My Hometown Blogathon

The Man with the Iron Fists

Directed by RZA.

2012. Rated R, 95 minutes.

Cast:

RZA

Russell Crowe

Lucy Liu

Rick Yune

Jamie Chung

Dave Bautista

Cung Le

Byron Mann

Daniel Wu

Zhu Zhu

Pam Grier

Gordon Liu

Andrew Ng

Zen Yi (Yune) is away getting married when he gets word that his father has been killed. Right away, he decides to head home to Jungle Village and exact his revenge against the Lion clan. Ah yes, the most tried and true plot of martial arts flicks. Englishman Jack Knife (Crowe) is in the area in hopes of finding gold. All of the warring clans get their rather heinous weapons from the local blacksmith known only as...um…Blacksmith (RZA). Okay, fine. Whether it’s time for lovin’ or fightin’ everyone congregates at the local house of ill repute run by Madam Blossom (Liu). Bad narration, cheesy dialogue and gory martial arts goodness ensues.

If you know anything about the brains behind this operation, it makes perfect sense for this movie to turn out precisely as it does. The Man with the Iron Fists formed in the mind of its writer and director the RZA (pronounced Riz-uh for the uninitiated). He’s also one of the people most responsible for giving us one of the greatest groups in hip hop history, The Wu-Tang Clan. They built a mythology surrounding themselves in which 70s and 80s martial arts movies play a huge role influencing both the music they created and philosophies they espoused. This movie is nothing short of an unabashed homage to those films. Though RZA struggles in his acting role, as director he gives us a visual treat chock full of Shaw Brothers inspired madness.

Another major influence is the work of producer Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill, for which the RZA provided the score along with QT pals Robert Rodriguez and Eli Roth. As a result “…Iron Fists” achieves a look and tongue-in-cheek feel of movies by all three. It lacks the depth and quality of their work but its apparent reverence for the genre that inspired it at least puts it in the same vein. Roth was even brought in as a co-writer on the screenplay. He’s been credited mostly with chopping the movie down from a four hour, two part behemoth down to its fighting weight of just over 90 minutes. Thank goodness.

Russell Crowe and Lucy Liu seem to be having great fun hamming it up. Crowe does everything except twirl his moustache between his index finger and thumb. Meanwhile, Liu revisits her Kill Bill days. Big, bad wrestler Bautista effectively stomps around the set knocking over things and people alike while grunting his lines. His character is heavily influenced by both Toad from the genre classic Five Deadly Venoms and Colossal of the X-Men. This is a perfect blend of old school kung fu flick and comic book sensibilities. This lends authenticity to the hokeyness that is Iron Fists. It would have been perfectly at home in either of the two places where the RZA saw most of those martial arts pictures during his formative years, either in a grindhouse theater on Manhattan’s 42nd Street or at 3 o’clock every Saturday afternoon on Channel 5 (WNEW, back then). At least, that’s where me and all my friends saw them. The plots were always simple, the acting and dialogue was almost always bad and the fighting was always exhilarating.

If you go into …Iron Fists expecting anything other than a zany kung fu flick you’ll be sorely disappointed. A sharply written plot and Oscar-worthy performances are not found her. To be honest, don’t even expect it all to make sense within its own context. Things get convoluted, at times. All of these together normally add up to a very bad movie. However, the blood splattering action makes it a package just too cheesy to resist. If you’re like me, a heavy nostalgia takes over. Before you know it, you’re having a grand time watching a rotten movie. That’s right, it’s so bad it’s awesome!

MY SCORE: -10/10

Kung Fu Panda 2

Directed by Jennifer Yuh.

2011. Rated PG, 91 minutes.
Cast:
Jack Black
Angelina Jolie
Dustin Hoffman
Gary Oldman
Jackie Chan
Seth Rogen
Lucy Liu
David Cross
James Hong
Michelle Yeoh
Danny McBride
Dennis Haybert
Jean-Claude Van Damme
Victor Garber

Since becoming the Dragon Warrior, Po (Black) is enjoying life and dispatching the occasional bad guy. Of course, we wouldn’t get a new movie without a newer, greater threat on the horizon. That threat comes in the form of shunned peacock Shen (Oldman). He was banished from the city he calls home long ago for being a very bad boy. Now he’s back with plans to take over all of China, starting with his hometown. Though he’s pretty darn good at martial arts, fighting isn’t his main tactic. Instead, he has created something that seems to symbolize the death of kung fu itself. Not only is it up to Po and the rest of the Furious Five to stop him, but Po is also dealing with an identity crisis. Having never met another panda, he wants to figure out where he came from and what happened to his parents.

Like he was in the original, our hero is still a goofball and very much like most other characters played by Jack Black. By the way, his schtick works better here than in his live-action roles. There are also fun interactions between Po, Master Shifu (Hoffman) and the rest of the Furious Five. In particular, his moments with Tigress (Jolie) provides a huge chunk of the movie’s most tender moments. Another large chunk comes from Po’s time with the only dad he’s known. There is also plenty of action, even more than in the original since we don’t have to spend so much time on Po learning to fight.

Alas, more action does not necessarily make a good movie. This is a good movie because it maintains its predecessor’s most important trait. Aside from the fighting, the plot functions as much like a true martial arts film as it does a kiddie flick. Other than using human beings not many changes, if any, would be needed. It would be right at home amongst a group of Shaw Brothers productions.

It also helps that Gary Oldman gives us a wonderful heel in Shen. He’s more menacing than Tai Lung from the first movie because instead of wanting to be more than he is, Shen embraces his villainy. His one true care is about vengeance. What he has to do to achieve it is not important to him, only that it is done. Oldman conveys this in that just over the top, maniacal bad guy. Even as just a voice actor, he continues to show he is one of the most versatile performers in Hollywood.

When speaking of sequels, I don’t like saying that if you liked the first, you’ll like the second. In this case, that’s a true statement. The follow-up maintains the original’s magic and expands enough to still feel fresh. It pulls the trick of making us feel like we know these characters and that their adventure is bigger because they’ve grown – not just because. I’d be naïve to say it definitely isn’t, but it doesn’t feel like a cash-grab. It feels like the continuation of a saga.

MY SCORE: 8/10