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Composed by
JAMES L. VENABLE
Rating
**
Album running time
54:12
Tracks
1: Iron Monkey on the Roof (2:09)
2: Dead Bird / Iron Monkey Fight (2:10)
3: Fox's Paranoia / Flying (1:18)
4: Don't Be Greedy / Many Iron Monkeys / Wong's Fight (2:46)
5: Wong Fights Iron Monkey (3:04)
6: Sad Wong (2:08)
7: Cooking Montage (1:41)
8: Wong's Son (1:25)
9: Shaolin Monk Fight / Ugly Virgin Fight (2:48)
10: Iron Monkey Recognised / Miss Orchid's Flashback (2:00)
11: Governor's Intruder (1:17)
12: Iron Monkey's Charade / Open the Warehouse / Fei-Hong Sees (1:43)
13: Fei-Hong's Fight / Fei-Hong Fights Again (3:01)
14: Street Band / Evil Royal Minister (:58)
15: Poetic Justice / Iron Monkey Fights Woman / Buddha's Palm (5:43)
16: Bleeding Iron Monkey (1:20)
17: Plan of Attack (:54)
18: Who's That Knocking / Tearful Goodbye (2:12)
19: Miss Orchid Shows Her Stuff / Witch vs Kid (4:25)
20: Fei-Hong's Rescue (9:46)
21: New Governor's Band / Farewell (1:24)
Performed by
UNKNOWN ENSEMBLE
Erhu
KAREN HAN
Engineered by
JOE PRIVITELLI
Edited by
JOANIE DIENER
Produced by
JAMES L. VENABLE
FORD A. THAXTON
Released by
GNP CRESCENDO
Serial number
GNPD 8076
Artwork copyright (c) 2001 Miramax Films Corp; review copyright (c) 2001 James Southall
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IRON MONKEY
Silly Far Eastern score
A review by JAMES SOUTHALL
Of course, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon opened a new generation of filmgoers to Far Eastern action movies; while from a safe distance it's clear to see that the hysteria surrounding the movie was somewhat over-the-top, the film certainly was visually stunning and took itself very seriously. Iron Monkey seems to be at the other extreme of the spectrum - I've no idea whether it's meant to be a comedy, but even the title of the film is hilariously tacky and awful. Cue titles such as "Cooking Montage", "Iron Monkey Fights Woman" and "Miss Orchid Shows Her Stuff" do little to detract from the idea that the film was made for about 26 pence.
The score is more Enter the Dragon than Crouching Tiger. It's fun, I suppose, but suffers from bringing to mind not only the great Hong Kong Phooey (ah, memories of youth) but also the numerous parodies of this sort of thing that are all shot at four-speed and feature lots of high-pitched screaming. The only trouble is, the real thing doesn't seem that far removed from the parodies.
The music is based around percussion, with occasional passages for synthesisers and an erhu. It's fun while it lasts but doesn't leave any impression. The liner notes are peculiar, in that the director seems awfully proud of his film but doesn't mention the music at all; a brief biography of composer James L. Venable says he likes John Williams and Bernard Herrmann, but frankly he's got a way to go yet. Fans of Enter the Dragon might like it (but as well as being ludicrously funky, Enter the Dragon actually features real, properly composed music) but I'm not entirely sure what sort of audience this album will find, given that the film is about as famous as the one I shot on a camcorder when I was twelve.