clash of the iron monkeys

[Gregory Alan Bolcer]

I finally saw Iron Monkey.[1]  It's Quentin Tarantino's
contribution to the Wuxia Pien category of films.  Wuxia
films typically involve complicated rules about moves, effects,
countermoves, equalizers, cancellers, and other things.  While
to some, these rules seem every bit as complex as Pokemon,
to the few genXr's who grew up watching "Master of the Flying
Guillotine"[2] every weekend on KCOP 13, we had them all memorized.
It's an amazing story about a one-armed boxer avenging his
master from an evil priest in the dirtiest street fighting,
and most inventive weapons ever.  Some say the star, Wang Yu
had more influence in the martial arts film genre than Bruce Lee. 

Flying poeple isn't something you make fun of in the
NYT, it's something that every good film needs.  You can tell
a good director from a great one by how their people fly
in their movie.  Batman?  Superman? Spiderman?  Suck.  
Crouching Tiger?  Iron Monkey?  Flying Guillotine?  Awesome. 
You can't bend the laws of fantasy to fit hollywood.  You've
got to have rules.  

The bottom line is that it's the best film I've ever seen
and I'm going to buy the DVD. 

As a complete aside, there's a little known fact that there are
actually several different types of flying guillotines.  

Orignal Version: This was a Chinese skirt hat with internal
and external blades which used accurately applied pressure
to the right places to behead the unsuspecting victim from
long ranges.  It also included retractable spring blades and
a long, untangling chain for retracting and pulling the coup
de grace. 

OddJob: The Oddjob showed up in 007's Goldfinger and was named
after the character who wore it.  It was a sharpened steel rimmed
English derby hat made famous by the famous man in grey flannel.
Oddjob could remove his hat and decapitate a victim from much
further distances as it wasn't leashed on a chain.  The downsides
where that it could get wedged in metal or other objects and be
difficult to recover and the steel was very amenable to fatal
levels of electricity as OddJob found out. 

Sleepy Hollow:  Tim Burton's view of Sleepy Hollow involved
decapitation by withcraft involving a flaming pumpkin.  

NY Industrial: I don't know the heritage of this flying guillotine
as I don't remember the movie, but it's a flying circular saw
blade thrown or launched with a metal glove.

Cursed Flying Guillotine: This isn't really an artifact as an evil
curse where any object can be used at the right time and place. 
This was best characterized by The Omen where a truck full of
glass plates rolled down the hill backwards hitting the curb and
launching it's cargo of glass sheets directly at the victim, first
beheading him and then covering him up with broken glass.  The limitations
of this are obviously you have to be a major evil doer with devilish
powers to even think of using it.   

I'm sure there's a couple more, but I've got to get
back to reality.

Greg



[1] http://www.apple.com/trailers/miramax/iron_monkey/
[2] http://www.pathfinderpictures.com/page/guillotine.htm