Review of The Man with the Iron Fists (2012) by Cael M — 19 Jul 2013

The Man With the Iron Fists is RZA's, the leader of the Wu Tang Clan rap group, directorial debut and first leading role, and he starts it off with an odd, over-the-top homage to the kung-fu genre. This movie is about China's "Jungle Village", where the town's blacksmith (RZA) is forced to create deadly weapons for the prospering, savage clans of the village, and these clans are in the midst of a war over gold. The blacksmith must defend himself and his fellow villagers along with a British soldier named Jack Knife (Russel Crowe) who arrives in a brothel, as well as a warrior named Zen-Yi (Rick Yune). This is a hard film to review because it's easy to see what RZA's intentions were, but his execution doesn't quite match up to his ideas, resulting in a very messy kung-fu movie, with lots of questionable moments and elements that left me confused as to what is intentional and what isn't, as well as lots, and lots of blood.

Don't bother with the plotline nor the acting. The plotline is incredibly stupid and I don't even really get why RZA even bothered to make a plot in the first place, especially when he tried to focus mostly on the action. The acting isn't anything impressive either, and RZA as the Blacksmith never really changes emotion at any point of the movie, even when a character important to him dies, but he's decent enough. Russell Crowe as Jack Knife really didn't work here, and his dialogue was atrocious. His introduction in the brothel was cringe worthy, as were the many scenes where he was with prostitutes. I could barely stand those scenes because they were so poorly written and awkwardly filmed, and he was below average here, although he has one or two cool moments throughout the movie, as well as the fact that he has a rotating gun/knife. My favorite character is probably Rick Yune's Zen-Yi, and he was a man of few words, yet his armor, look, and personality spoke loudly. He was really cool and enjoyable, and I think he should've been in the film more. I also really liked the "villain" called Brass Body (David Bautista), and he was awesome since whenever and wherever he got hit, that part of the body would turn into brass and shield himself.

The preposterous action here is full of bizarre things, and people are flying everywhere, blood spurts out comically, and everything is over-the-top and nonsensical. It defies logic and physics, and that's particularly what made the concept of this sort of action sound so enjoyable, and although at times it's a real beauty to watch (especially lots of the action during the final fight scene), it's somewhat obnoxious. The opening scene is unimpressive and it gave me low hopes that the movie would rise anywhere above its current state. The opening action scene is mindless and overly ridiculous, and I literally got a headache watching it. Of course, thankfully, the movie did improve gradually as time went on, but it takes a very long time to even become a mildly good movie, and it's a frustrating experience before the final fight.

Not even the final fight is anything spectacular, but it's hard to not call it "special", in the way that there are lots of interesting and unique features about it. It's similar to lots of the action sequences earlier in the movie, but I felt like they put more effort into that scene to make it more beautiful to look at. There's an obvious overload of CGI in order for RZA to achieve what he wanted to, and some of the CGI in the finale looked great, yet other parts looked unimpressive. For example, there's this small part where Rick Yune's character, Zen-Yi, slices multiple people with a sword in slow-motion and the blood makes this really cool "brush" effect, and I loved that small, but fascinating part. Yet, there's other scenes that don't look all too impressive, including the final confrontation with Brass Body, and although that scene was enjoyable, the CGI looked ridiculous and a little effortless.

I actually really liked the music here, whether it was the background music that accompanied lots of the more slower scenes that didn't pack quite the punch, or if it's RZA's rap music. I'm not a fan of rap music, and I've only listened to a couple Wu Tang Clan songs, but RZA's rapping oddly fit well. It felt out of place in the way that it had no association with the historical context or the location, but it felt like it deserved to be there, similar to Quentin Tarantino's usage of rap music in Django Unchained. It's weird to think rap music would fit in a scenario like this, but it did. I also like the other background music that I unfortunately can't find, and it ranges from calming to absolutely cool, especially when it accompanies the fight scenes. The film also generally looks beautiful- that is, except from the actual fights- when it comes to set design, costumes, and cinematography. It was really nice to look at, and there was lots of detail put into that kind of stuff.

The main problem with this movie is the idea of being self-aware. I can't tell what's intentional and unintentional, and I don't know if lots of the flaws such as the acting, the dialogue, and the story were intentionally bad to replicate the kung-fu genre's frequently cheesy, ridiculous movies, or not. There's really not enough tension to take this movie seriously, nor is there enough humor to take this film enjoyably. There's obvious attempts at dark humor frequently, especially whenever someone gets decapitated and blood spurts everywhere, or a situation similar to that, but it really doesn't work. You can tell RZA tried to use a style reminiscent to Tarantino's, such as the Kill Bill movies, with over-the-top, ridiculous action, yet RZA misses the mark. I'm not surprised that Eli Roth is involved here, especially with his love of blood and gore, and this seemed like his kind of movie with all these body parts flying around. As I previously mentioned, I could definitely see what RZA had in mind with this one and what his intentions were, which was paying homage to the kung-fu genre in the most over-the-top style possible, yet the execution doesn't quite reach the potential. It really doesn't sound as enjoyable as you would think it would be, and even if you're a fan of highly-stylized, bloody violence, you'd have to be able to get through choppy and messy editing.

The Man With the Iron Fists isn't a horrible movie and I admittedly had some mild fun every once in a while, and RZA did an OK job at a directorial debut. It's really not hard to see what he was going for, but everything doesn't live up to that potential. The acting ranges from downright bad to downright cool, the plot is non-existent, and the action is often disappointingly ugly to look at, despite some pretty awesome stuff every once in a while. Even with all these flaws, it looks like everyone involved is having a blast, and I really wouldn't be surprised if this movie becomes a future cult classic of some sort. It's a messy film indeed, and I would most likely never revisit this movie again, but RZA's attempt at resembling someone like Tarantino's over-the-top, enjoyable style is mostly cloudy, with a few rays of sunshine every once in a while. It's hard to review a film like this because it seems like it's intentionally trying to be cheesy as it's paying homage to the kung-fu genre, but that doesn't mean that I exactly enjoyed what I was seeing. The Man With the Iron Fists is a weird movie, and it's often messy like most of its inspirations were, but it was still an interesting attempt.