Do you love Quentin Jerome Tarantino’s directing skills and
know or love Bruce Lee’s fighting prowess?
Then you have to see The Man with the Iron Fist.
This is the directorial debut of RZA, born Robert Fitzgerald
Diggs, leader of Wu-Tang Clan, a hip hop group.
After following Quentin around for approximately 5 years and learning as
much as he could about directing, RZA co-wrote the screenplay for The Man with
the Iron Fist with Eli Roth. Who is this
RZA? RZA has had a successful hip hop
recording career and started acting in such films as American Gangster, Funny
People and Repo Men. He is not only a
chess champion, but also a very prolific reader of all types of religious
teachings. RZA per Wikipedia “has taken on various aspects of Buddhism,
Taoism, Confucianism, Islam, and Christianity as stated in his book The Wu-Tang
Manual, as well as Hinduism, which he talks about thoroughly in The Tao of Wu
in order to expand his spiritual growth.”
These spiritual influences can be seen in this movie and
really enhance the story. Set in 19th
century China, this film stars Russell Crowe, Cung Le, Lucy Liu, Byron Mann,
RZA, Rick Yune, David Bautista, and Jamie Chung.
The premise of the movie is the emperor has some gold being
transported over land by the Geminis, played by Andrew Lin and Grace Huang
through a jungle village of two feuding clans, the lions and the hyenas, trying
to capture said gold. The martial arts of these groups are fantastic and
awe-inspiring
RZA plays Thaddeus, a blacksmith in a small village, with
Lucy Liu, Madam Blossom, running a beautiful whore house, where his girlfriend,
Lady Silk, is indentured. He is
responsible for making all the weapons used by all sides in the show to kill
each other.
Russell Crowe is a crusty opium addicted British soldier,
who appears to be a self-centered man of great appetites and prowess. Crowe was only on set for 10 days and did the
film because of his previous knowledge of RZA and the Wu Tang Clan.
David Bautista, known as Batista, better known as an
American mixed martial artist, bodybuilder, actor, and former professional
wrestler, does a very credible job of being a bad guy with a magnificent Brass
Body, his name in the film.
Also, making a cameo appearance is Pam Grier, as RZA’s
mother, who gave her freedom in the South, so that he could be free.
The martial arts skills in this movie have not been seen in
quite a while and it has that extra added lovely addition of Lucy Liu as the
madam with charm and extra emphasis on customer service.
Being a great fan of martial arts and Bruce Lee,
specifically, I was enthralled with the choreographic dance of the actors,
especially the females in this movie.
The only sour point in this film was the beginning song
which distracted from the opening scenes with bad language and words, which
were not needed to get the audience engaged.
This movie is definitely not for the squeamish, with lots of
blood and bodies and definitely for adults, with language, drug and sexual
content, not meant for children.
If you want to spend about 96 minutes being entertained in a
fast-pace, action-packed kung fu film in the style of the Shaw Brothers with
some CGI, then The Man with the Iron Fist will really appeal to you.
At A Glance:
Check out the trailer of this film at http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1258972/
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