'Iron Monkey' lacks all the class of 'Crouching Tiger'

After choreographing the action sequences for two of the biggest hit movies of the past few years -- "The Matrix" and "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" -- Hong Kong veteran Yuen Wo Ping has suddenly found himself, at age 56, a hot property in Hollywood.

MOVIE REVIEW

IRON MONKEY

DIRECTOR: Yuen Wo Ping

CAST: Yu Rong-guang, Donnie Yen,

Jean Wang

RUNNING TIME: 90 minutes

RATING: PG-13 for martial-arts violence

LANGUAGE: Cantonese with

English subtitles

WHERE: Alderwood 7, Aurora Grill, Cinema 17, East Valley, Everett 4-10, Galleria 11, Longston 14, Meridian 16, Mountlake 9, Parkway Plaza, Redmond Town Center, Varsity, Woodinville 12.

GRADE: C+

MOVIE TRAILER

And to take advantage of this popularity, Miramax and producer/fan Quentin Tarantino have reached deep into the master's closet and brought forth one of his earlier Hong Kong successes that was never released theatrically in this country, 1993's "Iron Monkey."

Not surprisingly, it's a movie filled with exhilarating high-wire flights and all manner of slap-happy, chopsocky fisticuffs. Indeed, it's virtually one long action sequence, and if this is your incentive, you've definitely come to the right place.

But the characters are simplistic, and the humor is broad, clumsy and often wincingly juvenile.

There's none of the emotional scope or spiritual satisfaction of "Crouching Tiger," and anyone expecting a similar experience is bound to be sorely disappointed.

The movie is yet another story about the real-life Chinese hero, Wong Fei-hong -- the subject of a long series of Hong Kong films of the past three decades -- only this time he's a young boy and (though it's not noticeable) he's actually played by a girl, Tsang Sze-man.

Meanwhile, the real hero is the title character (Yu Rong-guang), a legendary figure of 19th-century China. A meek apothecary by day, he's a martial-arts Robin Hood by night who fights the corrupt Manchu administrators and their numerous cringing toadies.


Yu Rong Guang is one of the combatants in "Iron Monkey."

Since Iron Monkey can take out whole armies without breaking a sweat, the evil governor (James Wong) has his hands full, but he gets unexpected help from a fighter-priest, Wong Kei-ying (Donnie Yen), who wanders into town one day with his son, the legend-to-be Wong Fei-hong.

The elder Wong, himself a noble character, has the mistaken impression that Iron Monkey is a bad guy, thus much of the movie deals with the two equally matched heroes unnecessarily going at each other as the boy struggles to straighten out the misconception.

There's no denying director Yuen's gift for graceful action ballet. Several of his scenes here are as imaginative as anything the genre has produced, and the film climaxes with a particularly clever sequence in which the fighters have to stay balanced atop a series of flaming poles.

But with the sensibility of a half-hour episode of "The Long Ranger," the movie is never engaging on anything but a superficial level, and it gradually gets decidedly tiresome. Once again, the lesson is: no matter how well done, action is rarely enough to sustain a whole movie.