Zui hou nu (1979) Online

One of Chen Chi Hwa's early works, this film is a rare hong kong film that ive only seen commercially under the title "Lady Iron Monkey." It tells the story of Ming Ling Shur, a girl who was raised by apes and thus has a natural ability with monkey kung fu. She also resembles a monkey for most of the film (not really explained why). She grows up and falls for a prince who is really an evil kung fu master, who exploits her abilities for his own gain. Now here's why the film works; Kam Fung does an excellent job as the Ape Girl, being very excentric at times with the actions of a monkey. Also, we see early performances by Lo Lieh as an assassin, and Chen Sing as the prince. The martial arts sequences in this film are well choreographed, and the films story is very unique compared to other films. One of my top 3 favorite Hong Kong films, and definately worth the watch.

I watched this Taiwanese cheapie under the title LADY IRON MONKEY although it's also known as THE APE GIRL. Whatever the title, it's an odd little kung fu film with the main actress playing a monkey who is taken in by society and trained to be human. Of course, she can never truly part with her animal form, leading to much anguish and comedy hijinks en route to the fight finish.

The film was perhaps inspired by the popularity of the Japanese TV series MONKEY being made during the same period. Certainly it has the same slapdash, anything-goes feel along with the same bad dubbing and extremely broad comedy. The early scenes see the monkey girl teaming up with a comedy dwarf and comedy fat guy; you know they're supposed to be funny because they have stupid dubbing.

The later scenes get more political and introduce a couple of stock villains in the form of assassin Lo Lieh and evil emperor Chen Sing, both of whom are underutilised given their respective pedigrees in the genre (both are former Shaw Brothers stars given to making bad guy appearances in low budget fare such as this, always shot in Hong Kong and Taiwan). As the lead, Chin Fung-Ling only had one other film appearance (in MEAN DRUNKEN MASTER); she's pretty and fights athletically, so it's a surprise that she didn't go further. The fights are okay but not as funny as the monkey fu seen elsewhere, for example Sammo's version in KNOCKABOUT, although that effect at the climax is hilarious. The film is directed by Chen Chi-Hwa, who had directed some of the earlier Jackie Chan movies such as SHAOLIN WOODEN MEN.

It opens with a dwarf and fat guy teased by monkeys. Their kung fu master takes on the female monkey as a student. After about one minute of training our monkey girl now speaks English (or Chinese) and has excellent martial arts skills. She goes off to explore the human world.

There is a school of comedy where monkeys are always funny. Personally I find monkeys not even interesting much less funny. If you are from the monkey school of comedy this movie is for you. I can respect that some people enjoy this sort of movie so I will hold back on my criticism.

I rate this movie as below average for a 1979 martial arts movie for other faults. First, the fighting is nothing special and less than I would expect for someone as good as Chan Sing. Second, in his first scenes Chan Sing is one heck of a nice guy. Then on becoming the emperor he goes from nice guy to evil after one page of script. One more detail - her tail. She never had a tail until having a tail was a problem.