One of the best period kung-fu actioners Hong Kong has to offer, Iron Monkey is produced by Tsui Hark and helmed by renowned filmmaker and action director Yuen Woo Ping (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon). Action greats Donnie Yen (SPL) and Yu Rong Guang (My Father is a Hero) team up and face off in blistering martial arts set pieces. Set in the late 19th-century Canton folklore era of patriotic heroes, evil oppressors, and chest-thumping righteous action, Iron Monkey revolves around the heroic struggles of a patriotic vigilante, folk hero Wong Kei Ying, and his even more famous son Wong Fei Hung, here still an adolescent and played by actress Angie Tsang.
Directed by Yuen Wo Ping and developed from his earlier Tai Chi 2 movie, also starring Jason Wu Jing; this is a 28-part tv series produced in 1997.
Loosely based on the life of Yang Yu Qian (Wu Jing), the founder of the Yang school of Tai Chi. Son of a skilled martial arts expert he was unable to meet the high expectations of his father due to his weak physical form that inhibits his ability to attain a higher level of skill in the external arts. Yang Yu Qian thus left for Beijing to search for masters able to help him.
While there he met a Bagua (Eight Diagram) master, Dong Han-Cheng. Bagua is an internal school of martial arts. Dong Han-Cheng also advised him to study an internal form of martial arts but was not willng to accept Yang Yu Qian as his disciple due to unfinished business.
Yang Yu Qian also met a highly skilled Tai Chi exponent and resolved to seek out a Tai Chi master by the name of Chen Zheng-Ying, elder of a remote village. After much hardship he managed to find the village but the village chief refused to teach him as the rules are that Tai Chi must not be taught to outsiders nor to women. He resorted to secretly watching their training and it was during his stay at the village that he found out that the Tai Chi exponent he’d saw in Beijing is actually the daughter of the village chief. She was in a man’s disguise because of those family rules.
She developed a liking for Yang Yu Qian and helped him to master Tai Chi by teaching him and helping him to secretly watch her father as he teaches her. Eventually, he was found out by the master but was accepted as his disciple after much persuasion by his daughter.
Due to a past incidence between Chen Zheng Ying and a Prince of the Qing court, he village was attacked by Qing soldiers and Chen Zheng Ying surrendered to them in order to save the villagers’ lives. Yang Yu Qian traveled to Beijing in an attempt to save his master. There, he was forced to fight several top exponents of other martial arts schools and finally the Qing Prince.whom he defeated and thus secured the release of his master.
Through the patronage of another Qing Prince, Yang Yu Qian was able to open a Tai Chi dojo and he met his father again.
Cast: Wu Jing, Amy Fan Yi-Min, Yu Hai, Wang Qun, Billy Chow, Liu Xun, Xu Xiang-Dong, Wen Xi-Tai, Kara Hui Ying-Hong, Jin De-Mao, Yang Jie-Mei, Qiu Jian-Guo, Kou Zhan-Wen, Tan Qiao, Chen Kai
Young kid doing the Chen style of Taichi in a Beijing park
Yang style Taichi
Ratings: 4 out of 5 This is the definitive Wu Jing show to add to your Wu Jing collection. It is also a superb martial arts series featuring real martial arts exponents. Another good reason is the very beautiful HK actress Amy Fan who is relatively unknown outside of HK.Not to be missed is the inclusion of that rarely seen internal art form of Bagua and the main fight event between Tai Chi and Bagua.Wu Jing is at his best here with his very rubbery face in the comic moments here and although Yuen Wo Ping is known to be too heavy handed and lacking in subtle use of comic moments, he did not go over the top here. Wu Jing spend months training in a real Chen village to prepare for his role in Tai Chi Master 2 and Master of Tai Chi as Tai Chi was not his original martial arts form. His body movements is graceful yet powerful when executing the Chen style of Tai Chi.Get this if you are a Tai Chi practitioner as it uses the original Chen form as its basis. I’d shown this series to some friends who practice Tai Chi and they all loved it and said the show has inspired and motivated them in their personal practices.The fighting is first class and I have put a host of links below.This is my personal favourite show.
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