THE MAN WITH THE IRON FISTS
My Review- The Man With The Iron Fists
I remember the day I saw the teaser trailer for “The Man With The Iron Fists”, I was so hyped about this film. You see, it brought back memories of my childhood and all of the Saturday afternoons that I sat in front of the television at 3pm just to see my favorite Martial Arts movies on Channel 5’s Drive In Movie show. These movies taught me a lot, like how to climb the walls at home using the Venom Number 4 style from “The Five Deadly Venoms” (which often lead to spankings for knocking picture frames off the wall ), and then there was The Drunken Style of fighting I was taught by Agent Hai Tao from “The Kid With The Golden Arm” (Which really didn’t help me in that fight with Papa that left the imprint of his knuckles in my forehead) You know, now that I think about it both characters were played by the same person so thanks for helping me get my ass beat, a lot, Mr. Philip Kwok! Needless to say when I saw that teaser, you know the one that ends with Batista turning into Brass, “The Man With The Iron Fists” became my must see movie of 2012. I couldn’t wait to see what I thought would be a return to the glory days of the traditional 19th century kung fu film, but I was wrong, this film, while having potential was very disappointing and here’s why…
The Storyline- It’s all about the gold! The Governor owns it, the Gemini Killers have it, the Lion Clan takes it, The Black Widows Clan plots to take it from them,need it, and the Jackals plan to get it back by any means. This is the main story, but this film has a few stories, which is a good thing for most movies… Not this one.
Rick Yune, plays X-Blade, Gold Lion’s favorite son. When the Lion Clan is hired to protect a shipment of gold as it passes through their village, their leader Gold Lion, is betrayed by his own sons Silver Lion (Byron Mann) and Bronze Lion (Cung Le) when they set him up to be assassinated by their secret partner Poison Dagger (Daniel Wu). X-Blade sets out to avenge his father and restore honor to the Lion Clan name. This is the story of Vengeance.
Lucy Liu, plays Madame Blossom, the madame of the Pink Blossom brothel and leader of the Black Widows Clan. Madame Blossom partners up with Silver Lion, Bronze Lion, and Poison Dagger. She gives them a safe place to store the gold, but her plan is to kill them and keep the gold for her clan. This is the story of the Double Cross.
RZA, plays the Blacksmith, the main character and narrator of the film. He is character is in love with a whore/ assassin whom he gives all of his money to in order to save up so they can run away and start over some place else (Trick Azz N*%%a! lol). I guess this is the Love Story.
The story line wasn’t the problem, the problem was how poorly all of the elements were put together. The movie just seemed like it was all over the place and it didn’t flow at all. But that was just the beginning of the problems that plague T.M.W.T.I.F.
The Actors- RZA, as the star of this film was a very poor choice. Why, you ask? Well, Simply put his acting is flat, he speaks incoherently, and his fight scenes are boring. As I watched the final fight between The Blacksmith and Brass Body (David Bautista) I nearly fell asleep. There was no style or fluidity in his movement, Kung Fu is like a dance between fighters, and RZA had as much grace as a man with two left feet, In my opinion, if you’re going to star in a Martial Arts flick, learn Martial Arts.
Then to add insult to injury Russell Crowe, plays Jack Knife, a government emissary sent to quietly oversee the travel of the gold. Why? I mean, this Russell Crowe is far removed from the Warrior that starred in the Gladiator movie and his weapon of choice in this film is a gun with a knife attached. He has no real fight scenes and just the same served no real purpose, again, if you’re gonna star in a Martial Arts film, take the time to learn it. Now I know you are probably saying, “well there are a lot of movies out with martial arts in them, yet they don’t star Martial Artists and they’re still good” to which I would say you’re absolutely right, but they are not traditional 19th century films, and that’s what T.M.W.T.I.F was supposed to be. But believe it or not, this wasn’t even the films biggest offense.
The Score- The scoring of this film was horrendous, the thing that made old Kung Fu films authentic was the cheesy scoring and poor english translations (the way the lips would still be moving after the voice has stopped. This is what really ruined the film for me, RZA tried to merge the films action with a Hip Hop score and failed miserably. Aside from breaking tradition, half of the time the music just didn’t fit the scene period. A score should dictate the viewers emotion, and in this case it just made me confused. But don’t get me wrong, the movie isn’t all bad.
The action and fight choreography is stellar (excluding RZA and Russell), especially the fight between the Gemini Killers and the Lion Clan which left me speechless. My advice, watch the movie with the sound off and subtitles on and you may actually enjoy it.
The Good- The fight sequences are great and the action is non stop.
The Bad- The story, while it may have read great on paper isn’t cohesive at all. It makes you feel like you’re watching a collection of mini movies.
The Ugly- The Score, point blank period. Some tradition shouldn’t be messed with and scoring a 19th Century Kung Fu film using hip hop completely shits on tradition, but even if that gets over looked, the music simply never compliments the scenes.
In closing, while The Man With The Iron Fists wasn’t the worst movie i’ve seen this year, I expected better. But on the bright side, this was RZA’s first time directing and he did it under the Tarantino umbrella, I’m quite confident that his next film will correct all of the errors made in his first outing and i’m looking forward to seeing what he does next.
The Opinions In This Post Are Those Of Big Sunami and Big Sunami Alone.
So Listen To What Hoes, Do…
The killer kids put out a track called “That’s What Hoes Do”, but as you listen to the lyrics, get a big reality check of when the female artist “kash” goes in on “what Hoes Do!”…
(Source: beyondthehustledigital)
So Listen To What Hoes, Do…
The killer kids put out a track called “That’s What Hoes Do”, but as you listen to the lyrics, get a big reality check of when the female artist “kash” goes in on “what Hoes Do!”…
(Source: beyondthehustledigital)
"PSA: Way too many guys are commenting on laced fronts, I’ve seen it so much that I googled them 2 find out what they were and after finding out i’m saddened, because I know most of you didn’t have 2 use google… You just knew."
- Sunami
