Yue Song is a unique performer in China’s – and indeed the world’s – filmic landscape. A one-man army who writes, produces, directs, choreographs, plays the lead role and does his own stunts in his films, never taking a single role in anybody else’s project. As a result, his output has been sparse, with each of his films a passion project to which he devotes his mind and sacrifices his body with Jackie Chan-like abandon. After the relatively little-seen King of the Streets in 2012, his following film, Super Bodyguard (released as Iron Protector in the US), caused a bit more of a stir four years later with its entertaining mix of unironic, vanity-filled silliness and excellent, bone-crunching fights. Now it’s been another four years and Yue is back with Iron Monkey (no relation to the Yuen Woo Ping classic), released straight to VOD at a time when Chinese theaters haven’t re-opened yet.

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