It's hard to review these 70s kung fu flicks. It's not like anyone watches them for deeply moving portrayals of the human condition, dialog that slices through social pretense or cinematography that makes you look at the world in a whole new way. These movies are a form of adolescently macho ballet where guys pretend to beat the holy heck out of each other in often ludicrously elaborate ways. You can evaluate them, but you've got to use a standard that doesn't apply to another other form of cinema.
To start with, I'm not going to concern myself with how poorly constructed is the plot of The Iron-Fisted Monk. Husker (Sammon Hung Kam-Bo) is a goofy student at a Shao-Lin temple who runs away one day because he's anxious to get revenge on the Manchu clan who killed his uncle. So of course, he really does nothing to seek revenge until he's dragged into it kicking and screaming by Tak (Sing Chen), a villager who has both of his sisters raped and his mother killed by the Manchu. But before either of them go looking for justice, they naturally try and drag Husker's Shao-Lin master (James Tien) to a whore house. In fact, the whole "revenge" thing is almost forgotten until the Manchu slaughter an entire factory full of guys after an attempted business scam involving all the red dye in town goes awry. But, once everyone else is dead, Husker and his master do finally get around to kicking Manchu ass and taking Manchu names.
There's also no point is trying to analyze any of the performances here. As with many other 70s kung fu flicks, the acting in The Iron-Fisted Monk is of a very broad and almost vaudevillian nature. Between that and the ridiculously bad dubbing of the dialog into English, it's impossible to tell if you're watching bad acting or good acting from a different cultural context.
Occasionally, the direction of one of these things can be a bit more interesting than usual. That's not the case here. If you've seen another 70s kung fu flick, you pretty know what this one looks like.
The only thing that ultimately matters with this film and all its brethren is what are the fight scenes like? And the answer is they're pretty good. The Iron-Fisted Monk is pre-wire fu, so nobody flies through air and does a triple lutz before landing on the petal of a daffodil and toe-kicking some guy across the room. But the ritualized back and forth of strike and counterstrike is pulled off nicely, with the "fights" following a certain logic and staged in such a way and you can see what each combatant is doing and trying to do. Distinguishing a lot of a action here is the fact that Sammo Hung Kam-Bo is just plain old fat. He's got a double chin and a physique like a pickle barrel, but he moves with surprising grace and power. Watching him do kung fu is like watching a guy with no fingers play the violin. That he can do it at all is impressive. That's he's really good at it is makes it impossible to take your eyes off him.
The Iron-Fisted Monk also has some naked female flesh and a weirdly graphic rape scene. I say weirdly graphic because the tone of the rest of the movie is more slapstick than serious drama, yet the rape of Tak's first sister is pretty explicit and goes on for a while. The effect is almost like someone took a Three Stooges short and spliced in a few minutes from the middle of I Spit On Your Grave. But again, it's hard to know if it's crude and exploitative storytelling or it's some Chinese thing that Caucasians don't understand.
If you want a see a 70s kung fu flick, this one is as good as any other. Beyond that, I'm not sure what to say.
To start with, I'm not going to concern myself with how poorly constructed is the plot of The Iron-Fisted Monk. Husker (Sammon Hung Kam-Bo) is a goofy student at a Shao-Lin temple who runs away one day because he's anxious to get revenge on the Manchu clan who killed his uncle. So of course, he really does nothing to seek revenge until he's dragged into it kicking and screaming by Tak (Sing Chen), a villager who has both of his sisters raped and his mother killed by the Manchu. But before either of them go looking for justice, they naturally try and drag Husker's Shao-Lin master (James Tien) to a whore house. In fact, the whole "revenge" thing is almost forgotten until the Manchu slaughter an entire factory full of guys after an attempted business scam involving all the red dye in town goes awry. But, once everyone else is dead, Husker and his master do finally get around to kicking Manchu ass and taking Manchu names.
There's also no point is trying to analyze any of the performances here. As with many other 70s kung fu flicks, the acting in The Iron-Fisted Monk is of a very broad and almost vaudevillian nature. Between that and the ridiculously bad dubbing of the dialog into English, it's impossible to tell if you're watching bad acting or good acting from a different cultural context.
Occasionally, the direction of one of these things can be a bit more interesting than usual. That's not the case here. If you've seen another 70s kung fu flick, you pretty know what this one looks like.
The only thing that ultimately matters with this film and all its brethren is what are the fight scenes like? And the answer is they're pretty good. The Iron-Fisted Monk is pre-wire fu, so nobody flies through air and does a triple lutz before landing on the petal of a daffodil and toe-kicking some guy across the room. But the ritualized back and forth of strike and counterstrike is pulled off nicely, with the "fights" following a certain logic and staged in such a way and you can see what each combatant is doing and trying to do. Distinguishing a lot of a action here is the fact that Sammo Hung Kam-Bo is just plain old fat. He's got a double chin and a physique like a pickle barrel, but he moves with surprising grace and power. Watching him do kung fu is like watching a guy with no fingers play the violin. That he can do it at all is impressive. That's he's really good at it is makes it impossible to take your eyes off him.
The Iron-Fisted Monk also has some naked female flesh and a weirdly graphic rape scene. I say weirdly graphic because the tone of the rest of the movie is more slapstick than serious drama, yet the rape of Tak's first sister is pretty explicit and goes on for a while. The effect is almost like someone took a Three Stooges short and spliced in a few minutes from the middle of I Spit On Your Grave. But again, it's hard to know if it's crude and exploitative storytelling or it's some Chinese thing that Caucasians don't understand.
If you want a see a 70s kung fu flick, this one is as good as any other. Beyond that, I'm not sure what to say.