During the day, Yang runs his clinic and provides free medical treatment for the poor, which he subsidises by charging his rich patients.

During the trial, the governor orders Wong Fei-hung to be branded for defiance, but Iron Monkey shows up and disrupts the proceedings.

The locals despise Wong Kei-ying for assisting the governor in capturing their hero, so they refuse to sell him food or provide him with shelter.

With help from Fox, Yang manages to bring Wong Fei-hung, who has fallen sick, out of prison and keeps him in his clinic.

Concurrently, Hin-hung orders his men to search the town for Iron Monkey and Wong Kei-ying, but Fox gets to the clinic first to warn Orchid.

She is saved by Wong Fei-hung, who continues the battle with the monks using the staff movements he learned from Yang and Orchid.

After the film, screen captions inform viewers that Yang and Orchid are married, and that Wong Fei-hung, inspired by his father and the Iron Monkey, later becomes a hero among the Chinese and restores honor to the Shaolin Monastery.

According to an interview with Tsui on the Iron Monkey DVD release, this delay may have had a negative effect on the film's box office earnings.

Later, it was re-released in Hong Kong by IVL in a digitally remastered edition in the Donnie Yen & Yuen Woo Ping Action Collection.

One year later, the Epic Action Collection DVD was released on 26 December 2005 in a four-disc set, which includes two other martial arts films - Wing Chun and Tai Chi Boxer - also directed by Yuen Woo-ping.

Five months later, The Donnie Yen Collection DVD was released on 29 May 2006 in a four-disc set, which includes another two martial arts films - New Dragon Gate Inn and Once Upon a Time in China II.