Iron Monkey (1993 Film) - Changes To The American Version

Changes To The American Version

In its release in 2001, Miramax made several changes that the company felt would make it more marketable to American audiences:

• Since most Americans are unfamiliar with the story of Wong Fei-hung, his name was removed from the title.
• The subtitles were tailored to diminish the political context of the story.
• Some scenes were trimmed to tone down the violence.
• Originally, some fight scenes had been sped up in places through undercranking. The U.S. release slowed these scenes down to a more normal pace.
• Several comedic scenes, particularly ones interspersed in the fight scenes, were removed to give the fights a more serious feel. Although such comedic devices are common in Hong Kong cinema, it was felt they might have seemed odd to an American audience.
• A new soundtrack was composed that emulated the classical score to Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, but in doing so the famous Wong Fei-hung theme was eliminated.
• New sound effects were dubbed for the fighting to make them more realistic (as opposed to the more traditional exaggerated Hong Kong sounds).