Phubbs
Posts: 660
Joined: 3/4/2012
|
The Man with the Iron Fists
Do you like homages to the old cheesy classic martial arts films of the 70/80's? lots of frenzied fighting with bones snapping and blades swishing? did you like 'Kill Bill'? then this might be for you. Presented by the man himself Quentin Tarantino you might be thinking this will be ultra cool, well you would be wrong, unless of course you love this kinda stuff.
Quite simply this is another modern day homage to all those old Bruce Lee type kung fu movies (various classic scenes copied in this film), not just his movies but lots of various classic martial arts action flicks. The plot is your typical cliched revenge/fighting clans idea with huge amounts of overblown, ridiculously gory violence, bad hyper looking martial arts fight sequences, lots of bad extreme looking wire work, silly weaponry, silly looking characters with silly names and its all created in that retro 70's style.
Of course I can't rip on the film too much as you know what your getting into when you see the film. There is no beating around the bush or hiding from what this film is going for, it does exactly what it says on the tin and this is delivering super sonic bad assery.
My issue is the film isn't really a very good homage/film nor is the bad assery...errr bad ass. The whole thing looks pretty shabby frankly, there is no originality here and nothing particularly interesting as we've seen this type of thing all before. I don't really see why this went ahead, the whole thing is so corny and predictable, yes I know its suppose to be but I don't see that as an excuse.
The director gave himself the leading role for flips sake despite the fact he can't act or narrate dialog a tall. The rest of the cast and their acting is dreadful (not that I expected anything award winning) accept for Crowe who roars away as he does, dunno why he agreed to be in this though. His knife gun weapon thing looks completely out of place amongst all the ninja-like warfare going on around him.
There is this whole uneasy balance of real time action and fantasy which I didn't really like and I don't think it works. I realize Eastern films enjoy this stuff and it can add to the visuals but you never saw Lee resorting to shit like that. All the crazy ass wire work with people flying around doing super human things and then there's the big muscly guy who's skin turns into metal when attacked...huh?. So how come he has tattoo's...ah who cares.
It all looks bright and dynamic with good sets and they have recreated the retro look well, credits included. A kind of love child spawning from 'Kill Bill' and 'Big Trouble in Little China', yet so violent and claret heavy it becomes more of a spoof lacking any real tension. Thing is the action doesn't even look that good, more cheap n tacky, at least 'Kill Bill' was super slick, hell one of the films main characters turns into 'Jax' outta 'Mortal Kombat' for pete's sake! and that's the main plot!. It also begs the question...if your forearms were made out of iron surely they would be too heavy to move? very slow going, and why would that enable you to punch through walls and other metal objects?.
Its hard to review films like this really, its a homage to a certain genre which is suppose to be cheesy and kinda tacky looking. You can't take it seriously because of course its not meant to be taken seriously, on the other hand it is semi serious with its action and plot. I just wish they had cut down on the awful wire work and lost the character with metal skin, that guy really unbalances the whole thing. The fantasy doesn't really bond with the semi serious mega violence in my opinion, its just an awkward cocktail.
|
Printable Version
The Man With The Iron Fists - 
New Messages
No New Messages
Hot Topic w/ New Messages
Hot Topic w/o New Messages
Locked w/ New Messages
Locked w/o New Messages
Post New Thread