Trivia / Monkey Man

• California Doubling: Shot in Indonesia, set in Mumbai.
• Channel Hop: The film was originally to be released on Netflix; however, they balked at the film’s political content due to their own efforts to expand in India. Fortunately, after Jordan Peele saw it, he felt the film deserved a theatrical release, leading him to come on as producer and move the film to Universal, who bought it from Netflix for roughly a third of the film's estimated production costs.
• Copiously Credited Creator: Dev Patel wrote, directed, and stars in this movie.
• Crosscast Role: Most of the hijra warriors are played by male stuntmen. Male actors Vipin Sharma and Fahad Scale play featured hijras Alpha and Pooja.
• Dawson Casting: Pehan Abdul (Lakshmi) is supposed to be the youngest hijra. In reality, at 36, she was the eldest of the 3 actual trans women cast as hijras.
• Dueling Works: With Boy Kills World, both released at the same month. Both action films involve a man who turns into a vengeful fighter after he loses his parents in a dystopian area and also stars Sharlto Copley.
• Fake Nationality: Though playing Indian hijras, Reva Marchellin (Yummy), Pehan Abdul (Lakshmi), Fahad Salce (Pooja) and Agus Maulana and Teddy Khan are Indonesian, and Dayangku Zyana (Priya) Malaysian.
• Missing Trailer Scene: The trailer features Kid asking Rana "Do you remember me?" before trying to kill him, then later when they fight again asking "Do you remember me now?" Neither line is anywhere in the film. Instead, Kid says "Blessings from my Mother" the first time and nothing the second time.
• On-Set Injury: Dev Patel suffered several when various fight scenes broke his toes and hand, tore his shoulder, and infected his eye.
• Production Posse:
  • Vipin Sharma, Adithi Kalkunte, and Dev Patel were in Hotel Mumbai together.
  • Sharlto Copley (Tiger) was in Chappie with Dev Patel.
• Queer Character, Queer Actor: 3 of the hijras are actual trans women — Reva Marchellin (Yummy), Pehan Abdul (Lakshmi) and Dayangku Zyana (Priya).
• Trans Character, Cis Actor: Cis actor Vipin Sharma plays Alpha, the elder of the hijras. Trans actresses Reva Marchellin (Yummy), Pehan Abdul (Lakshmi) and Dayangku Zyana (Priya) play the three most prominent hijras other than Alpha, though cis man Fahad Scale plays the fourth, Pooja. Originally, the plan was to shoot in India, but due to COVID-19 (see below), production was moved to Indonesia, where it was impossible to bring over hijra actors, and there was a difficulty casting trans actresses who weren't medicalised (due to the hijras being penniless and isolated, many in real life have no gender-affirming care other than castration). The army of trans women at the end were all male dancers and stuntmen. Despite this, trans reactions to the film have almost universally been positive.
• Troubled Production: Patel struggled mightily to complete his first film as a director, from filming during the COVID-19 Pandemic, losing filming locations in India and relocating to Indonesia, losing crew members, almost losing funding prior to the shoot, breaking his hand in the first fight scene and having to redo fight choreography on the fly to compensate for it, and enduring a nasty eye infection. He then struggled even more to get it released, taking nearly three years after the completion of filming as Netflix balked at the potential controversy of releasing it in India and ultimately sold it to Universal.

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