Blu-ray Review The Man With the Iron Fists Blu-ray Review (1 Viewer)

The Man With the Iron Fists martials its arts onto Blu-ray in an edition that provides good picture and sound but can’t overcome the poor intrinsic quality of the movie in either edition on the disc.  Put simply, the movie is an incoherent mess, consisting of a series of poorly photographed bloody battles, strung together very loosely by the flimsiest of plots.  First time feature director RZA may be trying to cross 1970s kung fu movies with Quentin Tarantino’s trademarked style, but he is unable to do so in a way that actually tells a story that anyone would want to see.  I’m frankly stunned at the level of indulgence here, and I don’t know that even martial arts fans would want to lose over 90 minutes of their time trying to sit through this.

THE MAN WITH THE IRON FISTS Studio:  Universal/Strike Entertainment/Arcade Pictures Release Year:  2012 Length:  1 hr 36 mins (R Rated Version), 1 hr 48 mins (Unrated Version) Genre: Martial Arts Action/Kung Fu Homage Aspect Ratio: 2.40:1 BD Resolution and Codec: 1080p, AVC (@ an average 33 mbps) Audio:  English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (@ an average 4.2 mbps, up to 5.6 during big scenes), Spanish DTS 5.1, French DTS 5.1, English DVS Subtitles: English SDH, Spanish, French Film Rating:  R (Bloody Violence, Strong Sexuality, Language, Drug Use, Nudity), Unrated (See the R-Rated Description and add more of all of the above…) Release Date:  February 12, 2013 Starring:  RZA, Russell Crowe, Cung Le, Lucy Liu, Byron Mann, Rick Yune, David Bautista, Jamie Chung Screenplay by:  The RZA and Eli Roth “Presented by”: Quentin Tarantino Directed by:  Robert Fitzgerald Diggs (RZA) Review Rating: ½/5 The Man With the Iron Fists clearly wants to be RZA’s love letter to the cheap Chinese martial arts movies of the 1970s, complete with over-the-top music and impossible feats of physical prowess.  And of course, the generous buckets of blood.  RZA also clearly wants to take the approach of Quentin Tarantino, who has generously allowed his name to be used as a “presenter” of this movie. So the very simple story at hand follows several warriors in 19^th Century China as they converge on a single small village.  There’s the young prince of a clan (Rick Yune) looking to avenge his father’s death.  There’s the undercover agent adept with a knife (Russell Crowe).  There are the evil warriors who killed the prince’s father and stole the gold guarded by the agent (Cung Le and Byron Mann).  And caught in the middle is the village blacksmith (RZA) who is tasked with making weapons for everyone before he becomes a target himself.  All of that should be familiar territory for fans of this kind of material.  But it’s really just a skeleton on which writer/director RZA hangs a sequence of extremely bloody martial arts fights.  If anything, one can think of the story as an interruption to a series of opportunities for the viewer to watch arms get cut off, heads get chopped off, throats get slit, chests get flayed open, and a whole host of other curiosities.  Given that the movie is being shot in a “Tarantino-esque” manner, there is an extremely liberal use of wild zooms as well as a few instances of split screen pseudo-70s or pseudo-60s style.  None of this particularly helps, as there is a basic problem of incoherence plaguing the entire production.  Some of the problem comes from the mostly leaden performances, particularly RZA himself in the lead.  One should give Russell Crowe credit for trying during his brief appearance to do something interesting.  Unfortunately, that choice seems to consist of starting a scene in a very quiet, genteel manner, and then going from 0 to 100 in 2.3 seconds and spending the rest of the scene shouting all of his lines at the top of his lungs.  Deafening and baffling, but at least an interesting choice.  Some of the problem comes from the baffling manner in which almost all of the fights are shot.  There’s very little sense of coherent geography, so people appear and disappear at random, and most of the shots consist of quick cuts showing someone getting killed in a gruesome manner. (I’d recommend watching any of the movies of John Woo to see how to do this correctly – in his movies, there’s at least a strong sense of coherence throughout.)  Finally, there just doesn’t seem to be a point to all the madness other than to show that RZA really likes these movies and wanted to make one of his own.  That’s unfortunately not enough backbone from which to make a movie.  At least with Tarantino’s movies, there’s usually a strong sense of the purpose to which he is working when he combines the various vintage “B Movie” styles.  Here, there is just the sense that RZA is doing the movie simply because he can. There are two versions of the movie on the Blu-ray.  One is the R-Rated theatrical version, which runs about 96 minutes.  The other is a longer unrated cut, running 12 minutes longer.  This longer cut contains most of the material RZA was compelled to remove from the theatrical cut when he would have preferred otherwise.  For purposes of this review, I evaluated the longer cut. The Man With the Iron Fists was released on Blu-ray and DVD on February 12^th.  The Blu-ray edition contains high definition picture and audio of the movie, along with some deleted/extended scenes and nearly ten minutes of featurette material.  The Blu-ray comes with the DVD included in the package, as well as instructions for obtaining digital or ultraviolet copies.  The DVD contains all the same material as the Blu-ray, albeit in standard definition. VIDEO QUALITY  3 ½/5 The Man With the Iron Fists is presented in a 2.40:1 1080p AVC encode that presents the movie in the best possible light.  A variety of flesh tones are accurately presented, and there is a satisfying level of detail to the costumes and locations.  The frequent use of CGI blood tends to stand out, but this is likely an intentional effect.  AUDIO QUALITY  4 ½/5 The Man With the Iron Fists gets a solid English DTS-HD MA 5.1 mix, which fills the home theater with subwoofer-enhanced hits and blasts as the onscreen mayhem escalates.  The frequent use of modern-era rap and beat music also calls the subwoofer and surrounds into action.  There are also 5.1 DTS mixes in Spanish and French, as well as an English DVS mix that must be fascinating to experience. SPECIAL FEATURES   2/5 The Man With the Iron Fists comes  with a few extras:  namely 5 deleted/extended scenes and about ten minutes of featurette material.  All of the special features are available both on the Blu-ray and on the DVD. Deleted Scenes (24:09 Total, 1080p) – Five deleted scenes are shown, some of which are actually just extended versions of the material seen in the movie.  (At least in the longer unrated cut, that is.) A Look Inside The Man With the Iron Fists  (2:01, 1080p) – This quick featurette includes a few shots from the movie, a shot on the set with RZA and Eli Roth, a shot on the set with RZA and Quentin Tarantino, and a minute of interview material with RZA.  Ominously, RZA notes “I’ve got a lot of stories for these movies.  This is just one of them.” A Path to the East  (2:27, 1080p) – This quick featurette has some different shots from the movie, the same shots of Eli Roth and Tarantino, and several shots of the crew working on location in China.  The point of the featurette is that RZA chose to make the movie in China rather than doing it at home, to be “on the ground” in the place from whence these movies came. On the Set with RZA  (5:11 Total, 1080p) – This is actually a sequence of five very short featurettes:  “The Journey Begins”, “Casting Legends”, “Respect the Classics”, “Visualizing the Story” and “First Person Shooter”. Taken together, they show RZA at work on the set, including a moment with him and Eli Roth on the first day of shooting at a distant temple location.  Some of the footage in these featurettes is recycled from the earlier featurettes, and it should be noted that the interview material with RZA all comes from a single session.  There’s not a lot here, although the final bit does explain some of the incoherent camera work – RZA proudly announces that he handled the camera himself for some of the shots. DVD – The DVD edition of the movie is included in the packaging.  The DVD contains both editions of the movie in anamorphic widescreen and Dolby Digital 5.1 sound (@ 448 kbps), along with all the deleted material and featurettes in standard definition. The DVD also has a separate “Previews” menu, containing trailers for Fearless (the Jet Li movie, not the Jeff Bridges movie), Unleashed, American Gangster, The Scorpion King, 12 Monkeys, Smokin’ Aces and Pitch Black. Digital/Ultraviolet Copy – The packaging has an insert that contains instructions for downloading a digital or ultraviolet copy of the movie.  The other side of the insert is an advertisement for both soundtrack releases. The movie is subtitled in English, Spanish and French.  The usual pop-up menu is present, including a complete chapter menu.  When you start the movie, you are given the option of watching either the R-Rated version or the Unrated version. IN THE END... The Man With the Iron Fists is one of those movies where you really have to wonder how the filmmakers could have thought this would have been an entertaining night at the theater for anyone.  Multiple scenes of extremely bloody violence and mayhem, braced with scenes of fairly bad acting to set up the next bit of mayhem, and all of it presented in a fairly incoherent manner, do not make for anything I can recommend to viewers.  Fans of RZA may wish to rent this, but fans of Quentin Tarantino should be strongly warned that this is not Kill Bill.  If anything, it’s the sense of mayhem of Kill Bill, but without any of the substance, and without even the strong narrative to pull the viewer through. Kevin Koster February 19, 2013 Equipment now in use in this Home Theater: Panasonic 65” VT30 Plasma 3D HDTV – set at “ISF-Night” picture mode   HDTV Calibrated in June 2012 by Avical Denon AVR-3311Cl Receiver Oppo BDP-93 Blu-ray Player PS3 Player (used for calculation of bitrates for picture and sound) 5 Mirage Speakers (Front Left/Center/Right, Surround Back Left/Right) 2 Sony Speakers (Surround Left/Right – middle of room) Martin Logan Dynamo 700 Subwoofer

Spot on evaluation of the film Kevin. RZA is known for his love of kung fu films and it shows in the movie he made, but it also amounts to a high budget fan film with the problems you noted. It's too bad, as this kung fu film fan was really hoping for something better or at least watchable. BTW, my friend and I described RZA's acting style as 'the art of acting without acting.'

I was hoping for a better movie then this. I'll continue to stick to my plan of grabbing the blu when it hits the bargain bins.