I don't think I can bear to finish it. Never mind that the plot is poorly constructed and unfolds with almost zero sense of urgency or enthusiasm, the fight scenes are so bad that for a television series based on a comic that's inspired by Kung-Fu and Wu Xia films, it's a near insult to the genre. The choreography in many of the fights are poorly planned out and poorly shot. A short list of greivences off the top of my head, with spoilers . . .
Claire Temple, a woman untrained in martial arts, competently takes on armed attackers with tiger claws. Here's a quick thought experiment, if I gave you a pair of brass knuckles and told you to take on a man armed with a sword, how well do you think you'd do? Fucking exactly.
Danny Rand and Davos are at one point under a dog pile of men, which through sheer forced they throw off. Fuck no. Fantastic hypothetical situations and myths aside, people aren't going around every day shrugging off four 150+ lb. men, let alone throwing them across the room.
There's the grevious fight sin of having an attacker rush up to the hero, immediately stop three feet away, then stand there, squared off and undefending to receive his punishing blows.
Telegraphed attacks and haymakers. Telegraphed attacks and haymakers everywhere.
You can't tell me that a fucking swat team is gonna be taken down by an unarmed man, a poisoned woman, and the previously mentioned, woefully undertrained Claire Temple when they have a tactical advantage.
Ugh. Fuck. Seriously. If you're gonna spend that much money on a series, do a better job.
Fucking pallet cleansers to make you feel better about martial arts films after such a shit show . . .
johnnyFive, you see this show yet? You teach Kung Fu. What are your thoughts?
Ooh! I just remembered. If you want a true pallet cleanser: One Punch Man is now on Netflix!
Ha! Brilliant. Loving the anime they're finally getting listed. OPM's one that sticks out for good reason. If you're a fan of animes that tackle tropes, then you may like Re: Zero. It's a dark take on the "NEET transported to fantasy world" theme.
I am so sorry to add to that chorus. You're probably tired about hearing about it then. But because I still feel like ranting . . . You know how you've said before that 90% of anything is crap and that you have to really like something for the crap to be enjoyable? Martial arts films, like westerns, really fall into that category, but there certain hard to quantify elements that make them enjoyable. For instance, I haven't seen many Shaw Brothers films, but the ones I have seen, I've enjoyed thoroughly. However I'm probably the only one in my meat space social circle that even knows what Shaw Brothers films are and I wouldn't have anyone to recommend them to because I don't think anyone would really appreciate them. My problem with Iron Fist is that it doesn't have any unspeakable elements that make it likeable, so when it fails at even the basic essentials, it's a huge disappointment. The plot is bad. The acting is sub par. The pacing is off, on and on. As I said, as far as high budget martial arts endeavors are concerned, it's embarassingly subpar, to the point where something on Youtube like Sockbaby or Slug Street Scrappers feels better executed (and no, those aren't all that great either, but for what they are, they're satisfying). It really is a huge disappointment and I've been looking forward to it since it was first announced.
http://www.vox.com/culture/2017/3/19/14961738/iron-fist-marvel-review http://www.vox.com/culture/2017/3/15/14919546/iron-first-marvel-reviews-finn-jones I am currently working on a movie that is every bit as bad as The Room but with none of the charm. It is bad across all aspects - bad acting, bad editing, bad sound, bad framing, bad dialogue, bad pacing, bad plot, bad action. Bad movies can be good - A friend just sent me some leftover posters from Birdemic 2 even though apparently I was the only person to get paid on it - but there has to be... I dunno. An earnestness. A sense that there's effort. This is, I believe, what makes outsider art "art" - that the creator has put something of themselves in it. The film I'm currently working on is an overly cautious, cynical take on filmmaking.
Ha! I was actually gonna say in my original rant that I remember better fight scenes from Power Rangers when I was growing up, but I thought that was too mean. Now I regret not saying it. After reading the Finn Jones review, it sounds like maybe everything else aside, the show creators were trying to play things safe and that took a lot of life out of the thing. Which really seems to mesh with what you're saying. Being a competent creator is only half the formula. If there's not a sense of soul to what you're creating, you're gonna come up short. Also, now that you mention it, Shaw Brother films totally feel like outsider art.The fights here look generic, to the point where if you told me they were actually footage from the ’90s Power Rangers series, I would believe you.
So I finally had to see, since I hadn't watched any of the show yet but keep hearing about how bad it was. I watched a couple of the scenes in the third episode (it took that long to have an attempt at a real set-piece?), and they are indeed laughably bad. A couple of thoughts. Despite my background, I don't necessarily look for realism in fight scenes--watching someone who actually knows what they're doing is kind of boring, since making it look cool also means making it less efficient and less effective. Plus, I train something real. I don't mind watching something crazy if it looks cool! So my issue is less with some of the things you mention, simply because it's fantasy or whatever and I don't care. But yeah, with Iron Fist it's clear they didn't work at it very hard, and I think that's a bigger issue. I watched one fight scene towards the end of episode 3 where a character is in a cage match of some kind (I was just skipping through trying to find one). It doesn't look choreographed, it looks staged. The opponent literally grabs his own fist before striking, a classic "I'm punching with this hand" move. The character fighting him, who was much smaller, gets a ridiculous amount of leverage in a couple of places (requiring some suspicious editing). But the filming seems bad too...the director doesn't seem to have a good sense of space the way some others do. To your list of good choreography, I'd add Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and The Raid.
Oh trust me. I totally agree. I tend to call martial arts films "ballet for men" and tell people if they want to see what real fights are like, they're better off watching a boxing match or two drunk frat boys wrestling in the backyard in a sad attempt to impress any onlooking ladies. That said, I could have sworn you've said before you also like to indulge in the random martial art film, and since I knew you teach Kung Fu, you'd be a good shout out. As for the suspicious editing, I think that's a huge part of the problem. In a lot of action movies, martial arts and otherwise, there tends to be camera trickery involved to make things feel more dramatic, so strikes and blows feel more impactful, actors seem more imposing, etc. You can have good camera editing to hide a subpar performer, like Finn Jones, a solid, continuous shot to show off the talents of the performer, like Jet Li and Jackie Chan, or good camera editing to complement the action that's taking place on screen. I think part of where Iron Fist fails is that they had continuous shots to show off the performers, but the performers weren't that good. As for the cage scenes? Those were bad stereotypes. Like "Bloodsport isn't a realistic premise" level of bad. I gave up after Episode 10, where the climatic fight scene involving Danny Rand and Davos escaping from the compound and taking on waves of enemies left a horrible taste in my mouth. You should watch the second half of that episode. It's laughably bad.A couple of thoughts. Despite my background, I don't necessarily look for realism in fight scenes--watching someone who actually knows what they're doing is kind of boring, since making it look cool also means making it less efficient and less effective. Plus, I train something real. I don't mind watching something crazy if it looks cool! So my issue is less with some of the things you mention, simply because it's fantasy or whatever and I don't care.
Yeah, although I don't think a boxing match is especially realistic...it's still very controlled and sanitized (thanks to having things like "rules"). But yeah, the editing tried to make things more dynamic, but all that did was show off the lethargy of the fights themselves.
I think what sports like boxing, wrestling, MMA, illustrate really well is that not every blow or move is gonna be dramatic, is gonna be pretty, is gonna be effective, etc. while at the same time showing how resilient the human body can be to trauma (though as we learn more about the human body and brain, we're quickly learning the long term severity of cumulative trauma). Even though it's much more controlled environment, it's still very real and very serious, even if its not always pretty.
That's true enough, but in terms of an "out there" fight, it's still very different.
In all honesty, they probably could have condensed it down to 6-8 episodes and it would have worked just fine. As it is, they really, really dragged the story out, which is a shame. That's probably part of the reason it was so boring. As for Iron Fist as a hero? Yeah. He's not super amazing and chances are he's not on a lot of people's Top 10 lists. That said, he's got a bit of that hokiness that makes him fun.