Rapper RZA has long been known as a fan of "old school" kung fu action films, with many of his songs peppered with samples from classic films of yesteryear. After working with Quentin Tarantino on the 2003 film Kill Bill, RZA began serious development of his own kung fu film. Nine years later, The Man with the Iron Fists was released, a tribute to the work of the Shaw Brothers. RZA may have had good intentions, but the execution - as one would expect from a debut director - is a complete failure, resulting in a film with some interesting bloody spectacles, but not even close to the best examples of kung fu cinema .
RZA, among other things, stars as the main character, a blacksmith, whose hands are cut off by evil bandits in search of gold, after which he creates new, mechanical ones for himself and seeks revenge. First of all, RZA should never have played one of the main characters. His character, based on the silent/strong hero from One Armed Sword, has a distinct lack of personality. He simply mumbled the entire role. And some other actors aren’t doing any better with this. The main villain (Byron Mann) looks and talks like he's an Asian version of Yngwie Malmsteen. Hong Kong actor Daniel Wu, who plays another negative character, is generally a good actor, but on screen he looked as if he was reading his dialogues from a cheat sheet.
It's possible that RZA's deliberate attempt to make the actors sound like they're dubbing an old Shaw Brothers movie is some kind of stylistic choice. This is all very well, but in this case there is no hope that when the film at one point takes on a darker tone, the audience will take what is happening seriously. Most of the dialogue lines, intended to be ominous or harsh, caused only laughter from the audience in the cinema.
The fight scenes are also a complete mess. The pluses include the bloodiness and the presence of some unique martial arts styles. But for the most part they were shot in extreme close-ups, with unnecessary cuts, and the CGI and cables were so obvious that the viewer paid attention only to them, and not to what the actors were doing on the screen. Director Corey Yuen was once one of the best in Hong Kong, but he is no longer the same. However, this is partly to blame for the conspicuous lack of real martial arts experts, or at least people with more solid experience in such work. You wouldn't expect someone like Lucy Liu or former WWE wrestler Dave Bautista to be able to perform a complex combination of 10-12 moves during the filming of a long take, as was the case when the classic kung fu movie was filmed.
It's not that bad. There are some nice touches, such as the town being named "Jiang Hu", the confrontation taking place at the "Dragon Tavern", and the girl in the brothel singing the song from the movie "The Hitman". It was nice to see Gordon Liu in a decent role as opposed to the trash he's been in lately with the likes of Pitbull, especially since he's sadly unlikely to return to film after his stint earlier this year stroke. It's little things like these that keep the viewer from hating the film entirely, and RZA quite possibly has a future as a filmmaker.
Rating: 6/10
Source: hkfilm.net
Translation: EvilDollaR
A funny movie, but not at all serious. Filmed simply to satisfy the ambitions of comrade Rza, nothing more, it’s difficult to say for what audience it was filmed, such a vinaigrette) Rza himself in the film looks stupid in the film, like an out.
I don’t understand why the author of the review didn’t like this film so much, many of the shortcomings were taken out of nowhere. The film is watched in one go, there is no desire to rewind any fragments, everything is done very cool. At least 9/10.
Universal will release the film on Blu-ray and DVD on February 12, 2013.
Offtop:
youtube.com/watch?v=r7ybL4Ozjw0&feature=youtu.be
Does anyone know if it will be released in Russia? Nothing on IMDB((
Hmm, what about Cung Le? What about Marris Crump?