IHAO on ... The Man With The Iron Fists

Guardians of the Galaxy is coming out SOOOO soon.  I am excited beyond anything I've ever experienced for a film coming out, period.  Everything looks so good, so crisp, and just wonderful.  James Gunn has impressed me with every film of his I have seen, and hasn't delivered lower than an A+ grade for anything I've watched - admittedly, that is a very small section of his career as of now, but I will be working to fix that.  It's got Chris Pratt looking stacked and being awesome, and BIG DAVE BATISTA in his biggest role to date.

Big Dave gets a little bit of a bad wrap because of his last run where Cena buried him on his way out, then he left to make movies and they just ... Dave Bautista's film career basically looks like the exact opposite of James Gunn's for me.  Admittedly, I've seen very little.  Or at least, I had.  That's why I decided to get my hands on The Man With the Iron Fists.

The RZA directed and wrote this, with some help from the terrible Eli Roth, and it is just a big colorful and crazy kung fu movie.  I don't know if you know this, but RZA, and the whole Wu Tang Clan, they LOVE kung fu flicks.  I remember hanging out with my best friend in college freshman year, heading to FYE in the mall and finding just stacks and stacks of the movies.  He got Zombie v. Ninja, the amazing Godfrey Ho film starring Pierre Kirby, the undisputed star of terrible Godfrey Ho films, and it was just ridiculous.  I'm pretty sure I didn't like it as much as he did, but I liked it.  And of course that year we also found a bunch of other great kung fu films, including Kung Fu Hustle which came to theatres not too long after that.  But yeah, Wu Tang loves kung fu.  Plus this had Big Dave in it, so I had to watch it!  And ...

What is it, Justin Timberlake?  You want me to explain the film first?  Sure, I can do that.  You see, it is classic warring clans stuff, though with some modern embellishments to characters and such, but basically a clan has its leader killed by its second in command, and he starts putting the hurt on people for GOLD!

Gold. Gold! GOLD!!!

But the clan's leader's kid comes for revenge, and he is called X-Blade.  He has a leather suit of armor with hundreds of 3 inch long blades that come out of everywhere whenever he focuses he chi correctly, and he can shoot them out, too.  And with that you learn how everything.  RZA plays the blacksmith named Blacksmith - get it, because RZA is black, and he's a smith!!! - who is forced to make powerful weapons for the warring clans, all so he can run away with his love, who is a prostitute.  Then you have Brass Body show up, who is Batista and can just turn his body into brass reflexively, and he wants Blacksmith's girl.  And you have Jack Knife, which is my favorite Russell Crowe role EVER, who is straight up Jack the Ripper but a good guy running from Britain to China, probably to kill a bunch of prostitutes, but he gets involved in everything.

There are a lot of characters, and it is hard to express how everything works.  But it eventually culminates in a huge fight in the brothel.  And it is violent.  Man, this movie is violent.  Some practical gore, some bad looking CGI, but all of it over the top and entertaining.

I loved this movie.  There are a lot of little problems, weird choices and pacing that comes from the fact a rapper who is a film lover but not a film maker is at the helm.  But man, this movie is inventive, at the same time classic, and is just great fun to watch.  If you like actors having the best time just overacting and being hilarious or being like Big Dave and actually acting his heart out because he is serious about his career, this is a good one for ya.  If you like violent action movies, this movie is pretty good for you.  I mean, the movie's action isn't the best action in the world or anything, but it is fun.  The music is great, with a mix of modern and a mix of classical Chinese.  Really, that describes the whole thing.  The movie is a pretty even split modern and classic for its genre.

It got some flack for not "adding to its genre" but that's not the point.  RZA isn't Tarantino or Aronofsky or some other well received and good director.  He wanted to make a cool kung fu movie that he loves, and you can tell.  There are little bits of bad acting here or there, or weird camera shots, or bad pacing, but everyone is having the best time, and I wholly endorse this film.  Oh, and even though it was unrated and super violent, no nudity.

Grade: B+

We are a mere two weeks away from my amazing second rendition of Ask Me Anything!  Thank you everyone who has given me questions so far, but I absolutely NEED and MUST HAVE more!  So help me out, leave some questions in my ask box on Tumblr or in the comments here or on facebook or to my email or something.  Any question at all.  Everything and anything you want to ask will be answered, and the vast majority will be honest, and all will be entertaining.  Let's get this thing going, we only got half a month to do this thing!  WOOOOO!

IHAO on EVERYTHING, TOO on August 1st