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The Man With The Iron Fists
Nov. 2nd, 2012 08:28 pmWell, that was surprisingly good. I mean, a movie with a musician-turned-actor, wrestler-turned-actor, Real World contestant-turned-actor, Russell Crowe hamming it up, and Lucy Liu fake-laughing at race jokes was never going to be The Dark Knight, but it absolutely features Lucy Liu talking to her harem squadron stable of assassin-hookers in a bathhouse about how they're going to kill all the men and invent feminism. I'll tell you that much, if she did that on Elementary, none of the Sherlock fandom would be complaining.
It's shocking how many of the plot threads work. RZA isn't quite 'acting' when he plays the Blacksmith (who has a name, but it has Thaddeus in it, so no wonder he goes by 'the Blacksmith'), but then, neither is anyone else. The story is told through his eyes, though he's pretty much the Lando Calrissian of the plot, so there's anachronistic rap music and voiceover narration where he refers to Imperial China as motherfuckers, although that's about as far as it goes. Understandable, since if you 'blaxploit' the kung-fu movies too much it turns into a joke and becomes The Last Dragon, but I actually like the cross-cultural weirdness of an old-fashioned Shaw Brothers film somehow being seen through the eyes of a modern-day rap star (slash freed slave slash blacksmith slash Zen acolyte slash superhero), so they could've pushed that a little further in my opinion.
Also, although the action is pretty good, when you get to the four Final Fights, there's a distinct... lacking. Obviously, I don't expect "second breakfast and elevensies" Russell Crowe to do backflips like Jet Li, but some of the people who are established as knowing what they're doing when it comes to martial arts have short and unsatisfying duels anyway. Some of it comes down to the staging and storytelling of the fights even, rather than the choreography (imagine if Die Hard's climax had been McClane just dominating Hans before busting out the duct-taped pistol, instead of it being a reversal). But it's a sad day when side-character Lucy Liu has a better fight against a tertiary henchmen than any of the Main Guys.
In fact, my biggest caveat with the film is that there seem to be more than a few pulled punches. ( Some spoilers. )
But anyway, Lucy Liu and her prostitute death squad. Your call, guys.
It's shocking how many of the plot threads work. RZA isn't quite 'acting' when he plays the Blacksmith (who has a name, but it has Thaddeus in it, so no wonder he goes by 'the Blacksmith'), but then, neither is anyone else. The story is told through his eyes, though he's pretty much the Lando Calrissian of the plot, so there's anachronistic rap music and voiceover narration where he refers to Imperial China as motherfuckers, although that's about as far as it goes. Understandable, since if you 'blaxploit' the kung-fu movies too much it turns into a joke and becomes The Last Dragon, but I actually like the cross-cultural weirdness of an old-fashioned Shaw Brothers film somehow being seen through the eyes of a modern-day rap star (slash freed slave slash blacksmith slash Zen acolyte slash superhero), so they could've pushed that a little further in my opinion.
Also, although the action is pretty good, when you get to the four Final Fights, there's a distinct... lacking. Obviously, I don't expect "second breakfast and elevensies" Russell Crowe to do backflips like Jet Li, but some of the people who are established as knowing what they're doing when it comes to martial arts have short and unsatisfying duels anyway. Some of it comes down to the staging and storytelling of the fights even, rather than the choreography (imagine if Die Hard's climax had been McClane just dominating Hans before busting out the duct-taped pistol, instead of it being a reversal). But it's a sad day when side-character Lucy Liu has a better fight against a tertiary henchmen than any of the Main Guys.
In fact, my biggest caveat with the film is that there seem to be more than a few pulled punches. ( Some spoilers. )
But anyway, Lucy Liu and her prostitute death squad. Your call, guys.
