Claysaba Excellent, Without a doubt!!

Chirphymium It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

ThedevilChoose When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

FirstWitch A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

ckormos1 The movie starts with animal cruelty mixed with two guys sparring. Kam Kong wants all the rebels killed. Chen Kuan-Tai's family is arrested while he is gambling and they are all killed. He is reduced to stealing the offerings at Shaolin. The monks offer him a place. It seems he has already learned most of their kung fu just by watching. He leaves the temple with the strategy "keep your friends close and your enemies closer". He becomes part of the corrupt officials that killed his family in order to get close enough to the general to kill the man at the top. Revenge is certainly the most common plot of martial arts movies and it might be the most common plot of all movies. I find it hard to understand why revenge is such a favorite plot in Chinese culture while at the same time the dominant Chinese philosophy is Buddhism and Buddhism has no place for revenge. "At what price revenge?" typically becomes a moral issue in the revenge plot. I would say never in the history of any martial arts revenge movie did revenge come at a higher price than in this movie. Fans of Chen Kuan-Tai must ask what was his best movie? "The Flying Guillotine" is certainly more well known but I consider this movie his best because he had more to do with it, he both acted and directed "The Iron Monkey" so I rate this as a ten of ten for Chen Kuan-Tai perfection.

poe426 Ma (Chen Kuan Tai) is too busy gambling and womanizing to be of much help when his family is rounded up by a local general. By the time he realizes what's going on and tries to intervene to save them, his relatives refuse to openly acknowledge that he's a member of the family. He's beaten senseless by a benevolent benefactor who claims that Ma is HIS insane son. Thus is he saved. To stop a younger son from revealing the truth to their jailers, Ma's father strangles the boy with a chain. The entire family is subsequently murdered. The next time we see Ma, he's a sneak thief known simply as "Monkey." He's allowed to join a Shaolin Temple he's been stealing food from and an elderly monk observes: "In your life, someone has planted much evil. You'll repay him in kind." Monkey, it's decided, will learn Monkey Fist from The Bitter Monk. Once he's learned what he needs to know, Iron Monkey bids farewell to the Shaolin Temple. "You're still full of hatred," the elderly monk tells him: "And, this time, I smell blood." In order to work his way up the ranks of the Ching army to get to the man he wants, Iron Monkey kills a lot of innocent people- including some "Shaolin rebels." Chen Kuan Tai doesn't monkey around in IRON MONKEY: he's a surprisingly capable director, and his Monkey Fist kung fu is far superior to the usual over-the-top antics we usually see from Monkey stylists. His fluid transitions from one stance to another are a joy to watch and he conveys a sense of power often lacking in Monkey style fight scenes.

ebiros2 I'm a big fan of Chen Kuan Tai. His elegant style stands apart from other martial arts stars from the same era, and you can tell that people find most of his movies favorable from the high ratings they get.This is one of my favorite movie of his (Others being The Flying Guillotines, and Executioner From Shaolin), and also one of my favorite kung-fu movie.He plays a rebel against the Manchus in this movie, but that's almost irrelevant. It's strait forward Chen Kuan Tai with him being at his best. I like this movie more than some of the other kung-fu movies that are considered "classics" such as "The Five Deadly Venoms". None of those characters has the appeal Chen has. In this movie, he's also the director.One great kung-fu movie that's a classic in its own right.

Goredog Fans of Sonny Chiba and Bruce Lee may not find this movie to be their pride and joy, but will probably find it enjoyable nevertheless. Iron Monkey is set in Manchuria, and is made by Eastern Heroes Video Company. This fact alone would turn me off from the movie, because of the extremely conservative fight scenes (no decapitation). There is no gore, unlike the Street Fighter, and there is not that certain charm that Bruce Lee gives to his films. But somehow this film was able to please me through many well done fight sequences and a strong ending.