'If I Go Down, The Film Goes Down:' Dev Patel Tells The Brutal Story Behind The Time He Broke His Hand While Making Monkey Man (2024)

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'If I Go Down, The Film Goes Down:' Dev Patel Tells The Brutal Story Behind The Time He Broke His Hand While Making Monkey Man? ›

Before they started shooting the movie, Patel broke his toes, per Digital Spy, and then as they were filming, he broke his hand. So, the phrase putting your blood, sweat and tears into something likely resonates with Dev Patel's directorial debut Monkey Man.

“Everything that could have gone wrong went wrong.” Challenges began just two weeks out from filming “Monkey Man,” his feature film directorial debut, while in fight training when Patel's toes were stomped on. Later during filming, he broke his hand.

A young man ekes out a meager living in an underground fight club where, night after night, wearing a gorilla mask, he's beaten bloody by more popular fighters for cash. After years of suppressed rage, he discovers a way to infiltrate the enclave of the city's sinister elite. As his childhood trauma boils over, his mysteriously scarred hands unleash an explosive campaign of retribution to settle the score with the men who took everything from him.

Monkey Man / Film synopsis

While the film only has two major action set pieces, they are both incredible. Patel's fighting style is not that of a kung-fu master or brawler, instead, it is very acrobatic. He uses an array of kicks and defensive lunges in combat that give him a distinct style among other action heroes.

Monkey Man premiered at South by Southwest on March 11, 2024, and was released theatrically in the United States and Canada by Universal Pictures on April 5, 2024. The film received generally positive reviews from critics and grossed $34 million worldwide against a $10 million budget.

Later during filming, he broke his hand. “Broke some toes,” Patel said, explaining that the wounds were “very painful.” “Swollen foot syndrome, big foot. So they had to cut open my shoes so I could carry on going.” Patel added that he “then broke the hand” in the first fight scene he shot.

Good news for Cinephiles: Dev Patel's Monkey Man not banned in India; Might hit theatres soon!

Yup, Monkey Man is super-violent. So violent, in fact, that it's earned the '18' age rating you rarely see anymore. “If you have the stomach for singularly focused revenge and some truly graphic, visceral hand-to-hand combat,” wrote The Guardian, “Monkey Man delivers the goods.”

MPAA. Rated R for strong bloody violence throughout, language throughout, sexual content/nudity and drug use.

The Film's Final Moments

Kid manages to kill Baba, but suffers serious stab wounds at the same time. As he collapses from his injuries, presumably in death, Kid remembers his mother and his faith, and is finally able to rest peacefully.

Is Monkey Man hit or flop? ›

Dev Patel made a mark with his directorial debut Monkey Man. Produced by Jordan Peele, the film has managed to cross $30 million in three weeks at the global ticket windows. In the U.S. markets alone, it has scored nearly $24 million.

Type of Villain

Chief Rana Singh is the secondary antagonist of of Dev Patel's 2024 action thriller film Monkey Man. He is a corrupt Indian police chief and the right-hand of Baba Shakti, who is responsible for destroying Kid's village and murdering his mother, making him responsible for Kid's desire for vengeance.

He's skilled in martial arts and has a black belt in tae kwan do. Dev has a sister who is four years older than him.

“Monkey Man” is an extremely well crafted action film that takes inspirations from films like “John Wick” and puts the same heart and soul from the action into the story.

Back in 2021, Monkey Man had been completed and was promptly sold to Netflix for a sum of $30 million. The movie would have been made available on the streaming service and indefinitely remained in its catalog. However, Netflix later backed out of the deal due to Monkey Man's gritty nature and political conversations.

“Monkey Man” was inspired by the legend of Hanuman — a Hindu deity revered for his strength, loyalty and courage. Patel says that he saw a lot of parallels between Hindu mythology and the iconography of the superheroes that we know of today, like Superman.

In his final appearance, Monkey Fist was turned into stone to follow the path of the Yono. His lust for power had consumed him by that point, and he was willing to do anything and everything to ensure that he would be the monkey master, even if that meant giving up his soul.

Due to a number of federal and state laws that prohibit primates in homes, they are no longer training and matching monkeys. They continue to explore and advance the benefits of the human-animal interaction through advanced technology.

At the end of the first film, there is a post-credits scene that shows Jack the monkey going back to the chest and picking out one of the coins, with the other characters not being aware of this. Therefore, the monkey is once again affected by the curse, which allows it to survive any attack that others would not.

Gua was returned to the primate center with Robert Yerkes in Florida, where she was the subject of further studies by Yerkes' wife Ada. The Kelloggs returned to Indiana. Gua died of pneumonia on December 21, 1933, less than a year after she left the Kelloggs' family and just after turning three years old.