Iron Monkey

I have some friends who have steered me the right direction when it come to martial arts films that I've either never seen or never heard of. I'm a big fan of the Once Upon a Time in China series, and it was recommended to me that I should see Iron Monkey because its a prequel of that series. Now most prequels that are made don't do the original movie justice and sometimes hurts the main storyline, but here it's just the opposite, it enhances the main story of Wong Fei-hung and helps the emergence of the hero that we later see. The Iron Monkey, a local vigilante, has been terrorizing the corrupt government officials, stealing gold from them and returning it to the peasants in the town. The fight scenes are very well choreographed and in some cases breathtaking in the stunts that are archived. The acting itself is just like so many other martial arts films but lets be honest we watch these films for the action not the acting. The young actor that they have playing Wong Fei-hung is very convincing as a young boy who is trying to please his father and discover his own nature abilities.
This movie was originally released in 1993 and was considered a very campy film, and then Quentin Tarantino had the movie retranslated and re-scored to make the story easier to follow. With these changes he has released a must see film for anyone who enjoys martial arts films, and also a very enjoyable early chapter in the Jet Li Once Upon a Time in China series.