Bullet Points: Fist of Golden Monkey
One of my favorite pastimes while watching classic Kung Fu films is playing a little “name that tune”. Many movies from the genre blatantly incorporate popular songs (usually from other motion pictures) with no concern for copyright laws.
When I started up 1980’s Fist of Golden Monkey, I did not recognize the music used in the opening credits, but I did recognize that it was likely not an original piece of music composed specifically for the movie. With some help from the Shazam app I learned that it was an instrumental version of “Skateboard” by Benny. This immediately took me to YouTube where I listened to every version of “Skateboard” available (multiple times) before resuming my viewing of Fist of Golden Monkey for this review…
- Curious George: After being humiliated by a female fighter, Ki Pae-Chun (Elton Chong, The Secret Rivals) follows the woman to a secret meeting of “8 Beasts”. The meeting is being run by the leader of the group played by Eagle Han. Someone has apparently killed their master and stolen their secret manual. Now the 8 Beasts intend to avenge their master’s death and recover the secret manual by any means necessary. That is about the time the 8 Beasts notice Ki Pae-Chun is spying on them through a hole in the wall (where Ki definitely saw it all, not unlike that place in France). Ki is accused of being a spy and he gets his ass kicked.
- Holy Cow: After the beatdown, the 8 Beasts tie Ki Pae-Chun to a cow and the cow proceeds to drag Ki around the countryside. That is when Master Mu-Hyung finds Ki. When Master Mu-Hyung asks Ki what happened, Ki tells him about being accused of being a spy. Master Mu-Hyung doesn’t believe Ki could be a spy, but he must believe that Ki could be a good fighter because Ki’s “tough love” training begins. With their student/teacher relationship forged, Master Mu-Hyung then tells Ki that he was the man who killed the 8 Beasts’ masters… apparently he was an old friend and when Mu-Hyung confronted him about the type of students he was teaching, a fight broke out and Mu-Hyung inadvertently killed his former friend. Then to get the secret manual out of the hands of the 8 Beasts and to prevent it from causing anymore damage, Mu-Hyung destroyed it!
- Face the Music: When the 8 Beasts find out it was Mu-Hyung that killed their master and stole their secret manual, they challenge him to meet them on a mountain top. If you think 1 vs. 8 are not good odds for Mu-Hyung, you’d be right! Master Mu-Hyung is brutally beaten by the 8 Beasts and left for dead. Ki Pae-Chun finds his master and learns of the “secret of the water” from Mu-Hyung before he leaves this mortal coil… I think Ki also learned that you shouldn’t take on all 8 Beasts at the same time. But Ki’s greatest lesson comes when he sees a crab and snake do battle, which inspires Ki to develop the crab style (which included a sound effect every time Ki would do the pincher fingers).
- Beasts of Burden: The rest of the movie is Ki Pae-Chun fighting the 8 Beasts one by one and surprising them with his new crab style. The most memorable fight resembled a pro wrestling match more than your standard Kung Fu fighting when Ki tangles with the red-nosed and rotund Beast, who had a ring of sorts attached to his dwelling. The ring allowed for some running the ropes action which made it one of the more unique scenes from the genre, the use of the “Peter Gunn Theme” from The Blues Brothers soundtrack also helped set this scene apart from the rest of the movie. Ki Pae-Chun eventually gets to his final fight with Eagle Han’s unnamed character, and the final fight was a welcome sight because after the “Peter Gunn” scene I found myself checking how much movie was left every few minutes.
Fist of Golden Monkey will forever be known as the movie that introduced me to the song “Skateboard”. Fist of Golden Monkey is also the movie that I will forever question why it was named Fist of Golden Monkey. There were absolutely zero monkey references in the movie and instead should have had crab somewhere in the title or call it The 8 Beasts. Elton Chong was entertaining as the underdog who had to overcome the odds, but that is where another problem comes in… the movie did not give Chong enough moments. There were some, but they were few and far between and that is why it started feeling like a chore to watch the movie around the halfway point.
Will these Bonus Bullet Points be a chore to read? I sure hope not…
- AKA: Fist of Golden Monkey is also know as Fists of the Golden Monkey and Dragoneer 9 – The Incredible.
- Directed By: Fist of Golden Monkey was directed by the infamous Godfrey Ho of Golden Dragon, Silver Snake and Duel of the Tough fame.
- Bastard Check: The version of Fist of Golden Monkey that I watched on the Wu Tang YouTube channel seemed to mute out most of the bastards, but one did slip in later in the movie.
