The Man with The Iron fists

paddy kerins

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7l3okIqnCg

In feudal China, a blacksmith who makes weapons for a small village is put in the position where he must defend himself and his fellow villagers

RZA directs and stars along side Russell Crowe, Lucy Liu, Pam Grier and Jamie Chung.

Looks suitably insane, can't wait for it

Mickeroo

That. Looks. Class.

johnny_ultimate

That's some iffy CGI blood!

Mickeroo

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

That's some iffy CGI blood!

I didn't take too much notice of it. Its more the fact that RZA is behind it and the cast that has me excited. Plus that bit with the eyeball!

It certainly looks a hell of a lot better than the last kung fu film that the Rza was involved in. That said, Wu-Tang Vs. The Golden Phoenix looked like it could be a loving homage to those badly dubbed, low budget kung fu films released in the 80s.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=seJaWTEJvLI

Bobby Baccala

RZA is the only reason i want to see this, not only is he an excellent MC and one of the best hip hop producers alive, it seems he can direct a pretty damn good film.

JP Liz V1

"Quentin Tarantino presents" is that the new wording for a producer role

chin_grin

Heh......Blanka at 1:09.

But this looks absolutely terrible.

Dodgy CG (the ribbons and the 'blood'), crappy wirework and co-written and directed by Rza? I'm out.

pixelburp

This thread / trailer makes me feel old & out of touch: I had to use google to find out who this 'RZA' chap was.

Tarantino's blessing on this does somewhat confirm to me that he's completely overindulging in this Grindhouse schtick.

Tayleur

Maybe some good fun. Ill definitely be looking out for it. Hopefully some of the cgi improves by the time its released.

Mickeroo

pixelburp wrote: »

This thread / trailer makes me feel old & out of touch: I had to use google to find out who this 'RZA' chap was.

Tarantino's blessing on this does somewhat confirm to me that he's completely overindulging in this Grindhouse schtick.

Ah here, its the young fellas that shouldn't be familiar with RZA, he's been around the last twenty years :P

I'd say Tarantino is helping him out because they'd know eachother from kill bill, RZA did some music for it iirc. He also did the brilliant score (and a wee cameo in) for Ghost Dog: Way of the Samurai. Wu-Tang Clan used to use a lot of samples from kung-fu movies and such in their music, he knows his stuff when it comes to this kind of thing, which is why I think the film might be a lot of fun.

pixelburp

Mickeroo wrote: »

Ah here, its the young fellas that shouldn't be familiar with RZA, he's been around the last twenty years :P

Well now, saying that has gone and made me feel even older!

AnonoBoy

pixelburp wrote: »

Well now, saying that has gone and made me feel even older!

To be fair it's music he's more known for so don't feel bad.

ziedth

It looks bananas, for some reason I can't wait...

johnny_ultimate

This is, alas, not so good. By directing, co-writing, starring and scoring this, the feeling is that Mr. ZA has significantly overstretched himself. The acting is almost universally appalling, from the non-native English speakers to Russell Crowe, while the dialogue / voiceover occasionally incomprehensible (could have been the sound quality in the cinema): even for this sort of thing. The editing is so hyperactive and the photography so perfunctory that it feels like you're watching an extended ninety-minute montage. The story is on a whole other level of nonsense - there's dozens and dozens of characters and its impossible to care who is who or why they just decapitated that guy. The script is co-written by Eli Roth, so perhaps it's not entirely surprising it's so woefully written.

The fighting aims somewhere between Hero and Kill Bill, but RZA is not Tarantino and he's sure as hell not Zhang Yimou. Even compared to the cheesy Hong Kong Shaw Brothers action films it is so indebted to, this is lacking in style and wit. Not funny enough to be a satire, not slick enough to be a worthy entry in its own right, the tone just feels off throughout.

The sets and production values are undoubtedly fancy and well-considered, though - it's just a shame the editing is so shambolic and the pacing so ruthlessly manic that you can never fully appreciate the sights. Not surprisingly given Tarantino's involvement, the retro credits are almost a highlight, and there's some cameos from recognisable grindhouse / Hong Kong faces. There's some relatively decent moments in the film's climactic action scenes, but the most visually striking and potentially exhilarating fight sequence of the film lasts about twenty seconds before RZA and his editor cut away to something much less interesting. Which, TBH, kind of sums up the film on the whole.

shadowcomplex

has anyone seen this movie, any good

paddy kerins

shadowcomplex wrote: »

has anyone seen this movie, any good

Not particularly, no. Looks good but other wise it's not worth it

melekalikimaka

shadowcomplex wrote: »

has anyone seen this movie, any good

i liked it, its good imo, it does what it says on the tin

PirateShampoo

It is what it is.

Turn your brain off and enjoy it for that.

Potential-Monke

Remember watching it a while back and was very underwhelmed by it. It felt more like a prequel to a film of the same name (yet to be made). And normally i love these kind of films, but no, not very good at all.

It was no surprise that Rza's first film would be a loving homage to the poorly dubbed kung fu films of the 70s and 80s. After all, his music has from the very start has been a love letter to the work of the Shaw Brothers and a dozen other largely ignored and forgotten legends of martial arts cinema. Rza has over the years worked in a varitery of positions on a number of memorable films, from his days composing the scores to Kill Bill and the wonderful Ghost Dog: The Way Of The Samurai, to his career as a rather decent actor and as such one would expect that he had picked up quite a bit considering that he has worked alongside filmmakers such as Jim Jarmusch and Quentin Tarantino.

What is surprising about The Man With the Iron Fists is just how poor it all is. Rza takes on a number of roles including co-writing, directing, starring and scoring the film and one can't help but assume that the film would have been far better off had he simply donned one hat. The script is incomprehensible and has so many various characters that we never really have much of a clue what's going on. What we do know is that various groups of people want to get their hands on some gold but thanks to the poor script and atrocious editing that's about all we know. The script seems to have been put together by someone who has spent years dreaming upset pieces, characters and ideas but with no idea of how to use them to create a coherent or interesting story. The films stumbles from one poorly conceived set up to the next with characters existing simply to deliver a line of exposition or die in a largely uninteresting manner.

The editing here is amongst the worst in many a year. Rza and his editor seem to be under the impression that cutting every half second is the key to creating tension. Fight scenes are lost in a flurry of quick edits and there's no sense of symmetry to any of it. More often than not you'll have no idea just what is happening . Not satisfied with simply confusing the viewer through sloppy editing, the Rza indulges in some cliched use of split screen further adding to the confusion and creating fight scenes about as easy to follow as reading braille.

The fight scenes themselves lack any sense of originality or wit and feel like the Rza simply taking scenes he's liked in films. There's no sense of logic to what unfolds and the use of various styles just confuses. Rather than rely on skilled fighters or stunt men the Rza instead opts for some of the poorest CGI this side of 1997. Having spent the last week watching the Lone Wolf and Cub series, the watered down and generic nature of the set pieces here just felt hollow. When you find yourself questioning the internal logic of a generic kung fu film then you know that there's something deeply wrong with what you are watching.

It's hard to think of any area where the film genuinely impresses. The production design is gorgeous but we never really get a chance to savor it and in the brief moments that we do all it really does is call to mind the various film that the Rza pilfers from. It's obvious that the Rza intended his film as a love letter to the kung fu cinema of the Shaw Brothers but instead the final product feels like a cheap knock off that hasn't got a single original idea or moment of it's own. The Man With the Iron Fists is one of those ambitious films that sets out to impress you with it's knowledge of the genre but hasn't got anything original or interesting to say. What makes it all the more insulting is that having assembled a cast of international genre masters, the Rza gives them absolutely nothing to do of note. The Man With the Iron Fists is a dull, plodding and generic action film that would feel more at home on the bottom shelf of a video store way back in 1991.

Anyone who stays till the end is best advised to leave before the truly atrocious and cheap looking, mid credits sequel set up scene.

shamrock55

Reminds me too much of kill bill, which i didnt like

Chris_Heilong

Kill Bill was great and this one was alright, the guy done a great job considering it was his first film. If you have grown up with Kung Fu films then you will get most of whats going on here. Silly fun but totally a B movie from start to finish.

Chris_Heilong

Chris_Heilong wrote: »

Kill Bill was great and this one was alright, the guy done a great job considering it was his first film. If you have grown up with Kung Fu films then you will get most of whats going on here. Silly fun but totally a B movie from start to finish.

I think the Rza did a terrible job in every department and having grown up watching the classic Kung fu films I just felt let down. The old Kung fu films from the classics to the utterly cheesy and terribly made ones all had one thing in common, the fight scenes all looked good. Here they were a mess of quick edits and poor choreography.

Boom_Bap

Agreed that this movie was pretty bad. I love the Rza, and was real excited to see this movie. Very let down by it, there were 1 or 2 nice little things in some of the fight scenes but not majorly original.

But, an excellent soundtrack came out of it.

Seems that a sequel to this is being released near the end of the year. Titled The Man with the Iron Fists: Sting of the Scorpion it's from a script by Rza but directed by Direct to DVD king Roel Reine, so this time around the action should be well shot and the median shot length should be more than a fraction of a second.