The Man with the Iron Fists is an American martial arts film set in 19th century China. Debuting as writer and director of the film, RZA (Co-founder of the hip hop group Wu-Tang Clan) also plays the leading role as Blacksmith (who is also the narrating voice throughout). Accompanying RZA are a few well known faces as well as some new faces, including, Russell Crowe (Jack Knife), Lucy Liu (Madam Blossom), Rick Yune (Zen Yi, The X-Blade), and Dave Bautista (Brass Body).
From the first 15 minutes I didn’t think this film would be the one for me. There were several characters and “clans” introduced all at once and the story line seemed hard to follow. With the constant voice of the narrator throughout the film, it made it confusing as to who the main character was. He spoke as a first-person participant but you didn’t see much involvement from him until about half way through. It was around this point that I found myself completely engrossed and on the edge of my seat eager to see what catastrophe would unravel next.
With a busy plotline, this film presents an adventure of a young man on the hunt to avenge his murdered father. The main action goes down in Jungle Village where Blacksmith who actually works as the towns’ blacksmith is responsible for creating sophisticated tools to use as weapons. We witness complex Kung-fu fights with characters that are literally human weapons and ancient Chinese fighting techniques using mind control and inner Chi.
With influences and a little help from Quentin Tarantino there’s no doubt that this is an interesting story (once you catch on). There is a strong presence of love, justice, betrayal and vengeance throughout with aspects of feminism for us ladies. If you’re after a typical action-packed movie with heroes, bad guys, love, sex and war then this is the perfect movie for you; however, if you’re not so into blood and dead bodies then beware, there are some pretty gruesome scenes that almost sent me out of my seat.