【Movie Title】 The Man With the Iron Fists
【Starring】RZA, Rick Yune, Russell Crowe, Lucy Liu, Dave Bautista, Jamie Chung, Cung Le, Byron Man and etc.
【Year】 2012
【Genre】 Action/WTF
【Rating 】★★★★✭(that's suppose to be 4 1/2 stars)
Contains spoilers!! This post also may offend some. lol
Konbanwa minna-san! Happy Valentine's Day to you all! No, I don't have a Valentine this year. lol It's OK, because loving myself is the greatest love of all... It's movie review time! An over the top, Asian themed movie by RZA. Lots of vibrant colors and beautiful women! Such as below!
And what's a movie without Rezubian Ai?!
At first, I wasn't sure about watching the movie. I used to have a crush on one of the actors in the movie(Rick Yune). But yeah, I decided to go ahead and watch this movie anyway. From Wiki: In nineteenth century China, Jungle Village is home to several warring clans. The village blacksmith creates deadly weapons for the clans, intending to use his payments to purchase the freedom of his lover Lady Silk, and leave the village. The region's governor tasks the Lion Clan's leader Gold Lion with protecting a large shipment of gold that must pass through the village. Gold is betrayed by his lieutenants Silver Lion and Bronze Lion, who plan to steal the gold. They use the chaos ensuing from a fight with the Hyena Clan to allow their co-conspirator Poison Dagger—the governor's aide—to assassinate Gold, after which Silver becomes the Lions' leader. Gold's son Zen-Yi learns of his father's murder and sets off to the village to seek revenge. The Emperor's undercover emissary Jack Knife arrives in the village to monitor the gold and takes up residence in the Pink Blossom, a brothel run by Madam Blossom, Lady Silk's madame. Silver sends members of the Rodent clan to kill Zen-Yi before he can reach the village, but Zen-Yi kills them. The mercenary Brass Body arrives in the village and meets with Silver; he is sent to kill Zen-Yi. The blacksmith meets with Silk in the brothel and delivers the final payment needed to free her. After arriving in the village, Zen-Yi and his men are confronted by Brass and find that they cannot physically harm him because his skin turns to metal on impact. Brass beats Zen-Yi and destroys his blade-laden armor. Zen-Yi's last surviving man sacrifices himself to pull a canopy support beam loose, burying Brass under heavy stone. The blacksmith is watching the fight; he rescues Zen-Yi and helps him recover as penance for crafting the weapon that killed Zen-Yi's father. Meanwhile, the gold shipment arrives in the village, accompanied by two skilled warriors, the Geminis. The Lions soon confront the Geminis and their men, and in the ensuing fight, Poison Dagger assassinates the Geminis and the Lions capture the gold. Jack later arrives to investigate the incident and learns that the Geminis were poisoned with mercury-tipped weapons, leading him to the blacksmith. The Lions' theft prompts the governor to send his Jackal troops to recover the shipment or destroy the village. Zen-Yi asks the blacksmith to craft him a new suit of weaponized armor. The Lions suspect that the blacksmith is helping Zen-Yi and have him tortured for information. The blacksmith refuses to talk, and Brass cuts off his forearms. Jack, who had been following the blacksmith, saves him. While the blacksmith recovers, he tells Jack of his past as an emancipated American slave who accidentally killed a white man who refused to let him go. He fled America by boat and went to China, where monks trained him to use his body's energy to perform superhuman feats. Jack and the blacksmith craft his greatest weapon: a pair of iron forearms that he can animate using this energy. Zen-Yi recovers and joins Jack and the blacksmith. Meanwhile, Blossom offers to let Silver hide the gold in a secret tomb beneath the brothel in return for payment. The gold is stored in a coffin which is raised up to the rafters. That night, Blossom has her girls serve the Lions, and Silk serves Brass. At Blossom's signal, the girls use weapons hidden in their mouths to poison many of the Lions, and they join with Blossom as the Black Widows. When Silk tries to poison Brass, his skin protects him, and he beats and almost kills her. The Black Widows fight the remaining Lions while Blossom and Bronze fight and kill each other. While fighting Jack, Poison Dagger is crushed between large moving gears. Silver and Zen-Yi fight in the tomb; Zen-Yi cuts the coffin free, and it crushes Silver. The blacksmith finds Silk, who dies in his arms. He confronts Brass, and his iron fists prove capable of inflicting damage on Brass' seemingly invincible body. While Brass is in metal form, a powerful punch from the blacksmith shatters him to pieces. Jack runs outside in time to stop the Jackals from decimating the building with a Gatling gun. In the epilogue, Jack leaves the village to accompany the gold, and Zen-Yi tells the blacksmith that he has gained a brother. With the clans destroyed and the village safe, the blacksmith vows to keep it that way and destroys the sign pointing to his weapon shop.
One thing which caught me by surprise, was the interracial relationship between RZA and Jamie Chung's characters. I know, big deal but I always thought she'd play opposite of a White guy, not a Black guy. lol It's good to see her diversifying her roles instead of always playing the love interest of some White men. They do the same ish with Lucy Lui(until she did Code Name: The Cleaner). But hey, that's Hollywood...
These are my own screen cap of this, because I noticed that everywhere I've searched, I couldn't find any caps of them together. I wanted to see more between them, because any other time, they'd exploit the sh＊t out of Asian women with White men in films(such as the scenes with Russell Crowe and the prostitutes). SMH #cism
And Russell Crowe looked so out of place in this movie. What happened to the Gladiator, man? I was telling oniichan that Gerald Butler done took his body. lmao
I think everyone, or maybe not everyone, will agree with me that Mr. Byron Mann stole the f＊cking show!(✿ ♥‿♥) His hair and eye liner made him look soooooooo adorable!! He reminded me of those J-rockers in Japan. lol
I'm not sure if yall remember him from that Street Fighter movie that came out in the 90s. lol
These f＊cking Asians don't age! Well, except for the ones in Louisiana, of course. xDDDD
I'm sorry, but Jamie appreciation is much needed!(a❤‿❤a)
She needs thong shots!!!(^∇^) I told yall, the only time I'm swooning over Asians, is if they're beautiful! (＾ε＾)
I LAWLED at the ending credits when I saw that Jin the MC was in the movie. lmao I didn't know that, and don't say it's because of that stereotype about Asians. That's not right! xD Dave Bautista was in the movie too. I totally forgot he was in the movie too until I saw him. lol Honorable mentions, the beautiful Pam Grier!! This movie had all kinds of surprises!! They had all different cultures of Asians in this film: Korean, Chinese, Japanese and I think Vietnamese. This is going to sound f＊cked up but all those cultures they only understood each other in English! Sorry, but it was something I caught on to. ~runs and hides~ xD
I noticed on the forum for this movie, someone asked a stupid question like why are Black people so obsessed with Asian culture? The only reason why there are Asians in Black neighborhoods, is that Black people allowed them to come in. Black Americans are known as consumers, that's why any culture can just come in and set up shops. Remember that quote from the movie, made by Rick Yune above? Black people consider everyone their brothers and sisters(excluding each other). So yeah... And why are you basing your assumption on a movie directed by a Black man? You don't ask why White men are obsessed with Asian women? He's from a rap group entitled WU TANG CLAN! *ding ding ding ding* >_>
I wasn't going to post that above, in the forum, because I don't like posting at forums.o(^-^)o But back to the movie, judging from the ending, I'm assuming that they're going to make another one. I hope so! The bird clan reminded me of Ong Bak 2. Anyway, this movie could have been better, you know. I saw more high flying than fighting, tbh. Like I said above, just wasn't enough love making between RZA and Jamie. If anyone thought I'd complain about there being hardly any Black women in the film, you're wrong. Hell, THERE WEREN'T ANY WHITE ONES IN IT EITHER! There didn't need any, Pam was enough! xD Anyway, it's time to post this. Let me know what you all think. Feel free to subscribe to my blog. Arigato~
