The Man With the Iron Fist

Killer Clans with with bad 80's rock band wigs and animal names, lone warriors, government officials, deadly local courtesians, and others are looking  to steal or trying to protect government gold bars.  A local blacksmith (RZA) forging specialized weapons for some of these groups, becomes caught up in the confusion and ultimately must fight his way out with his newly forged iron fists.  By my own admission and as a longtime fan of kungfu flicks, the idea of rapper/producer and leader of the Wu-Tang Clan The RZA making this film was a very exciting prospect indeed.  To those who don't know, RZA and Wu-Tang Clan, as their name would indicate, are highly influenced by the old classic kungfu cinema combining many elements of it into their music.  However, to his discredit,  the directorial debut of RZA (in fact, he's the co-writer, director, and star) in The Man With The Iron Fist it is done in a very dis-jointed and heavy-handed approach most notably in the hip-hop soundtrack and his narration of a rather typical and uninspired tale that serve only to distract instead of move the story along.  Cinematography,  fight choreography, special effects, bad writing, and attempted homages to many great kungfu movies are swished around in what can only be described as a bad stir-fry with great ingredients to start with. . As much as  I admire RZA's ambition to undertake the genre even under the guidance of fellow martial art genre affictionado Quentin Tarintino, everything in this not so new homage to the martial arts genre cannot be tongue and cheeked so easily away.  I suspect RZA perhaps took on too much and wore too many caps in his endeavor and ambition.  In all honesty, the only things that I found rather exciting and not surprising at that, were the opening and closing credits credits that were more fitting for a better Hong Kong redux. He most certainly had  a  decent $15 million budget, the backing and support of notable actors and action stars Lucy Liu, Russell Crowe, Dave Bautista, Cung Le, and even martial arts veteran Gordon Liu.  Legendary fight choreographer Corey Yuen was also included. One thing I did find out after viewing it, was that the original cut for this film was at 4 hours and reduced to 95 minutes.  That would certainly explain much of my criticism, but even that doesn't account for everything like the story and dialogue.  Luckily, I didn't have to pay anything other than time to see this flick, coming straightaway from seeing Skyfall .