“The Man With The Iron Fists,” the latest in kung-fu cinema, kicked its way into theaters on Nov. 2.
It marked the directorial debut of hip-hop producer and rapper RZA (pronounced “rizza”), also known as Robert Diggs, who also starred in the movie.
The movie also stars Russell Crowe, Lucy Liu, Jamie Chung, Cung Le, former professional wrestler David Bautista, Byron Mann and Rick Yune. All of whom play big roles in the movie.
The plot centers on two small factions in a Chinese village, who are fighting over a supply of gold. RZA’s character Blacksmith gets caught in the middle of the war between the factions as he is the one who provides the factions with the weapons he makes.
Liu’s character Madame Blossom also gets involved in the fight for the gold, as well as Crowe’s character, a rogue British soldier and emissary to the late emperor of the village.
As it shows, there really isn’t a lot to know about the plot. There are a lot of kung-fu fighting sequences in this film.
RZA and Eli Roth wrote the script for a year and the film shows that the movie is more about the kung-fu sequences, leaving the characters and tribal groups to only be the secondary factor in this movie.
RZA’s hip-hop group Wu-Tang Clan is known for sampling from older kung-fu films, and some of the group’s songs appear in the background of the film. RZA even produced some of the film’s music.
Some of the performances were good and some were just decent at best. Crowe’s character was really cool and funny in some areas and showed that he was a tough guy towards the end.
RZA didn’t do so badly in his role. He has also done some acting here and there before doing this movie and did well in his fight scene as he trained in some martial arts prior to doing this movie. It showed that his training was put to use for his fight scene with Bautista.
Many of the fighting sequences were very over the top and they used what some people refer to as “wire fu,” a concept in which people use wires for kung-fu sequences. The fight scenes were exaggerated at times, but they were still interesting and enjoyable to watch.
Many people would feel turned off from seeing this because of RZA’s influence on this movie, particularly because he is a music producer and artist.
That isn’t always the case. RZA showed that he could do movies, whether it’s directing and/or acting.
This movie is a very entertaining kung-fu movie with a lot of fighting that should keep kung-fu fans entertained.