Movie review: The Man with the Iron Fists

Grade: D+

I thought *The Man with the Iron Fists* was horrible. However, if you’re looking forward to this film then you can take my review with a grain of salt because this isn’t a genre that I’m overly fond of. Not to say that I don’t enjoy any martial arts movies. I thought *Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon* was fantastic.

*The Man with the Iron Fists* mixed comic book and old style Kung Fu influences along with modern hip-hop and pup culture. That is to say it’s an amalgamation of styles. The story was heavy handed and relied on narration throughout. There’s nothing wrong with that approach. All these elements could have been used to create an entertaining movie. But I just didn’t see it. I sat in the theater rather bored  and didn’t care how it ended.

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What bothered me the most was that in many of the fight scenes, not all for sure, the choreography seemed clumsy and even awkward at times. I don’t know if it was strictly the choreography or the execution. But most of the fight scenes just didn’t thrill me. They did however provide most of the humor or at least gasps from the audience as we saw something completely over the top. For instance an insane amount of blood gushing from a wound in a hyper-unrealistic way.

The good news is that it wasn’t wretched, like a few movies I’ve seen lately. RZA – director and co-writer – definitely has talent and shows some promise. I’m looking forward to seeing some of the films he has coming out in a few years to see how he grows.