The Man with the Iron Fists brings the action and style similar to a Kill Bill or Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, but lacks in story, acting, and dialogue. Basically the movie revolves around a power struggle in ancient China between clans like The Lion Clan, Hyena Clan, Wolf Clan, and so on. The Blacksmith (RZA) makes weapons for the various clans but he gets caught in the middle of all of the fighting and gets his arms chopped off. Jack Knife (Russell Crowe), an
Australian mercenary, helps save the Blacksmith and helps him create
his “iron fists”. Now that is "simply put". The movie seems a lot more complicated, but that all that's really important.
The action is over the top, bloody, and very entertaining. But unfortunately, the rest of the movie is very average at best. The acting and dialogue comes across very corny, which may be it's intention given how the film plays out, but I wasn't very impressed with it. RZA has in hands in nearly everything in this movie and he is decent as the "man in the iron fists", but I feel it should have went to another actor. The directing is what you would expect from a movie like this. This is a very different role for Russell Crowe. You can tell he had fun with this role and he is one of the better parts of the movie. Lucy Liu also shows up playing very similar to her Kill Bill character. A big part of this movie is music. Some may hate it, but for me it helped set the mood. It's chocked full of up tempo hip hop songs, including a little Wu-Tang Clan, which was nice to hear. This movie pays tribute to the Shaw Brothers kung-fu flicks and it defines a popcorn flick, so sit back and just have some fun.
...AND SIMPLY PUT...A DECENT POPCORN FLICK. C+
Director: RZA
Rating: R for bloody violence, strong sexuality, language and brief drug use
The Man with the Iron Fists out November 2 is Now in Theaters.
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