Quentin Tarantino Wants You to See IRON MONKEY!!! See Our Exclusive Clip Revealing The Awesome Shadow Less Kick!!!
Published at: Oct. 6, 2001, 12:19 a.m. CST by staff
Hey folks, Harry here... The first time I heard about IRON MONKEY was the first time I met Guillermo Del Toro. It was at a downtown hotel here in Austin. I'd corresponded with Guillermo for about half a year, but he was checking out Austin with the idea of moving here to live.
We were having one of those non-stop get to know you, geek conversations till dawn types of things... literally... it was dawn before we shut up and parted ways. We talked about Jack Kirby, Bernie Wrightson, Frank Frazetta, Wayne Barlowe, Wally Wood, Jim Steranko, Mike Mignola and all their creations. We talked William Gaines, Forry Ackerman, Ray Bradbury, Ray Harryhausen, Dick Smith, Rick Baker, Stan Winston, Rob Bottin, Tom Savini, Jack Pierce, Lon Chaney, and on and on and on and on. Eventually as we made our ways through the world of comics, fandom, horror and film we made our way to Kung Fu. At the time I was a DRUNKEN MASTER 2 believer... That's when Guillermo said.... "HAVE YOU EVER SEEN IRON MONKEY??" and I looked at him really funny and responded, "Did you say Iron Monkey?" He then made a sound like a wounded buffalo mating then assured me that he'd have to show me IRON MONKEY, that it was the greatest kung fu film he had ever seen.
It was another 6 months or so till he was all moved in here in Austin, and while most of his Library was still in boxes, he invited me over... because I had to see something called IRON MONKEY. Mhmmm... Riiiiiiight. Iron Monkey.
We sat on his couch upstairs surrounded be decaying corpses and other props... amongst the library of Lovecraft and tomes of forgotten lore... eating iced custard and being a pair of fat geeks in their element... when suddenly he popped that disc in. DEAR GOD.
Guillermo left so many bruises on my tummy from hitting me and repeatedly screaming out... "DID YOU FUCKING SEE THAT GORDO???" then rewinding and showing me the scene again... I was just stunned. First off, I had welts all upon my oh so precious belly... TWO... the movie left welts on my brain.
I was stunned because I absolutely adored the charisma of a guy, who I was repeatedly told was Donnie Yen. Guillermo was absolutely bonkers and a half over Donnie Yen. Donnie has an amazing grace to him, a contemplative face... When he's hungry, it made me hungry (of course I'm always hungry... starving usually... listening to the calling of the evil fridge, but it must stay away) and on top of all of that... Donnie Yen kicks ass real fricking good! And that little kid of his is awesome in the flick.
The film is basically the story of Zorro... or Robin Hood... but if in addition to their story, if suddenly you had a medicine practicing version of the LIGHTNING SWORDS OF DEATH minus the blades... was kicking ass with his highly trained son. Since that evening, I have seen IRON MONKEY at home no less than 30 times, and I've introduced about 25 people to the film a few at a time at my house. When I've had a bad day, I watch this flick. And the title no longer makes me think... that's silly... Now I think, PUT IT ON!
When I first heard Miramax was going to be bringing IRON MONKEY to the big screen in the U.S., I was terrified. I was expecting their usual hackjob... where they dub the thing, change everything and mess it all up. That was until Quentin Tarantino came to town with his QT5 fest and he said he was going to be presenting the film, and I asked him if Miramax was going to fuck up IRON MONKEY the way they did DRUNKEN MASTER 2.
Quentin went into a long thing about how he didn't feel they fucked up DRUNKEN MASTER 2... The way he sees it, there has always been two releases of every kung fu film... The Hong Kong... and the American. From the dawn of the Kung Fu genre, America has been getting the short end of the stick Kung Fu wise... And while throughout the seventies we were getting butchered versions of Shaw Bros and Golden Harvest films... at least we were getting them on the big screen. By the time the eighties got here, all we Americans were getting was the clunky American Kung Fu films... of which Chuck Norris was the best, but when you think that at the same time we were getting films like OCTAGON and SILENT RAGE, Hong Kong was getting SNAKE IN EAGLE'S SHADOW, DRAGON FIST, PROJECT A and DRUNKEN MASTER... which only saw the Chinatown screens of America. Quentin is ecstatic that prints... any prints of classic Hong Kong Kung Fu films are being brought back into theaters and released on DVD and Video... Because this means the Kung Fu genre is getting a new lease on life in this country... Creating fans in suburbia and in mainstream America.
Now Quentin sort of accented his love of Hong Kong films this year at QT 5... showing quite a few. He is a rabid Kung Fu movie junkie, as any good film geek should be. We talked the day before he was to go meet Yuen Woo-Ping for the first time. He said he had butterflies in his stomach and was nervous as hell. You see, the way some of you may be about his films, Quentin is about Yuen.
This is the first of the Hong Kong films that Miramax is releasing with Quentin's participation, and there is a reason. IRON MONKEY kicks serious ass. IRON MONKEY is no holds barred kung fu joy. About two paragraphs ago Guillermo Del Toro called me from Mexico City, where he just premiered DEVIL'S BACKBONE, and I told him I was writing about IRON MONKEY... and again he started screaming at me how fucking brilliant Donnie Yen is in this film. (Btw... Guillermo ultimately hired him for BLADE II and to do the choreography!)
Remember, though this film may be 8 years old... So is a film like DRUNKEN MASTER 2 or HARD BOILED... does that mean they are any less spectacular on the big screen? Films this good will always kick ass on the big screen... Like I've said.... I've seen this film somewhere around 30 times... but never on the big screen. I haven't been in a movie theater in nearly 4 weeks due to this friggin back injury... God willing I'm gonna go see this thing big. It is going to kick ass!
