I Wanted To Love The Man With The Iron Fists

[Ancient History]

I came out of Skyfall at 3:00, did a quick turn-around at the box office to catch the last of the previews for the 2:55 showing of The Man With The Iron Fists.

I was the only one in the theater.

Part of me will always be eight years old and watching Five Deadly Venoms for the first time. So I loved the martial arts in this flick, the cheesiness of faux-fur Lion Clan, Lucy Liu's brothel full of ninja whores, the impossible eyebrows, all of it. But this is a film with problems.

It is possible to tell a complex story with a revolving cast of characters, each of whom is their own special little snowflake of badass, without losing the plot. It's hard to pull off even if you're an experienced director, however, and newby RZA doesn't quite manage it. I want to think that a longer cut, maybe with the scenes in different order, might save this film a bit. We'll have to wait and see.

There are two things I'll say about this movie: one, the soundtrack is just as good as it has a right to be; you may not like rap or hip-hop but some of the songs just fit the action sequences and moods beautifully. Two, everyone was obviously having fun in this film. Russel Crowe's swaggering ham as Jack Knife was completely unforced and natural, right down to groping a bedful of prostitutes. Lucy Liu's double-entendre laden speech was a little wooden in the writing, but she too obviously had a lot of fun dishing it out. The possible exception is RZA, who we see maybe too little of for this movie (critics like to call his performance "understated") and too melancholy.

I guess the problem was, going into this movie I expected a kind of Wu Tang Clan: the Movie, maybe a styled around a Mortal Kombat style tournament. What I got instead was a Wuxing Fusion film that took, maybe, entirely too long to get to the point but had a fun time getting there.

[K]

For a second, I thought this was going to be a slashfic post when I saw the title.

[K]

Edit: double post

[Ancient History]

Fuck you, I only did that once.

[Juton]

I saw this movie and I really enjoyed it. Mind you I didn't think too much about it. I think the biggest flaw was that there where so many characters in it, characters like the Geminis where foreshadowed, introduced, built up and killed off in like 20 minutes. Also the RZA was the least charismatic actor in the movie, too much was spent on his plot arc. I understand this was his pet project but still, it would have been stronger without him being so prominent. The parts with the X-Blade or Russel Crowe where really good, I think if RZA produced and Tarantino or Rodriguez directed this could be a modern B-movie classic.

[echoVanguard]

I saw this film the night it opened, and was totally blown away; I've been really sad to hear that other people haven't enjoyed it as much as I did. As a huge fan of Five Deadly Venoms, I really felt like this film was terrific - I loved the story, cinematography, fight scenes, characterization, and dialogue. The only part of the film that could have been better was Russel Crowe's dialogue. Like, all of it.

Incidentally, did anyone else feel like this film was what a FATE game would look like if made into a movie?

Characters basically spontaneously grew skills, powers, equipment, and backstory on the fly to meet story demands. The part where RZA's character was a Secret Kung Fu Master THE ENTIRE TIME, YOU GUYS was the best example of this ever; Jack Knife's Knife That Keeps Displaying New Functions was another good one.

echo