I can't count how many times I've seen this and leaving huge impressions on me each time upon the several viewings, and having seen it this time around didn't change anything so much for me. The experience was yet another lovely one when I often rewatch movies that weren't seen for quite some years.

The story however is another variant one wouldn't be strange to as this is one of too many productions cashing on the huge success of Tsui Hark's ONCE UPON A TIME IN CHINA trilogy, that felt and looked cheap, rushed, less ambitious, less serious, and less energized. Years ago I wouldn't have said this to IRON MONKEY but now, I feel it just about fits into that category though as there seem to have something missing that only Hark's movies had. But I have to say that the movie fares much better than most (or even all) of the movies made in the subgenre because (thanks to Tsui Hark himself being onboard as producer) still had enough touches, style, seriousness, ambition to make the viewer care alot. Yuen Woo Ping's direction is decent but had this been entirely his production (part of this being a Tsui Hark/Film Workshop production), it would've been easy to single this out as the great movie it ended up being. Another thing that could've been better is the pacing (it's a bit uneven and fast) but I guess I'm too used to slowpaced movies so I'll let this nitpick slip away, the movie is still fine as it as.

If anything, what makes the movie memorable more than anything else is the action. Yuen Woo Ping and co, with IRON MONKEY, created arguably the most impressive MA scenes of the subgenre in my mind. Yes, which means it even goes as far as topping the ONCE UPON A TIME IN CHINA trilogy and any other new wave kung fu movie in the action choreography department. Perhaps something like Ronny Yu's FEARLESS or Wilson Yip's IP MAN could really equal Yuen Woo Ping's brilliant action work here but otherwise I can't think of any other MA movie, old or new, coming even close to that achievement.