Well, well. Back in March we posted a note about an open casting call for an at-the-time untitled Yuen Wo Ping project. Seems the master was preparing a new martial arts film and wanted to inject some new blood and so was looking for martial artists of all types from around the globe. Any news Yuen Wo Ping film is good news so we were happy to hear of it but little else was known at the time. Well, today I spotted word that Shawn Yue and Louis Koo have been cast to star in Iron Mask, a new Yuen Wo Ping directed sequel to the classic Iron Monkey. Could this be the same film? There's some concern that Louis Koo - not a highly trained martial artist, though he's dabbled in screen fighting - is cast in the lead role, though keeping the character masked during the major fight scenes opens the door for the use of a stunt double should the fight sequence demand it. Iron Mask is slated to begin shooting in July.
This would be attempt two at an IRON MONKEY sequel for Yuen, if IMDB is to be believed and he directed Donnie Yen's IRON MONKEY II and then took his name off of it for reasons that ought to be clear to anyone who's seen that piece of crap.
A sequel to Iron Monkey?? For what? Its bad enough that they are using non-martial artists to carry the movie (Shawn Yue is doing his thing though) and Master Yuen needs to go back to the basics. As much as I enjoy his choreography, its all starting to look too pretty and fluid. I would like to see some gritty action that can compete with the stuff coming out of thailand...