The Man With The Iron Fists

[seriousfic]

Well, 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. Just for instance, RZA's backstory involves him being a freed slave who accidentally kills a slave owner. Okay. Why is it an accident that he killed some asshole slaver? You're in a B-movie! If killing a slave-owner can't be a badass moment, why even have it in there?

And despite the film featuring Russell Crowe as the biggest English pervert since Hugh Grant, the primary setting being a whorehouse, and a montage of sexy times turning into death times, there's no actual nudity. Which seems oddly prudish? Sure, you can show Maximus disemboweling a guy for not respecting women, but a nipple? Not in this movie!

Also, given that Lucy Liu, as stated, has a big speech about how she loves her girls and women are just as good as men and blah blah equality-cakes, it seems a little odd that all the female characters in the movie end up dead. I wouldn't complain, but Liu's death seems particularly pointless. Are they just assuming we're not up for Man With Iron Fists 2: The Continuing Adventures Of Madame Lucy Liu's Sex Palace? That's a better sequel hook than any of the Star Wars prequels had.

Oh, and Russell Crowe plays a British agent/possible mercenary/guy who's working for the Chinese emperor. In real life, of course, the British completely fucked up China over opium, but the movie doesn't bring this up until the last minute, when a villain suddenly calls Crowe out like "We're not so different, you and I." Which is a hella interesting subtext, but it's literally just two lines before a "See you in hell!"/"Yup!" exchange. Maybe there was an earlier draft where Crowe was more of an antihero instead of just a straight-up good guy who really likes hookers?

But anyway, Lucy Liu and her prostitute death squad. Your call, guys.

Comments

Excellent review. I agree.

[410-gone.livejournal.com]

I really dig it- you caught a lot of the nuances of the film. I think it definitely was restrained and not as all-out as one would like. It's a problem in a lot of 'intentionally' cheesy/pulpy/throwback films these days, like Snakes on a Plane. Scuttlebutt is the original cut of the film was four freaking hours long, until the studios told RZA he couldn't do a Kill-Bill style two parter. Pray for a full director's cut DVD so we can get some answers about the characters; Poison Dagger was a complete cipher, but that would be okay even if that was all he was intended as. Makes me wonder if more sexual portions were taken out, as well. Finally, I definitely agree the final fight scenes were very lacking. In any case, great review!