The hero of the movie “MonkeyMan” is a man who works in an underground fight club. He seeks revenge on the people who are responsible for the death of his mother.
The main role was played by the creator of the project himself – Dev Patel. The production is compared to the John Wick film series. In one of his recent interviews, Patel revealed that he drew inspiration from many action films.
“This film was born out of my love for action cinema, from Bruce Lee, through Sammo Hung, Jet Lee, Jackie Chan, to Korean cinema, which completely changed my life,” he said in an interview with the Austin American Statesman, adding : “And also from Bollywood.”
At the film's premiere at SXSW, Patel said he was also inspired by the story of Hanuman, the half-man, half-ape. The other roles in the production were: Sharlto Copley (“District 9”, “The A-Team”) and Sobhita Dhulipala (“Raman Raghav 2.0”).
The film encountered numerous problems during production. Delays caused by the pandemic, insufficient finances – these are just the tip of the iceberg.
“You can see throughout the film that we didn't have enough stuntmen,” Patel explained. He noted that he repeatedly killed “the same eight guys” in the final sequences.
Dev Patel also suffered numerous injuries while shooting the film. He had a broken arm, broken toes and a torn shoulder. “Everything that could go wrong did go wrong,” he said at the premiere.
“Monkey Man” was originally intended to be made for Netflix. However, this did not happen. He came to the rescue Jordan Peele (“Runaway!”, “To Us”), who was so delighted with the film that he became its producer.
“It was a bumpy but amazing road. I was making a very low budget film in Yorkshire when I got a call from my agents who said, 'Jordan Peele has seen your film and wants to talk'. It was a true Hollywood moment because moments later I was connected via Zoom with Jordan. We talked for about three hours and I knew then that working with him would be great. He kind of picked the movie up off the floor, dusted it off and put it back on the shelf. I'm forever grateful for that,” Patel was quoted as saying by the website On the screen.
The world premiere of the film “Monkey Man” is scheduled for April. It is not known when it will hit Polish screens. The first reviews are very positive. There is talk of the birth of a new action movie star.
Watch the trailer for “Monkey Man”!