The Man with the Iron Fists

Ratings: 6.5/10

Film Class: B

Genre: Action

This is director RZA's sad excuse to make himself look cool and to satisfy his fantasy of making a true-blue Hollywood Kung Fu movie - the fusion of East meets West, like The Forbidden Kingdom. While the cool part for himself failed, it was to a certain extend, pretty cool. Though I didn't like the soundtrack which came along with the action scenes, I guess that's what draws the line and differentiates between Hollywood and "HongKongwood" Kung Fu films.

*major major spoilers ahead* The characters were unique in their own way, fighting stance way I mean; with Russell Crowe, a western-style gun-man, Rick Yune, the knifes/blade master, Dave Bautisa (WWE Wrestler) with his impenetrable brass-like body, Cung Le with a craw-like cane and fights with his "craws" (bare hands), villainous mastermind Byron Mann with his craw-like weapons whom I initially mistook for the man with the iron fists, Daniel Wu as the stealth assasin who shoots poison darts, Lucy Liu as the disguised master of cut-throat fans and of course, RZA, who is the Man with the Iron Fists. 

Expect a no-brainer, yet entertaining action movie with the different characters battling it out with the newly appointed scheming leader of the Lion Clan, Silver Lion (Byron Mann) who goes around creating chaos, driven by his greed for power and the emperor's gold. 

Having Chia Hui Liu star as an abbot just goes to show the true intentions of the director - to make a Hollywood Kung Fu movie because most of the chinese actors in this film (there's many more apart from those mentioned above) were Kung Fu "legends" during their prime years, or either they were no strangers to the Kung Fu scene in "HongKongWood". 

It's obviously a low budget film with the repetitive settings (in an enclosed room, just that the layout was a bit different) but I was convinced it deserves a "B" for film class because of the diversity of the cast. Despite the cons, its a watchable Kung Fu action-packed film that's 65% badass.