Mad Monkey Kung Fu

1979 • 109 minutes

About this movie

Besides his pioneering films based on authentic martial artistry and kung-fu comedies during the 1970's, acclaimed director Liu Chia-liang also embraced the master/pupil relationship to form the cornerstone of many of his other works where his characters exhibited physical and moral failure as a means to either "make them or break them". Besides directing Mad Monkey Kung Fu, it's also Liu's debut as a lead actor playing down and out, monkey kung-fu master Chen, crippled by the ruthless villain Tuen (Shaw's penultimate bad guy Lo Lieh). Street boy Hsiao Hou (which means "little monkey" and played by popular martial arts aerialist Hsiao Hao) convinces Chen to teach him monkey kung-fu to avenge Chen's shame. The wacky training sequences and outlandish finale fight leave you stupefied.

Ratings and reviews

I don't recall ever seeing it when it came out. I was watching some reviews of the better Shaw Brother movies and came across it. When I watched the clip on it, I immediately recognized the three main actors. Each have a well known heritage to Shaw Brother movies. This is one of the better movies that they made and acrobatic agility of the teacher and student, only gets better in later movies.

Funny, and pretty good

Cool movie one of the best shaw brotherd