Monkey Kung Fu (1979) (2024)

Popular reviews

• Review by Slig001 ★★★½ 1

  A comedic Western inspired Shaw Brothers kung fu movie with a pretty standard plot but enough action to power it through. As the title suggests, this one focuses on a monkey inspired style of kung fu. Our hero has acquired one half of a wooden amulet from a one eyed man in prison that will somehow allow him to learn it, but first he has to outrun the bad guys and find the other half. The plot just kind of hangs around in the background for the most part while the film gets on with the far more important task of delivering a flurry of extremely well choreographed and dynamically filmed fight scenes. What the lead actors lack in star…

• Review by Will Sloan

  I put this on thinking it was Mad Monkey Kung Fu, but it's not. It's actually a different 1979 Shaw Brothers martial arts movie, titled simply Monkey Kung Fu. A bit confusing to release both of these films in the same year, in my opinion.

  As for the movie, I loved it. It's extremely fun. How are these guys able to move their bodies like this? Oh, that's right - years and years of torturous training. It's hard to keep coming up with new things to say about these movies, they're all like this and they're all good.

  Credits watch: director John Law Ma also helmed the Shaw Brothers' entry in the Bruceploitation genre, Bruce Lee and I (which starred…

• Review by Gregor Kreyca ★★★½ 4

  Think it’s fair to say that 1979 the year of Monkey Kung-Fu in Hong Kong. Between Lau Kar-leung’s Mad Monkey Kung-Fu and Sammo Hung’s Knockabout this is most certainly the least well known one. The main reason for this in my opinion that that the story itself isn’t the most engaging and the two leads lack charisma and star power. But as screen-fighters and in Tony Ching-Siu-Tung’s case fight-choreographer they sure as hell know what they are doing. If you come for the fight, I can guarantee that you won’t leave disappointed. They are all very well put-together and expertly executed. Without a doubt, they are the main draw of the movie and so it’s a good thing, that there…

• Review by MontyMole ★★★★ 13

  HURRA, DIE KNOCHENBRECHER SIND DA!

  VHS-TIME!

  Filmwunsch für eine Deutschsprachige DVD/Blu-ray VÖ #25

  "Haste mal ne Togal, mir brummt der Schädel!"

  Derzeit komme ich kaum zum Filme gloddern, da ich mir eine längst schon überfällige Nintendo Switch geholt habe, und mich natürlich erstmal eingehend damit beschäftigen muss. Darüberhinaus muss ich mich dann auch noch durch FF12 hindurch "quälen" bei schon fast vierzig Stunden hineingesteckter Spielzeit, zieh ich die Chose jetzt dann auch durch ...

  Oke, aber hier hatte ich mal wieder so richtig Lust und Laune, den wohl ersten Shaw Brother Film mir reinzuballen, den ich jemals gesehen hab. Damals im ORF1 gelaufen, irgendwann in den 80ern. Das berühmt berüchtigte Shaw Brothers Logo taucht auf, die erste Szene mit dem…

• Review by Bob McQueen ★★★★

  Dang, I really loved this one. More of a light hearted Kung fu story but with an excuse to fight like every 90 seconds.

  Can you imagine a Shaw Bros Star Wars movie??? 🤯🤯🤯

• Review by David Sodergren ★★★

  It seems absurd to knock a kung-fu movie for having too much fighting, but for the first hour of Monkey Kung Fu, I think the longest we go between action scenes is two minutes. Now, the fights are good, and full of incredible choreography and athleticism, but too many follow the same repetitive 'keep-away' style, where one guy won't let another guy grab a mat/chair/steamed bun.

  They also tend to run a little long, with an early tavern brawl going on forever, despite almost totally lacking in stakes, a problem that afflicts too many of the encounters.

  Things pick up whenever the baddies are onscreen. Despite being the most ridiculous villains ever to grace the screen, with their crap wigs…

• Review by Carlo V ★★★★ 7

  Good stuff! John Law Ma's movies seem to be mostly the kind you would find shot for peanuts on a field in Taiwan, but instead they were shot for macadamia nuts (the most expensive of nuts) on the Shaw Bros lot. Lots of fun kung fu courtesy of two GOATed Tonys (the star Ching Siu-tung, and Leung Siu-hung) and for a movie called "Monkey Kung Fu" there is a weird lack of focus on defining what that exactly is. I kinda like that they assume you know what that is just by witnessing it. Even learning a specific type of kung fu (not named monkey kung fu) is more part of the final act reveal than it is the journey.…

• Review by Lazyboots ★★★½

  Kung fu is stored in the cheeks, just look at Hau Chiu-Sing!

  There's a scene in this movie where our hero fights a woman at a brothel who uses a super cool flexible style of kung fu. It's kind of like the yoga stuff Dupar Singh does in Kung Fu vs. Yoga, really creative. According to HKMDB her name is Kong Yuk-Lan and she never made any other movies! Bummer.

• Review by Benjamin Green ★★★½ 1

  First time watch: September 2024
  Source: Blu Ray
  2024 Challenge: Shawtember I

  Shawtember (The Beginning) - My first thirty watches from the studio and beginning of an annual event for me. Exploring Shawscope Volumes from Arrow and individual titles from 88 Films.

  Director/Cast/Premise
  Monkey Kung Fu is the 1979 Hong Kong martial arts film directed by John Law Ma. Starring Ching Siu-tung, Hou Chiao-sheng and Kwan Tung the plot sees a prisoner break out and attempt to find the other half of a wooden keepsake to reveal the secrets.

  Quick Thoughts
  Regardless of the formulaic similarities the studio knows how to always introduce something that gives it's newest installment individual personality.

  Monkey Kung Fu is one of more funnier titles…

• Review by More_Badass ★★★½

  Nearly non-stop creatively-choreographed fights, and also some nonexistent plot about a treasured pendant that villains are seeking. Not that the story really matters, considering how many times Monkey Kung Fu takes a left turn for the sake of a martial-arts non-sequitur.

  But still, the fighting! The prop-heavy, unique-gimmick fighting! Old man versus young hero battling over sleeping mat and a chair, an acrobatic duel confined to a bed, fighting while chained together, fighting while juggling a birdcage and restaurant paraphernalia, the list goes on. You won’t remember Monkey Kung Fu’s story but you’ll definitely remember its silly and always inventive stuntwork.

• Review by kasarin ★★★

  Solid kung fu comedy. Some pieces, like the fight with the blacksmith, are comedy gold. Sadly, the final third really drags. Still a good one to watch, but it isn’t what I’d introduce new folks to Shaw either.

• Review by Sean Gilman ★★★½

  Released in 1979, five months before Lau Kar-leung’s Mad Monkey Kung Fu (also produced by Shaw Brothers) and ten months before Law Chi’s Monkey Kung Fu (produced in Taiwan), Ching stars as a young man who goes to prison for killing a bad guy and is gifted a secret amulet by an old man he fought with in jail. Ching and another prisoner (played by a Mainland soccer star who had emigrated to Hong Kong some years earlier named Hau Chiu-Sing) escape but are soon tracked down by a gang of mysterious killers who want the amulet for some reason. As is usually the case with these things, the amulet leads to a secret book of kung fu knowledge, which Ching and his buddy use to train up and defeat the bad guys.

  Review at The Chinese Cinema.