The Man with the Iron Fists (2012)

Starring: RZA, Russell Crowe, Rick Yune, Dave Bautista, Lucy Liu, Byron Mann, Jamie Chung, Cung Le, and Pam Grier
Grade: D

I have no idea how RZA was able to get funding to make a sequel to this.

Summary

In 19th-century China, there was a place called Jungle Village. It was ruled by many different clans that were constantly at war with each other. The village’s Blacksmith (RZA) makes weapons for everyone. His girlfriend Lady Silk (Chung) is a prostitute at the Pink Blossom. Their goal is to leave Jungle Village. However, everything changed when Gold Lion (Chen Kuan-tai), leader of the Lion Clan, was summoned to the Governor’s palace. Here, we see that the Governor (Terence Yin) was giving Gold Lion a shipment of gold he was sending through Jungle Village to his soldiers in the north. However, after learning of the mission, Silver Lion (Mann) and Bronze Lion (Le) turned on Gold Lion during a fight with the Hyena Clan and let Poison Dagger (Daniel Wu) get an open shot to kill him. The only person left that can stop these guys is Zen-Yi (Yune), Gold Lion’s son. He is set on getting married to his girlfriend Chi Chi (Zhu Zhu), but he is given the news of his father’s death. This forces Zen-Yi to pause on his wedding plans and avenge his father’s death. Silver Lion has now taken over leadership of the Lion Clan and promises to “protect” the Governor’s gold. Even so, he argues they should attack the Wolf Clan before they attack them since he assumes that they think the Lion Clan has been weakened by Gold Lion’s death and plan on doing it anyway. One guy argues that they should wait for Zen-Yi since he’s arguably their best soldier, but Silver Lion tests them by challenging their strength as soldiers. Following this, members of the Wolf Clan demand that the Blacksmith make twelve battle axes by that night, but he tells them it will take three days.

They compromise on two days.

As the work continues to pile up, a mercenary named Jack Knife (Crowe) enters Jungle Village and heads straight to the Pink Blossom for some nice whores. The charming madman talks with owner Madam Blossom (Liu) and starts making a list for what he would enjoy for the night, including which women he prefers. The last one he picks is already with a customer named Crazy Hippo, but he takes her away from the guy anyway. Hippo tries to fight him, but Jack Knife immediately kills him, cutting out his insides in front of everyone before enjoying the rest of his night with his women. Right after, the Blacksmith goes in to hang out with Lady Silk, giving her more of the money he’s made so they can get closer to leaving town. Elsewhere, Zen-Yi is on his way to Jungle Village and gets attacked by a random group. Thankfully, he murders the holy hell out of them with the help of his knife-rigged “X-Blade” suit that basically makes him a superhero. Unfortunately, he wasn’t able to find out who sent them. Back in Jungle Village, it’s revealed they were sent by Silver Lion. He gets the news they failed and how they are running out of time to steal the Governor’s gold. On top of that, the gold is being escorted by the Gemini Killers (Andrew Lin and Grace Huang). That’s not all though. If they take the gold before it reaches the north, the government will send in the troops. Additionally, the government’s secret emissary has been sent to Jungle Village to assist.

That person is Jack Knife.

Somewhere outside of town, Zen-Yi is approached by some of the loyal Lion Clan members that served Gold Lion. They tell Zen-Yi of Silver Lion turning into a warmonger, which was the exact opposite of what Gold Lion wanted. Soon after, we see Silver Lion carrying out his plans by attacking the Wolf Clan. Back in Jungle Village, Brass Body (Bautista) gets into town, exchanging glances with the Blacksmith on the street. Silver Lion’s right-hand man tells him that the Gemini Killers will arrive with the gold by sunrise, but they are prepared for them. Brass Body then joins them, with Silver Lion hiring him to kill Zen-Yi. Because he actually has a superhuman ability to turn his body into metal, he is impervious to Zen-Yi’s blades from his suit. As Jack continues to have sex with his beloved hookers, Zen-Yi arrives in town and heads straight to the Dragon Inn. The Blacksmith drops off some more money for Lady Silk, telling her she can finally leave Madam Blossom. Just then, Zen-Yi is made aware of Brass Body’s presence in some alley, so he leaves the Dragon Inn, only to find him killing a teenager with no remorse. Zen-Yi goes to war with Brass Body and gets his ass kicked. Without a doubt, he is on the verge of death. Thankfully, Zen-Yi’s partner is able to pull this rope that was attached to this awning hanging over Brass Body. It falls on Brass Body and Zen-Yi’s partner, killing him. It doesn’t kill Brass Body, but it’s enough to keep him down for a moment. This allows the Blacksmith, who heard everything from the Pink Blossom, to go down and save an unconscious Zen-Yi discreetly. He is saved because Brass Body has no idea where he went, but he is weakened.

The next day, the Gemini Killers arrive with the gold, and they stop at the Dragon Inn. Silver Lion and members of the Lion Clan storm in and demand the gold. It turns into a huge fight, resulting in the death of the Geminis by the hands of Poison Dagger. Jack Knife comes into the Dragon Inn to investigate afterwards and takes a look at the mark of Poison Dagger on the neck of Mrs. Gemini. He comes to the conclusion that it’s mercury. The only person that would have access to mercury in the village, according to the owner of the Dragon Inn, is the Blacksmith. Word has gotten to the Governor of the Lions taking the gold, so he calls in the gun-toting Jackal troops, giving them a message that if any single piece of the gold is missing, Jungle Village will be burnt to the ground. A recovering Zen-Yi asks the Blacksmith why he is helping him, so the Blacksmith admits he created the weapons that were used to kill Golden Lion. As a result, he is filled with regret. Understanding, Zen-Yi asks the Blacksmith to make him a new suit of knives. He agrees because his debt will then be paid, though he promises this will be the last set of weapons he ever makes as he’s headed out of Jungle Village with Lady Silk. Unfortunately, the Blacksmith is captured by Brass Body, Silver Lion, and the Lion Clan and interrogated about the whereabouts of Zen-Yi. He refuses to say anything, even after being offered a job. Because of this, they hold him down and Brass Body cuts off his hands, with Jack Knife watching in secret nearby. They leave him to die, but Jack saves him and helps him in his recovery. Now there’s only one goal on everyone’s mind: bring down Silver Lion at all costs.

The first step is to help the Blacksmith, and he comes up with one more weapon, only this time it’s for himself: fists made of iron.

My Thoughts:

The Man with the Iron Fists is a homage to those over-the-top, ridiculous, cheesy martial arts action films of the past, specifically those that came out of the camp of the Shaw Brothers. In fact, the film The 36th Chamber of Shaolin was the inspiration for the title of the Wu-Tang Clan’s debut album, Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers). RZA had this idea cooking for a while and some of the ideas do translate well as a homage. It’s got the weird character names, the hero getting his ass kicked and coming back with a vengeance, and fun and ultra-violent action. Even with all of this, I just couldn’t get into it. Though it was marketed with the “Quentin Tarantino Presents” tag, so we give it a pass on it trying to emulate these old films, it didn’t carry the interesting characters, the unforgettable visual flare, or the great dialogue of something Tarantino would’ve had his hands on. If you want an ode to this genre of goofy ass films, just watch the Kill Bill franchise.

At least there, you get a great movie and a sequel instead of one relatively short and somewhat boring film.

As a fan of the Wu-Tang Clan, it’s cool to see RZA venture out and try directing and writing, along with his acting. I like his drive, but he was not up to the task with this one. For starters, there was nothing special about his directing. There was no visual flare or spark where I felt we need more of RZA behind the camera. The screenplay had some ideas, but it came off as so cheesy and underdeveloped that it threw me off. If you want to emulate the style of these previous films, you have to acknowledge the campiness in some fashion for modern audiences to latch on. This film took itself way too seriously for being this outlandish. On top of all that, RZA was gloriously mediocre as the main actor. I’ve seen movies where he’s solid as a supporting character. Here, in his own movie no less, he’s the lead and fails miserably. He kept the same somber facial expression the ENTIRE movie. This includes when his girlfriend is murdered. He just stares. He couldn’t handle the emotional weight of the story he helped write. He didn’t even feel like the true main character either. He’s overshadowed by Crowe’s performance and Rick Yune’s Zen-Yi and his story because it encompasses the whole film. At the beginning, we are teased with RZA’s narration about how important he’s going to be in the movie. Plus, he’s the namesake of this whole production!

However, by the time we get to the climax, he fights the secondary villain, and Zen-Yi fights the main guy, effectively proving that Zen-Yi is the star, not the actual “Man with the Iron Fists”! How stupid is that?

One thing I did like about his character was when they finally reveal his backstory. There, we find out how he’s an emancipated slave who accidentally killed a white guy that wouldn’t let him go. He escaped to a ship. Eventually, it crashed somewhere by China when he was taken in by monks, and they trained him in various ways, especially how to harness his energy to pull off superhuman feats. This was a particularly interesting background for the otherwise boring character. If the right actor was in the role, I might have cared for it more. I respect RZA’s passion for this project, but it did not show in his acting.

As I said before, the movie took itself way too seriously. If they were to embrace the humor of some of the ridiculousness of the fighting or the characters, it may have helped a bit. I’m not saying this should’ve been a parody or anything, but the dark and serious tone they were going for was not mixing with the outrageousness of the action. In addition, we don’t have the emotional attachment to these characters that was needed to take this story seriously. In fact, you won’t care at all. Silver Lion was a joke, and Daniel Wu’s Poison Dagger was a cartoon in all of the worst ways. He looked like a video game villain from the 90s and his “creepy” voice was laughable. The only person remotely interesting was the opium and alcohol-addicted Jack Knife. His stupid character name only worked because of Russell Crowe’s conviction in the role.

The word “conviction” is important here because none of the other actors out of the main cast had it in their performance (with the exception of Lucy Liu).

Crowe seemed to be having a lot of fun playing this dirty, weird, and brutal government official. Without question, he stole the movie, mostly because he was the only one with an entertaining personality. Lucy Liu was pretty solid too. She’s this tough owner of the whorehouse and is willing to snap and kill at a moment’s notice. You can see this controlled anger in her eyes in every scene she’s in. It’s like she’s waiting for one of these corrupt officials to give her a reason to enact some violence. If anything, she may have needed a bigger part in the movie. She never crossed paths with the Blacksmith, which I thought was a missed opportunity. To me, it would’ve made sense if she was mad at the Blacksmith for continuously giving Lady Silk money to buy her out. It would’ve been a fun scene to see her try to intimidate the Blacksmith, so we can see how he would handle a situation like that. Something like this would give us some insight on how he deals with different enemies, and it could’ve added another layer to his personality. Naturally, RZA didn’t think of that, and I’m not surprised. He was just focused on giving stupid ass lines to his actors like when Zen-Yi said to him at the end that he “lost a father, but I gained a brother”.

Have you not heard that in every poorly-made action movie ever, or am I crazy?

I can get on board with some of these wild characters, but I feel like Brass Body’s superpowers should be explained to us. They explained everything regarding the Blacksmith and how he’s able to create his iron fists by harnessing his “chi” and using it to activate inanimate objects until he becomes one with it. As crazy as that sounds out of context, it makes sense in the movie. However, Brass Body’s whole thing is really out there and should at the very least, be explained in a sentence or two. The only thing we find about the character is that he’s from the extinct Tiger Clan, but the reason they are extinct is because he killed them all. For what reason? I have no clue because this was all the information given to us. What’s even more annoying was Dave Bautista’s real-life process in approaching the character. He had the audacity to call the character a “good guy” who “made a lot of bad choices in his life. He doesn’t really understand the difference between right and wrong“. Did he even read the fucking script? This dude is a no-nonsense murderer with zero personality and backstory, and he killed a teenager and a woman! There are no nuanced details in this script to suggest anything otherwise. What a pretentious ass answer by Bautista. It felt like a teenager wrote the screenplay and started throwing things into it because it sounds cool, not realizing a lot more goes into the writing process:

“There’s a bad guy in this 19th century land….but his body is made of metal! He’s hired to kill the good guys! Oh wait, to make him sound more badass, we can say he killed the clan he came from too!”.

Another example would be the one scene with the fat guy named Crazy Hippo. He just blurts out, “They call me Crazy Hippo. I’ve killed over a dozen men”. No one cares man. It felt like elementary school writing. It’s stupid and completely underdone. In all honesty, I’m surprised they were able to grab so many stars for it. Again, I understand you’re trying to emulate those old films, but you can’t just do this the entire time where it comes off as bad and then defend it by saying, “That’s what we were trying to do!”. This can be true to a point, but you still need to make a watchable movie for a modern audience, along with showing them how these old films used to do things. If you go too far into one side of it, you can come off looking bad. This was the case with The Man with the Iron Fists.

At the San Diego Comic-Con, RZA said that The Man with the Iron Fists could’ve easily been a graphic novel. This I can agree with. It’s got the makings of a comic book/superhero vibe where you can get away with this type of style. In a movie format though, it just fell flat. Admittedly, I started to finally get a feel for the world-building towards the end, as the ridiculousness of a man with iron hands fighting a man with a metal body in the 19th century didn’t feel so crazy anymore. However, the lead up to it all just didn’t make it seem worth it. Even with a great cast, an interesting idea, some solid action, really cool weapons, and lots of creativity sprinkled all over the final product, The Man with the Iron Fists comes off as one of those movies that aimed way too high. I understand what they were going for, but it was still unoriginal, boring (except the scenes with Russell Crowe), and kind of stupid at times.