Monkey Man

Title: Monkey Man
Director: Dev Patel
Released: 2024
Starring: Dev Patel, Sharlto Copley, Pitobash, Sikandar Kher, Makarand Deshpande, Ashwini Kalsekar, Vipin Sharma

Plot: Kid (Patel) and underground fighter seeks revenge on the spiritual guru responsible for the massacre of his village.

Review: Despite being sold as an Indian John Wick alongside Dev Patel being the latest actor to try and make a name as an action star what he delivers here with his directorial debut is instead a much more interesting film as here he also takes on leading man duties as Kid a monkey masked underground fighter who has secretly been plotting his revenge against Baba a ruthless spiritual guru and influential political figure who was responsible for the massacre of his village. 

While it might seem an unusual choice of film for Patel to make his directorial debut with he had originally hoped that this would be a project for Neill Blomkamp who he’d previously worked with on Chappie but when Blomkamp declined he encouraged Patel to direct it himself. Further complications occurred when his plans to shoot in India were hampered by the pandemic forcing him to move production to Indonesia while the film equally faced being shelved when Netflix considered the film too gritty for Indian audiences thankfully being saved by Jordan Peele and his Monkeypaw Productions who used his deal with Universal to buy the film off Netflix.

Much like RRR setting this film in India makes for a refreshing change of pace than another revenge thriller set in the American underworld and certainly its a setting that he uses to its fullest as he mixes up childhood flashbacks of lush jungle with the present day slums contrasting with the cocaine neon lifestyle of the upclass criminals he’s initially trying to infiltrate as a waiter in the hotel they operate out of currying political favours with both politicians and military figures alike with their sex trafficking ring. However when his initial plan ends up going bloodily astray as revenge often does he starts his training to become the ultimate fighter complete with training montages as it doesn’t drift too far from the Hong Kong model. 

Bringing together a colourful cast this vision is only added to further with Sharlto Copley playing the owner of the underground fight club that Kid fights for as he continues to be both the human chameleon aswell as questioning why he’s not cast more often especially when he steals every scene he’s in from the moment he opens the film declaring how the one true religion is in fact the “Almighty Rupee”. Elsewhere we get Pitobash as the unlikely sidekick Alphonso whose souped up Rickshaw sets up a surprising and highly entertaining chase scene. Sikandar Kher though really shines as the corrupt police chief Rana whose imposing size really makes for some great showdowns with Kid including an initial bathroom brawl to rival Mission Impossible: Fallout

Even though its his debut film Patel certainly shows a lot of confidence with his direction with the action scenes being highly stylised while not on top of the fighters with only a few sequences descending into quick cuts and at one point POV shots during an escape sequence. At the same time despite having a background in Taekwondo he’s not showing himself as the unstoppable warrior instead playing Kid as the everyman hero who gets beaten up and screws up, often relying on his wits before ultimately finding the training he needs to become the avenging force and inturn creating some great set pieces as he battles his way up the hotel from the kitchen to face off against Baba in the penthouse which conceptually felt reminisant of the pagoda finale of Game of Death

While there are some flaws this is still a confident debut which only makes me all the more excited to see were he goes next.

Polite Society

Title: Polite Society 
Director: Nida Manzoor
Released: 2023
Starring: Rita Arya, Priya Kansara, Nimra Bucha, Eunice Huthart, Ella Buccoleri, Akshay Khanna, Shobu Kapoor, Seraphina Beh

Plot: Teenager Ria (Kansara) has aspirations of becoming a stuntwoman but when her sister an art school drop out, decides to get married she sets out to save her sister from her potential future husband. 

Review: Having broke out with the series We Are Lady Parts following an all Muslim female punk band which memorably featured songs like Nobody’s Gonna Honour Kill My Sister But Me director Nida Manzoor set out to prove that Muslim women should be restricted to the traditional stereotypes which inturn saw her receiving both critical acclaim and backlash in equal doses leading her to cancelling her social media accounts. Thankfully this did not lead to her giving up on her storytelling vision as making her feature debut here with a tale of two British Pakistani sisters living in London with the feisty driven Ria wanting to be a stuntwoman like her hero Eunice Huthart (a fun throwback for us Brits who remember watching Gladiators in the 90’s) who she continually emails over the course of the film hoping for career guidance while making martial arts demos. Meanwhile her older sister the art school dropout and pot smoking Lena (Arya) helps reinforce her belief in this dream especially when her family and teachers feel she should just become a doctor.

Priya Kansara certainly marks herself out here as a name to watch in the role of Ria who while her skills might frequently match up to her ambition as seen with the repeatedly fails attempts to pull off a backwards spin kick and generally losing every fight she gets into each of them opening with a fun Street Fighter esq Vs. card. She is joined in her quest to find out the truth about her sister’s fiancé the handsome geneticist Salim (Khanna) by her best friends Clara (Beh) and Alba (Bruccoleri) who make for an amusing double act often providing commentary on whatever the latest situation Ria has gotten herself into. 

Shot with high energy and rapid fire quips it comes as little surprise to learn that Manzoor cites Edgar Wright as one of her inspirations as the film certainly feels like it exists in the same surreal world as Hot Fuzz especially once it enters into it’s second half and the plot starts feeling more like an Alex Ryder plot than what it initially appeared to be setting up with cloning plots and kung fu beauticians all being thrown into the mix which builds to a deliriously silly wedding showdown. It is however this second half were the film really feels like it looses the momentum of the first half as the cultural commentary of Bend It Like Beckham starts turning into a kung fu James Bond Jr. with a similar style to how Hot Fuzz blended village life with an action movie here Manzoor attempts to blend the colour and fashion of a Muslim wedding with the wire work and fight choreography inspired by Yeun Woo Ping though ultimately lacking the finesse of the choreography master and instead providing some entertaining fights shot largely in slow motion and often verging into slack fu territory than perhaps was initially envisioned though in the second half this also seems to be a world where anyone can suddenly be a kung fu master on a whim. 

Which the second half might lack the polish and flow of the first half of the film, this is still an enjoyable experience from start to finish and one which thankfully manages to avoid the kitchen sink drama which plagues so many British comedies (See the wife beating scene of East is East) and certainly I’m interested to see were Manzoor chooses to focus next especially having already toyed with both punk rock and kung fu to great effect what other genres can she make us rethink the limitations of?

Crippled Avengers A.k.a. Return of the Five Deadly Venoms

Title: Crippled Avengers
Director: Chang Cheh
Released: 1978
Starring: Chen Kuan Tai, Chaing Sheng, Phillip Kwok, Lo Meng, Lu Feng, Sun Chien, Wang Lung Wei

Plot: After they are all crippled in a variety of ways a group of martial arts seek revenge on the man who crippled them Tu Tin-To

Review: Part of a unique trend of kung-fu movies featuring martial arts masters suffering some kind of crippling injury and then having to develop their fight style to work with their handicap. Examples of these movies include the likes of The Crippled Masters, Two Crippled Masters, Master With Cracked Fingers and Crippled Kung Fu Boxer not to mention Cheh’s own One Armed Swordsman films. 

Also released under the misleading title of Return of the Five Deadly Venoms despite not being anything to do with that film but it did feature the Venom mob with the exception of Wei Pai who had left Shaw Bros. for Golden Harvest were he would appear a year after this films release in Chang Cheh’s protege John Woo’s Last Hurrah For Chivalry. Of course the presence of the venom mob alone is enough to make this film worth checking out especially when its once more a fantastic showcase for their talents especially when finding ways to adapt their styles to benefit their handicaps. 

Opening with Tu Tin-To the master of Tiger Style Kung Fu returning home to find that his wife has been murdered and his son has lost both his arms he formulates a plan of revenge which sees him giving his son a pair of metal arms and not only killing the men responsible but thier sons aswell. Not content with having got his revenge he is soon injuring anyone who displeases him leading to the creation of the main group who all fall foul to his wrath with the blacksmith Wei being deafened and turned into a mute, a travelling salesman Chen Shuen (Phillip Kwok) is blinded, another villager Ah-Kue (Chien) loses both his legs and finally their friend Wang Yi (Sheng) has his head put in vice causing him to become mentally handicaped. 

The four men in returning Yi to his master are offered a chance at revenge by training with Yi’s master spending the next three years finding ways to adapt with Ah-Kue receiving a pair of metal legs, Wei learns sign language and to use a mirror to see attacks behind him while also forming an awesome double team with Chen Shuen who develops a heightened sense of hearing so much that he can hear the leaves falling from the trees. Yi meanwhile still retains all his martial arts training despite being reduced to a childstate and generally gets to be the mischievous wild card of the team. Tin-To’s son Do Chang (Lu Meng) with his metal arm equally makes him a great foe as they have the ability to extend and shoot darts. 

Not only does Cheh here give us some really fantastic action scenes but really makes full use of having such talent performers whose skills are showcased not only in the fight scenes but the equally entertaining training sequences such as seeing Phillip Kwok and Chaing Sheng demonstrating their acrobatic skills with metal rings which is such fun to watch especially knowing that they are the ones doing it and there being no camera cheats or cgi it’s pure poetry in motion to watch. 

While the revenge plotline is regular fare for kung fu cinema the real charm of the film comes from Cheh’s direction especially as he includes moments like cutting the sound when Wei is deafened so she can experience what he’s going through. Add to this the brotherhood like bond shared with the group and how only by working together that they are able to finally vanquish their foes especially with Tin-Toe demonstrating a rare villainous cunning so that by the time they show up he’s already developed methods to remove their advantages such as the gong like shields to prevent Chen Shuen’s hyper hearing or a wall of mirrors to blind Wei as they flash him with blasts of light. 

Featuring a dash of kung-fu weird for colour this is an entertaining romp throughout and certainly a step up from the mystery plot line of Five Deadly Venoms as the Venom mob truly shine throughout making this a perfect introduction to their films while featuring enough action and fast pacing to equally make this a great introduction to the Shaw Bros catalogue. 

Fearless Fighters

Title: Fearless Fighters
Director: Mou Man-Hung
Released: 1971
Starring: Chan Hung-Lit, Yik Yuen, Cheung Ching-ching, Chiang Ming, Mo Man-Hung, Ma Kei, Mo Man-ha, Wong Fei-lung, Kwan Hung

Plot: When the Eagle Claw Fighting Clan lead by To Pa plot to steal a shipment of government gold they spark a plot for revenge by a group of fighters called the Fearless Warriors

Review: With Bruce Lee bringing martial arts to the attention of the mainstream, there was of course no end of distributors looking to cash in on this trend, picking up movies from Hong Kong (or Taiwan in the case of this film) to be dubbed and pushed out to the drive-in and Grindhouse theatres. Released for the US market only two years after it’s release somehow this film has managed to survive in pretty decent condition, especially for a more obscure title much less get a re-release with an insightful commentary track from Richard Ellman who handled the films north American distribution and editor Dick Brummer who rewrote the film into a more format more accessible for English language audiences. It’s really a history lesson on a by gone age of cinema were smaller independent companies could get in on the craze much less a crash course in DIY Distribution.

If your a fan of kung fu cinema from this period a lot of its random moments of Kung Fu Weird like the fantastic weapons and random plot elements will be as familiar as the teleport-fu were characters trampoline into the air often landing in a completely different location as memorably seen in Sister Street Fighter which featured a fight made up of these location jumps. Of course for the purest this will be an unwanted distraction while for the rest of us it only adds to the fun.

Plot wise the film doesn’t try anything new with a revenge plot revolving around stolen gold with the villianous To Pa rounding up his own Cobra Command team of outlandish mercenaries to ensure he can maintain his grasp on the gold. The colourful villians including the dual sword welding One Man Army, Soul Picker with his flying sword and Dragon Raiser with his tiger claws. This of course is the kind of randomness I love to see in Kung fu movies and certainly the film delivers the fantastical elements in spades as arrows are plucked from the air and launched by at their owner and this is without mentioning the bionic upgrades one of our heroes gets knocked off a cliff and somehow rescued by his master who up until this point has never once appeared in the film!

At a brief 82 mins runtime there is little time wasted here as the film might be low on character development leading to a couple of plot holes here and there but with the focus instead on the action and showcasing fantastical weaponry no time is wasted. Sure this is far from the best the genre has to offer but as throw away fun this certainly delivers in spades making it hard not to have a good time with this especially if your familiar with the genre quirks such as jerky editing to make certain effects work and questionable dubbing.