographed and both Chen Sing and Sammo kick ass in this film. This film isn't just historically significant for being Sammo's first foray into directing but is also a solid film for kung fu fans

Sammo stars as a man who is learning kung fu so that he can fight the Manchus. The directing from Sammo is good, the camera-work is brilliant, the story is decent, and the fights are very good for 1977. Fung Hak-on plays the main villain, and Yen Shi Kwan and Chien Yuet San play his top 2 henchmen. Always nice to see those 3 in action. Chen Sing has a small role and unfortunately he doesn't get to show off his handwork as much as he usually does. But he's still a great actor so I liked his role. If you have seen most of Sammo's movies and are looking for something else to feed your Sammo craving, then give this a try.

Picture and sound quality on the 20th century Fox DVD are good.

Breaking barriers and setting new standards in on-screen fight choreography, Sammo's directorial debut is a must for any chop socky aficionado, and although not his best work (a warm up to Warriors Two), it can easily stand proudly amongst them. It's hodgepodge of a story acts as a boiling pot of escalating annihilation, until exploding in a fury of that unique fast and colourful Sammo choreography that we just love so much. Centring on the real-life legend of 'Miller Six' (Sammo), Iron Fisted Monk is driven by a powerful anti-Manchu narrative that feels relentless in its onslaught (they rape, kill, maim and pillage, not to mention bully little kiddies). Miller Six's uncle is killed, he learns the martial arts at the local Shaolin temple, and then off he goes for vengeance. And it's really as simple as that. This is a great movie - well choreographed (by Sammo), well directed (by Sammo) and with some great performances (especially that scoundrel Fung Hark-on who's simply irresistible as a downright evil Manchu warlord).

This movie happens to be the first directorial effort by Sammo Hung. It certainly doesn't do to badly. It starts off decently, and the learning curve is very sharp. Each fight in the movie is more surely Choreographed and is faster than the ones that preceded it. There is a prevelance of armed combat and acrobatics (non-wire) which are all well done. Sammo is as young as you'll see him in any movie except ENTER THE DRAGON. There is however an annoyingly large amount of nudity in this movie. The plot has Sammo training as a civilian in a shaolin temple in order to avenge the death of a neighbor at the hands of some manchu thugs. He has improved to the point of teaching classes to other non-monks at the temple. He decides to head out after the manchus, after his skills have reached a certain level. he is assisted by the brother of another victim of the manchu's, and his instructor, who is the title character. Sammo and the monk are both extremely fast and athletic, doing some impressive back flips and leaps. give it a try if you run across it.

In some ways, it was a memorable film. It wasn't noticeably good or shockingly bad, but it had a few unusual scenes that will certainly surprise and unsettle the viewer. It is not your regular kung fu flick even though it had it all: bad guys, good guys, fights between the two and humour between the fights. For one, it also had descriptive rape scenes. I can't remember a Chinese kung fu film with sex being shown in such a crude way, clothes being ripped off, breasts popping out, lewd smirks on the rapist face and ultimately, the victim's death.

That gave the film a startling and awkward contrast with the lighter scenes. A little after the sister of one of the lead characters died following a tragic chain of events, we see that same man, who seemed to be on a quest for revenge, playing around with the idea of going to a brothel with a monk. As this shows, the characters had little consistency -- and little cohesion too, even though Sammo Hung's character was supposed to be the hero, the perspective was shifting so much eventually that it felt difficult to isolate one character as the subject.

Bad guys received more and more screen time, secondary characters came forth while the lead wandered off. The only appropriate way to clear up this profusion of central characters was to have them all kill each other. And so is what the script did. Confrontations suddenly pick up speed, people die en masse, "patience", which virtually was the only reason holding back everyone to settle the scores is no more, thrusting the remaining characters into the grand finale, a somewhat intimate fight between the toughest and the nastiest characters, whose unrestrained sadism had been cultivated during the infamous rapes.

As if in response to these extreme scenes, the makers chose to end with another extreme, gory violence. Like it or not, it does feel fair, but fair as in a talion. Without these short sadistic bouts that seemed borrowed from American exploitation films of the time, it would have been a pretty unremarkable kung fu story. The fights, well-choreographed and using the classic animal postures dear to a long kung fu tradition, are however terribly choppy, to the point that you could easily time the moves "one-two, one-two" as they are performed. Iron-Fisted Monk is not a good kung fu film to start with, it is an oddity that will be met with greater interest by longtime B-movie amateurs.