The Man With The Iron Fists was written, directed and stars RZA. It’s no secret he is a friend of Quentin Tarantino, and both are fans of martial arts films. RZA is a member of the rap group Wu-Tang clan, which itself took its name from a martial arts film.
Loving martial arts films and being able to make them are two separate things.
I’m not saying The Man With The Iron Fists is a bad film, but it could have been a heck of a lot better. One of the issues is timing. There is no clear era of when the film is set. Then we get essentially 15 minutes of exposition. While there is plenty of action in this introductory section, it is simply way too much setup and voice over explanation for what should be an action film.
The basic plot has the emperor moving a large amount of money to the north to fund his army, with the route going through Jungle Village, where RZA is a blacksmith. Jungle Village is a lawless place, ruled by several warring clans, the most prominent being the Lion Clan, hired to protect the shipment. Betrayal kills the leader and his son takes over.
It takes a half hour for the blacksmith character to actually become directly involved. The first third of the film is not only overloaded with exposition, but it is slow. After the main plot finally begins to pick up, even more exposition is in place where dialogue would have sufficed. And the gore is a bit much. I don’t have a problem with a film such as this showing off a bit of blood, but what is on display here gets to be a bit much.
A few short featurettes and some deleted scenes are all that’s on the Blu-ray. We do get the theatrical and “extended” versions of the film, but the extended version doesn’t help with the plot silliness. I was surprised RZA didn’t offer up an audio commentary.
The Man With The Iron Fists isn’t a bad movie, or a bad martial arts movie. It’s just easy to see how it could, and should, have been a lot better.