Iron Monkey (2002)

Expecting subtle nuances of character and deft plot twists from a kung fu flick would be like looking for true wisdom in a fortune cookie. And 1993's Iron Monkey -- directed by Yuen Wo Ping, the Hong Kong action choreographer who designed the high-wire fights in ''The Matrix'' -- isn't a revisionist experience, but damn if it isn't crackling fun. Like a Shaolin Robin Hood, Iron Monkey (Yu) fleeces the moneyed to feed the impoverished...until the forces of greed call in some vicious martial artists for the requisite Big Showdown. There's no resisting a movie in which two adversaries leap 40 feet in the air, land on a rooftop, and, in the middle of a fists-of-fury flurry, pause as one says, ''You're very good!''