The Man With The Iron Fists

[Dolemite]

Nah, you dont.

Yeah I do. It's all kinds of awesome.

[A Robot Bit Me]

Revenge: Rza seeks revenge for what they did(Not going to spoiler that).

It's a movie about a guy with no arms. I think we can do the math.

[A Robot Bit Me]

"I'm sorry about your father. I... I never intended the poison laden darts and swords I've been indiscriminately selling to maniacs to be used for killing, mysterious stranger."

[Dolemite]

It was a pretty damn good movie, but not perfect.

When it was on, it was motherfucking ON...some of the weapon designs were brilliant, and I really loved the melding of 70's Kung-Fu style with urban Hip-Hop flavor...the opening credits were fantastic. You can tell RZA's passion for Hong Kong chop socky flicks, as that passion pretty much bled from every frame of this movie.

Jack Knife was cool, Bronze Body was awesome, I enjoyed Lucy Liu and her killer whores a great deal, and the spikey armor the bad guy from The Fast and the Furious was wearing was the single greatest thing I've seen in any martial arts film in years. The sets were fantastic (filming in China obviously helped), and some of the fight scenes were mind-blowing and very inventive; RZA didn't just go and ape 70's Kung-Fu movie fights...he approached them with modern style, technology, and editing, but still maintained that 70's feel in many respects.

But the problem was clearly that RZA has no experience at all as a director. The film has major pacing problems and the story is completely unfocused and all over the place. Characters appear, disappear, and then return after you've almost forgotten about them. I also felt that some of the fights had a few too many rapid cuts and some sloppy camera work. Plus, I couldn't even tell if anyone in this movie even knew martial arts. Most of them just seemed like actors going through the motions.

And I was worried when RZA cast himself in the lead...I've always wondered if the dude has some sort of speech impediment (like a mild lisp or something...you can hear it both when he talks and when he raps), and that, coupled with his low, subdued manner of talking made his narration somewhat difficult to understand sometimes. But I ceased to give a shit about that once he got his arms chopped off and made the Iron Fists...then he became bad-ass. His fight with Bronze Body was pretty damn cool.

Overall, I had a lot of fun with this. I'd love a sequel once RZA has gained some experience.