Friday October 12, 2001

Grade:

B+

Regardless of how one feels about kung fu films, it's hard to leave the theater as the closing credits of "Iron Monkey" roll and not put out a hand to catch the swinging door as it hurtles toward an unsuspecting old woman, provide a swishing sound effect and gaze at her with a serene look of determined meditation.

Yes, it is contagious.

Imagine a comic book coming alive. That's pretty much it - except all those action lines and spiky little "ZAM!" bubbles are replaced by real super-fast action and swishes and thuds galore.

Viewers will still need to do some reading, though. "Iron Monkey's" heroes speak Chinese, and English speakers have to tear their eyes away from the action to read the subtitles. But that's not really necessary; they aren't saying anything important. Apparently the filmmakers didn't think so either and decided to save money by dubbing the Chinese dialogue onto the film somewhere in the vicinity of the characters' mouths.

But, there's sort of a story, too. Rongguang Yu, the Chinese equivalent of Christopher Reeve, plays Dr. Yang (Clark Kent), a.k.a. Iron Monkey (Superman). He and his kind-but-powerful sidekick, Miss Orchid (Jean Yang), battle the forces of greed and corruption in their feudal Chinese village by night and heal the sick by day. The Iron Monkey's benevolent work resembles the deeds of Robin Hood - he even steals gold from greedy town officials and drops it from the rooftops into the laps of various paupers, whose melodramatic, sad expressions turn instantly to glee.

One thing that should be noted about "Iron Monkey:" No matter how many times Miss Orchid is pitted against a gang of lecherous bandits, and despite her beauty and the flashback revelation that Dr. Yang took her into his care after rescuing her from her pimp, she is absolutely never depicted visually as a sex object. Her clothes stay on through the whole film, and her marriage to Dr. Yang at the end is the fruit of their true and almost boring domestic love for each other.

Not that "Iron Monkey" leaves out sex altogether. For example, the more dashing nighttime Dr. Yang taunts a witchy female adversary during a midnight clash by noting that the extensive scars on her face are most likely the reason for her being unmarried, while he "doubts she is a virgin." But we'll let that one slide on account of its appropriately archaic lameness.

Enough of this story talk! This movie is about fighting bad guys! It's easy for the good guys to win all the time, until the antagonist arrives near the end of the film. But they win anyway, because they're the best. They can fight six or seven people at a time without breaking a sweat. They can fly.

But "Iron Monkey's" coolness doesn't come from hero-inflicted pain. Its kung fu is a complex, choreographed dance and lends a stunning element of grace to an otherwise basic film. In one painless scene, Dr. Yang and Miss Orchid collect dozens of windblown papers in their house while gracefully ricocheting off the ceiling and walls. More comically, they even make those cool swishing sound effects at dinner, a practice that may one day be called "kung fu eating."