THE MAN WITH THE IRON FISTS

This film is simultaneously very original and very unoriginal.  The plot doesn’t really have any surprises, but man is it fun to watch.  The RZA has worked in the film world for years, providing music or acting in brief roles.  But he finally steps up to the plate with one hell of a debut feature.  The RZA wears many hats here: writing, directing, scoring and starring in a martial arts pastiche full of wacky effects, aptly named characters, and copious blood-letting.

Everybody is fighting over the gold in Jungle City, and I mean everybody.  The Pink Blossom gang of lady ninjas/prostitutes, the Hyena Gang, the Jackals, the Geminis, the Governor’s troops, a morally ambiguous Englishman with bottomless appetites for wine, women, drugs and bloodshed, and of course the titular character.  Many differences are settled with many different kinds of punching and kicking.

There are almost too many characters to keep track off so they have names that serve as helpful reminders.  Who is that Englishman with a jack knife?  Why, its Jack Knife of course!  Who’s that fellow who can transform his body into brass during fist fights?  Well his name is Brass Body, what else would you expect?  Once you know the golden-haired leader of the Lion Gang is called Gold Lion, you can deduce the name of his silver-haired second-in-command and so on and so forth.

The best compliment for this film is that it feels like it takes place in the Tarantino-verse.  The RZA seems to have digested hundreds of kung fu movies in his brain and this is the distilled product.  Since this film is somewhat of an origin story, I can only hope we’ll someday see The Return Of The Man With The Iron Fists.

More please.

~ Russell Crowe could find a long second career of drunkenly classing up gonzo genre fare like this.  His first scene features murder and jokes about the Chinese eating dogs.  His second scene features him using his teeth to pull a length of beads from a...  well just be surprised.

~ Supposedly this film was cut down from four hours to ninety minutes which could explain its brisk pace and overstuffed nature

~ This film features a THE END title card, which you don’t get to see much more these days.

~ Kanye West and The Black Keys feature on the soundtrack.

~ There is a great closing credits sequence, with stylized artwork of all the characters, that probably should have been at the beginning of the film.

~ Fans of the Street Fighter movie might be able to spot Byron Mann, better known as Ryu, amongst all the chaos.