The biggest problem with this film is that, unless you’re a 14-year-old boy, it’s hard to ignore the woeful acting and clunky storyline and just enjoy the sexy ladies and gratuitous violence. The end result is a film that disappoints on so many levels.
Just the first of the many things to grate is the attempts of the credits and trailer to intimate that Quentin Tarantino is somehow involved, when all he actually did was lend his name as a PR favor to his chum RZA (he of Wu Tang Clan fame), who wrote the story and screenplay with another pal of Tarantino’s, actor/producer Eli Roth.
RZA also appears in the film as a blacksmith who somehow ends up in a rural Chinese village inhabited by various ever-warring clans. Their perpetual infighting is disrupted when the Lion clan agrees to protect a shipment of gold from the emperor. This leads to Silver Lion (Byron Mann, apparently channeling Russell Brand) killing clan leader Golden Lion and attempting to steal the gold. The gold and revenge thus act as a premise for various characters to head to the village and the Dragon Inn, the local hotel-cum-brothel run by Madame Blossom (played by the best thing in the film, Lucy Liu) and her titillating army of scantily-clad ladies.
These various characters include Zen Yi, The X-Blade (Rick Yune) looking to avenge his father’s death, a very hefty looking Russell Crowe as the mysterious Englishmen Jack Knife, and former WWE wrestler Dave Bautista who plays a man who can turn into bronze. In terms of character development that’s about as deep as it gets, though there are some annoying meandering sub-plots along the way. Of course, the end result is an archetypal kung fu showdown that ticks all the genre boxes but fails to get us truly excited.
We love archetypal kung fu flicks but Iron Fists is just not very good. Sure, it sets itself up as a pastiche and is firmly tongue-in-cheek throughout (we hope) but it’s not all that funny. The cartoon-like violence is too relentless, the jokes too tired and leaden, and we can’t even say that the fight sequences, good as some of them are, offer anything new or particularly exciting. Even the original music from the likes of Kanye West and RZA doesn’t really work that well. It says something when one of the best bits about the movie is the closing credits.
Of course, this review, just like the film, may be going more than a little over-the-top; there are people out there who will enjoy this movie, but it just seems so unnecessary. All the people involved, some of whom are very talented, could really have done something much better with their time.
