Film
Mad Monkey Kung Fu
- Martial arts action
- Light-hearted
A 1979 Hong Kong martial arts comedy where a disgraced kung fu master trains his volatile friend in monkey boxing to protect their merchant business from gangsters. It's playful and physical, built on slapstick chemistry and inventive fight choreography that treats combat as comedy. Perfect for anyone who wants their action films loose and genuinely funny.
If you liked this
Police Story1985
Jackie Chan's masterpiece of stunt comedy, where elaborate action sequences are the jokes themselves. The wit is physical, the danger is real, and every setpiece builds character and laughs at once.
But The plot is thin and the tonal whiplash between slapstick and genuine peril can feel jarring if you're expecting either consistently.

Drunken Master1978
Jackie Chan as a young miscreant learning martial arts through drunken boxing: pure joy in motion. The fights are balletic, the comedy is earned, and the film moves at a pace that feels almost musical.
But It's subtitled and the humour is broad; some of the gags land softer in translation, and the plot is truly threadbare.

Kung Fu Hustle2004
Stephen Chow's love letter to kung fu cinema, where every frame is composed like a painting and every fight explodes with colour and invention. Hilarious, gorgeous, and genuinely moving underneath.
But The CGI is dated now, and if you don't enjoy broad physical comedy mixed with genuine pathos, the tonal shifts will feel clumsy.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Mad Monkey Kung Fu
The wildcard
Something you would not have found on your own.
The Holy Mountain1973
Both films reject narrative sobriety in favor of comic physicality and symbolic gesture; both believe fight and movement can express more than dialogue.
Jodorowsky's hallucinatory surrealist odyssey is grotesque, funny, and utterly unpredictable. Like Mad Monkey Kung Fu, it gleefully abandons realism for heightened physical comedy and symbolic action, but pushes it to the edge of blasphemy.
But It's genuinely disturbing, extremely long, and deliberately oblique. Some viewers will find it self-indulgent pretension masquerading as art.

More like this (6)
The 36th Chamber of Shaolin1978
Gordon Liu's methodical ascent through kung fu mastery is mesmerizing. The training sequences are hypnotic, the philosophy earns the violence, and it's a true blueprint for the genre.
But It's measured and even meditative; if you want wall-to-wall action, you'll find long stretches of patience required.

Wheels on Meals1984
Jackie Chan and Sammo Hung as bumbling food-cart entrepreneurs who stumble into adventure. The chemistry is electric, the stunts are absurd, and it treats slapstick as a high art form.
But The plot is gossamer-thin and some of the humour is crude in ways that haven't aged well; it's held together entirely by charm.

The Young Master1980
Jackie Chan's directorial debut about twin brothers caught up in gang warfare. It's ambitious, visually inventive, and the final fight is genuinely thrilling and cleverly staged.
But The middle sags, the subplot about a reformed gang member feels tacked on, and the film sometimes confuses energy with coherence.

Come Drink with Me1966
King Hu's widescreen masterpiece about a martial arts heroine rescuing her brother. It's lyrical and violent in equal measure, with gravity and poetry in every frame.
But It's deliberately paced and almost operatic; the action is stunning but sparse, and patience is non-negotiable.

Snake in the Eagle's Shadow1978
Jackie Chan's star-making role as a bumbling janitor learning snake-style kung fu to fight an assassin. It's where his whole persona crystallizes—earnest, clumsy, but genuinely skilled.
But By modern standards the special effects are hokey and some of the comedy feels dated; it's more fascinating as a historical artifact than as pure entertainment now.

Werckmeister Harmonies2001
Like Mad Monkey Kung Fu, it finds meaning in physical presence and the body's relationship to space; both are more interested in watching how people move than in why.
Béla Tarr's three-hour meditation on a whale carcass arriving in a provincial Hungarian town. It sounds bleak, but there's profound comedy in the collision between individual obsession and communal indifference—movement and gesture over dialogue.
But It's glacially slow, entirely in black and white, and makes no concessions to conventional narrative. You need patience measured in decades, not minutes.

People
Cast
Lau Kar-leungUncle Chan
Hsiao HoLittle Monkey
Lo LiehDuan Shiangyuan
Kara Wai Ying-HungChan Tsuei Hung
Lam Fai-WongChoi
Lam Hak-MingFok
San SinTien
Wong Ching-HoDuan's Accountant- Wong ManDuan's Mistress
Cham Siu-HungDuan's Thug (uncredited)- Chan Kwok-KeungDuan's Thug (uncredited)
Chan Ling-WaiDuan's Thug in Brothel (uncredited)
Directing
- Huang Pa-ChingAssistant Director
- Lee Tai-HangAssistant Director
- Lau Kar-leungDirector
- Chow Jan-WingScript Supervisor
Writing
- Ni KuangScreenplay
Production
- Run Run ShawProducer
- Lawrence Wong Ka-HayProduction Manager
- Mona Fong Yat-WahProduction Manager