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InMovie Reviews, Ugly

Mean Drunken Master (Review)

November 14, 2010By

Mean Drunken Master

aka Iron Bridge Kung-Fu aka Mang han dou lao qian

1979
Directed by Wong Fung
Mean Drunken Master
Gam Fung-Ling starred in The Ape Girl and one other film, Mean Drunken Master/Iron Bridge Kung Fu. Hey, look, we’re doing a review of Mean Drunken Master/Iron Bridge Kung Fu! I bet you didn’t see that coming! Now I bet you are wondering who the mean drunken master is. I hate to disappoint you, but there is no mean drunken master. In fact, all we have is a drunken master who doesn’t even bother to be in the last half of the film. He’s more of an absent drunken master. The evil guy isn’t drunk, but he does have a ridiculous name, as do all his goons. He must have founded the Evil Ridiculous Names Gang, and then spent his youth terrorizing the people of Taiwan who had normal names.

Director Wong Fung directed many films (including How The Ape Girl Stole The Lotus Lamp and The Blonde Monster), but did you know that many of his films have the word “white” in the title? It’s true! I know you are as shocked as I. For the record: White-Haired Madam Su is Pregnant (1959), Stone Prince Takes the Throne (Final Part to White-Haired Madam Su) (1959), The White Lady’s Reincarnation (1959), The White-snake Girl (Part 1) (1960), The White-snake Girl (Part 2) (1960), White Hair Girl of Miu Shan (Part 1) (1961), White Hair Girl of Miu Shan (Part 2) (1961), and The White Dragon (1968). That’s 8/67 films with white in the title, an 11.9% rate! He also wrote 42 of the Wong Fei-Hung movies, and directed a fair share of them.
Mean Drunken Master

Gam Fung-Ling stars in this flick along with The Ape Girl/Lady Iron Monkey. These are her only two film roles known, which is sort of a shame because she’s pretty darn charismatic in both of the films. Whatever happened to Gam Fung-Ling? Your guess is as good as mine. Unless you actually know, in which case your guess is probably better than mine. Maybe. Who knows, one day I’ll be watching some random Taiwanese flick and suddenly Gam Fung-Ling will wander by and monkey kung fu the crap out of someone. That will be a good day (unless you’re the dude getting monkey kung fu-ed!)
Mean Drunken Master

Lung San (Wong Goon-Hung) – The best student of the O Mei’s 12th Generation school. Is a good guy, too bad he’s not that interesting.
13 Points (Gam Fung-Ling) – 13 Points is the name of the cook girl who juggles eggs but is also a klutz. She’s also good at kung fu, because that’s what happens in a kung fu movie. Gam Fung-Ling was The Ape Girl.
Ho Yuen Biao (Shih Chung Tien) – Ho Yuen Biao runs O Mei’s 12th Generation school with older wife. Shih Chung Tien was in Jade Dagger Ninja.
Piggy (Simon Yuen Siu-Tin)- A lovable drunk who boozes his way around town, is a secret kung fu master, and is also part of a secret society to protect Chinese artifacts. But mostly he’s a drunk. Simon Yuen was the patriarch of the Yuen family.
White Orchid (To Gwai Fa) – At first a mysterious old lady wandering around, but eventually becomes the kung fu teacher to 13 Points and is later revealed to be her mother. Is probably best known for the Heroic Victim series which involved lots of female wrestling.

Mean Drunken Master

InBad, Movie Reviews

Lady Iron Monkey

November 13, 2006By

Lady Iron Monkey

aka The Ape Girl aka Zui Hou Nu
Lady Iron Monkey
1979
Starring (This is guesswork)
Fung Ling Kam as Ming Ling Shur (the Ape Girl)
Lap Bo Au as Drunken Monk
Sing Chen as Prince Yan Shing
Man Tai Lee as Evil Advisor
Lo Lieh as Assassin Millenrapen
Directed by Chi-Hwa Chen
Lady Iron Monkey
Lady Iron Monkey (or The Ape Girl as it was known before producers tried to cash in on Iron Monkey getting a theatrical release in America) is a pretty fun flick that takes us to a world where a girl is raised by monkeys, and uses her monkey abilities to become a master of kung fu. She beats up plenty of people along the way, and her monkeyness gets her into several spots of trouble. The films doesn’t take itself too seriously, bordering on campy, but is serious enough that they don’t do any of the annoying “acknowledging that they’re in a movie” type stuff. The goofiness allows the movie to flow quickly and to the point, and you get disarmed from questioning the logic of certain events. In addition, some of the plot is centered on actual Chinese history, though that is prevalent in many Chinese Kung Fu films, some of which is ruined by terrible dubbing. Even if this is just a response to Charlton Heston demanding damn dirty ape stinking paws off him, it’s still pretty entertaining. Actress Fung Ling Kam/Gam Fung-Ling (or Kim Fung Li as she’s billed as) wasn’t in many films, IMDB has this as her sole credit and I only found two more that even listed her (thanks to Google) titled Iron Bridge Kung-Fu and The Gloomy Tower (aka Shaolin 36 Beads, which was released on DVD – UPDATE: I recently saw The Gloomy Tower and Gam Fung-Ling is nowhere to be found) IMDB being incomplete regarding Asian cinema? I never!! At least they even have a listing for this film. Lady Iron Monkey also has early roles for Lo Lieh, who plays an assassin and would go on to be a very famous martial arts star; as well as Chen Sing, who also had a long career despite not reaching the level of fame as Lo Lieh. With this information here, we will seemingly become the leading resource for information about The Ape Girl/Lady Iron Monkey

The opening credits is the traditional 1970’s kung fu movie opening with the star posing different stances as the credits run by. We get Ming Ling Shur, the Ape Girl, dancing around doing her monkey style kung fu, and who is she joined by? A chimpanzee! Chimpy is flipping around, doing some of the same flips and jumps Ming Ling Shur does as well. The print is pretty scratched up, but it’s suddenly clear as day when the title appears (because it’s a retitle.) Ming Ling Shur is a hairy girl, with hair on her arms and monkey makeup on her face. She’s also pretty good at acting like a monkey, with big, exaggerated movements. It adds to the charm of the film, as does the Ape Girl Theme which plays during the lighthearted moments. This is a film about an ape girl, it isn’t going to be the most serious thing in the universe.

Lady Iron Monkey