The Man with the Iron Fists

[Greg_phpbb3_import1]

Bobby, also known as RZA was on my local radio station today. He was very entertaining with Kevin and Bean.

[Drunk Monk]

I paid for a midnite showing this morning. Here's my 'public' review: <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://ezine.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?p=1194819#post1194819">http://ezine.kungfumagazine.com/forum/s ... ost1194819</a><!-- m -->

It was disappointing. There's some quality ultravi and funny quips, but it's just not over-the-top enough. Had swordfights, but sorely needed a Bollywood dance number.

This film has been my bane. Usually, with films, we can get some advertising, but the studio wasn't paying for any print ads. RZA tried to get his label to advertise the soundtrack, but it was a little too late. Then I pitched a web ad and almost closed it, when our site crashed for two days, thus killing it. We only managed to get a box of promo tchotchkes, and they are an odd number of items which totally messes up our sweepstakes promo. At least I got RZA to buy me lunch.

[Greg_phpbb3_import1]

Was it hard making a public review for one of your friends films?

And still had to pay to get in . . . .

[Drunk Monk]

I've bought like 3 tickets over the last month and 5 or so over the last two months. I must be losing my touch.

No worries. I'll redeem myself next week. 8)

Actually, I have three friends in this film. And yea, it's a bitch when a film that we work with fails to deliver.

Shoot, I missed your earlier post on this. Needs merging. I guess I'm a little down on sleep....

[Greg_phpbb3_import1]

I might not have seen the film, but at least I have the doo-rag.

[Drunk Monk]

...Only it was a T-shirt and I eventually did see that film many years later.

[Greg_phpbb3_import1]

That was a very special shirt.

Only people who worked on the film or were friends of the guy who made the shirt got one.

[Drunk Monk]

That was not a special doo-rag. Not at all. The promoters just gave us a bunch of them.

BTW, I got a MwtIF T-shirt too, but there were only enough for the office here. It has the fist with the word 'kung' across it and 'FU' in bright pink. T saw it and thought the fist was actually two toads. It took me a while to see what she was seeing, but I see it now.

[Greg_phpbb3_import1]

The first thing to go is the mind.

Unless the first the thing to go is the mind.

[Drunk Monk]

forget about mind.

remember memory.

then you'll see the toads too.

[Greg_phpbb3_import1]

Wow. Was that not good. I don't think it could even see good from where it ended up. It brought schizophrenic film making to a whole new level.

The soundtrack was insane and not, I felt, in a good way. One second we are listening to a traditional score, then we cut to some Morricone Spaghetti Western music, and then we throw in some hard core rap. Heard a lot of the N-word in the opening credit song for no apparent reason. I was equally puzzled by the Kanye West song towards the end in the whore house. You would think there would have been more cohesiveness to the music.

The Narration drove me crazy. It was all expository dialogue. It would have better to actually show the things that were happening rather than tell me. And RZA couldn't really deliver the lines. A lot of times it felt like he was just reading the script. The same goes for when he was on screen.

I got the feeling there was a lot of 'Hey, try this' going on. Let's have a key in the doll's vagina open the secret door. Let's have cool make up for the poisonings. The Gemini Twins should have these awesome swords that come together as the Yin Yang symbol but really can't be used as weapons. The overhead shot in all the rooms at the whorehouse had to be Tarantino's idea.

Why was it that everyone who spoke to Russel Crowe spoke in sub-titles? And then only part of the time? And in the rest of the film, all the characters talked like they were hanging out in Brooklyn?

The fights didn't have that awesome that is cool moment. Everybody got to fly. But they were all so choppy you never got a sense of what was going on. I wanted the fight with Rat clan to be longer and be clearer. But when the spikes retracted in the lead guys shoulder pads, where did they go? It seems like when they retracted they would be six inches into his body. Another case of wouldn't it be cool if the guy had armor that spikes would pop out of.

And the Gemini guy and girl, somebody explain the point of their fighting style to me. Sure, their swords would join into that neat pattern but it didn't do anything but allow them to spin around. I wanted that sword to do something cool, but no. And yes they were the Gemini fighters, but they looked like the Yin-Yang symbol. And I want a multiple firing crossbow. It was like somebody wanted a big gun fight but the guns were primitive affairs during this age, so wouldn't it be cool if we had these cross-bows that fired hundreds of shots?

I did like that the clans looked like their namesake animal monikers. My favorite character was the Brass man. He looked cool and had a great menace to him.

Poor Lucy Liu.

I could go on, but I think you are getting the picture.

[Drunk Monk]

This went direct to home entertainment. I did a quick interview with Dustin Nguyen, which didn't work out very well because the phoner was from Vietnam so their was a delay which fouled the timing of the questions. We wound up talking over each other too much. And then there was the Eugenia interview, which I mentioned on the Outcast thread. They gave us some combo packs for a sweepstakes. Combo packs usually do really well for us, but this one under-performed. I've had the DVD for some time, been meaning to watch it, but it just came live on Netflix so I watched it there.

ED and I were chatting about this and he made a comment how he liked to original as a good comic book movie. I've found several others in that same camp. The martial arts people hate it. The comic book people are okay with it (except Greg the Marvalman - what's up with that). Anyway, ED, if you want a combo pack of the sequel, just say the word and I'll send you my review copy.

The sequel, well, if I was RZA, I would be living my lifelong dream and making Kung Fu flicks. I get what he's doing with this now. RZA wants to make a Chang Cheh film. Those were great, very comic book, classic Shaw fodder, sanguinous, lots of wacky weapons, weird almost unfollowable plots, and great entertainment. But the key element, the Kung Fu, was awesome. That's where MwtIF consistently drops the ball. The fights are still the biggest weakness in 2. They are a little better in this film, but they could be so much better.

The first MwtIF was really overblown with Crowe and Liu and the big theatrical release. This one has much lower expectations as it's direct to home entertainment. The sets and locations are surprisingly stunning - they shot in Thailand and selected some great locations. There's even a Bollywood-esque number, a harem dance if you will. Coupled with the music, the soundtrack is spot on in several places, there's some entertainment value there. The soundtrack is the shining part of the film and takes center-stage in several segue scenes. The finale fight music is a nod to Morricone, like the first. The story arc is predictable for the most part. I give it a big 'meh'.