the miramax cut of IRON MONKEY (1993) is really bad

on monday i wanted to show my wife the 1993 donnie yen film IRON MONKEY. for many years i considered this one of my favorite movies. it was highly formative middle school viewing; i believe it was the first movie i ever saw that wasn't in english.

i own the "quentin tarantino presents" miramax bluray, presented by quentin tarantino. it didn't occur to me until the moment i grabbed the bluray, which was a gift i gave which was later given back to me, that miramax was notorious for butchering their releases of movies made outside america. IRON MONKEY, it turns out, is no exception. i briefly looked to see if the original cut was readily available online. (i did not look hard enough; it actually is available in its entirety on youtube, though the miramax cut is also on youtube.)

watching the movie was really dispiriting. it all just felt a lot less special than what i remembered. the lighting was all this flat 1990s blue; it made everything look like a movie set, sleek in the most dated way. everything in between the fight scenes just felt like a less interesting version of the film i remembered loving.

i cannot dis-recommend the miramax cut enough. it's a cut that puts quentin tarantino's name in the opening credits, but not the director's (or the actors, or the actual producers). they totally stripped out the original score. they nonsensically make single-digit frame cuts during the fight sc it sucks.

luckily for her, my wife fell asleep early in the movie. afterwards, i was looking up the changes in the miramax cut and i found a region 2 bluray of the original cut put out by "eureka" and well-reviewing on bluray.com. even better, that cut is on youtube in its entirety! i threw on the last ten minutes so my wife could see the final battle. it is absurd how, seemingly, every last thing i didn't like during my rewatch was gone or fixed. the film looked so much better. the fight scenes, which to their credit are still hold up in the miramax cut, have an under-cranked look to them in the original cut, which adds to high-energy unreality of the choreography. brief shots of blood are restored, the fight shots just flow better. the original score actually matches the film's tone. and they don't end the film two seconds early for seemingly no reason!

it's weird. of course, the miramax cut is the only one i've ever seen. but the original cut felt so much truer to my memory of the film. (saying this makes me kind of feel like that weeb on yahoo answers asking for a japanese voice dub of avatar: the last airbender with english subs.) but it's how i felt! i'm so glad that region 2 bluray exists with the original cut.

(not to get to message-board-y, but shame on quentin tarantino for putting him name on that butchered cut. it's kind of absurd that this of all things is the last straw for me re: QT; this is the man who worked happily with harvey weinstein for decades, who put uma thurman in danger during KILL BILL's shoot and then lied to her about it, who shamelessly, fetishisticly films women's bare feet film after film. for whatever reason, putting his name on this butchered cut of a great film is what completely soured me on him. of course, working with weinstein and endangering uma thurman's life are both so much more severe. maybe it's because it feels like i discovered how bad the miramax cut is by myself, or because IRON MONKEY is something personal to me.)

fuck miramax. fuck harvey weinstein. fuck quentin tarantino. long live the iron monkey