With stellar Marvel shows like Jessica Jones and Daredevil, Netflix’s Iron Fist found itself missing its mark, with its slow-paced plot, poorly choreographed fight scenes, and oftentimes unbelievable and unreliable characters. I just finished the 4th episode, so spoilers won’t go beyond there, but frankly, this show was a big disappointment, especially coming from someone with over 16 years of martial arts experience.
Plot Summary
The show revolves around Danny Rand (Finn Jones), the son of a business mogul who co-founded Rand Enterprises with Harold Meachum (David Wenham). At the age of 10, Danny and his parents were involved in a plane crash in the Himalayas, where both his parents died, and he ended up going to some secret monastery in a place called K’un-Lun. There Danny trains to be an elite warrior, known as the Iron Fist. Fifteen years later, Danny returns to New York, and after meeting up with Ward (Tom Phelphrey) and Joy (Jessica Stroup) Meachum, the children of Harold Meachum, Danny takes over the company. Harold nearly died from cancer, but was saved by a secret organization called The Hand, the same one seen in the second season of Daredevil. As the Iron Fist, Danny is trained to defeat The Hand, and it seems as though their paths are destined to cross, especially as The Hand has some control over the actions of Rand Enterprises. Danny also befriends Colleen Wing (Jessica Henwick), a local martial arts instructor, who possibly could be a love interest down the road.
Plot Analysis
While from the summary this show seems like it could be reasonably interesting, its frankly not. Danny’s training in K’un-Lun is just confusing and very inconsistent. At first it seems as though it was a very peaceful, non-violent place, with teachings of Zen and chi in order to attain a higher level of understanding through understanding oneself. Sometimes however, Danny seems to act like it was a Martial Arts boot camp, with grueling training and regular beatings to prepare him for war against The Hand. Then at other times, it is referred to training in a realm of heaven with these masters in order to prepare to fight the evil Hand, almost as though Danny is an agent of the gods, and will defeat The Hand as if they were “Satan and his demons”.
So, are the masters in this realm dead? Did they also get transported there? Have they always been there? Did Danny train with anyone else? None of the these are even explained, and are just glossed over. I understand, I’m not completed with the show, and maybe this will be explained more in detail later on, but at this point, its just bad story telling. How Danny’s time is described seems more like a psychedelic dream rather than 15 years of physical and emotional training. A couple of flashbacks to his time during his training would have done wonders for the story - giving the viewers a better sense of where he comes from, instead of sounding like a madman.
Which brings me to The Hand. From discussing with friends and family, their storyline was the most boring part of Daredevil, and unfortunately, they are a big part of the Iron Fist storyline too. This is a very generic ‘shadow organization’ that seems to have their hands in many things, however what their exact intentions are, what their methods are, belief system, structure, is all extremely unclear. They come off feeling like super standard ‘scary-ninja-guys-in-masks’. They also seem to not be able to decide if they are Chinese, Japanese, or some other culture in origin, which comes off as feeling as though their creator wasn’t fully aware of the difference. I haven’t read any comics on The Hand, and I’m certain they are more fleshed-out there, but from a TV-viewer standpoint, they just seem boring.
Many parts of the plot just seem typical, and we shouldn't just have to take that. Ward Enterprises is business company that makes business and money, but their products are relatively vague. Martial Arts are seen throughout the show, but as to a specific style or type, there is none, which I discuss in more detail below. K’un-Lun and The Hand are just your Good Guy vs Bad Guy, but no real reason why one is good or bad. Most interactions with the characters are generally exactly what you’d expect, and are often times redundant, such as talking about things that they have already discussed. A lot of the events are mainly inconsequential, almost time fillers. For example, there is a scene where Danny needs to get some medical records to prove he is actually Danny Rand, but an agent from Rand Enterprises destroys the documents. Then in the very next scene, Danny produces some other piece of evidence that shows he is who he says he is, making the whole looking for medical records pointless. There is a great deal of inconsistencies in the plot, from characters switching their opinions for no reason at all, to even simple things like saying one number in one scene, and a different number in the next. Does no one proof read?
The plot for this show is generic, repeating, and all over just boring. By trying to keep elements secretive, instead of enticing viewers to watch more to learn more, they are turning them off and making these elements just uninteresting.
Characters
The characters of Iron Fist follow very similar to the plot of the show. On the surface, they could be quite interesting, but sadly, they just aren’t.
Danny Rand has a relatively interesting, almost batman-like, back story. He could be this wise, worldly man, who is now able to approach business with a new angle that he would only have due to his training. Instead, Danny is a naïve man child, who comes off as uneducated and empty. He tries to apply different phrases or quotes to situations, but they feel forced and out of place. He acts as though he hasn’t talked to a real human being over the past 15 years, and its trying to remember how he talked 15 years before when he still lived in New York. It seems similar to Robin William’s character in Jumanji, where he really hadn’t talked to anyone in decades. But Danny clearly has spoken with his Masters and other pupils. And if he didn’t, THEN EXPLAIN THAT! His past 15 years are such an unexplained and mismatched history, that his development really doesn’t make sense. Someone who spent that many years doing martial arts training (they say Kung Fu, but his training is clearly not Kung Fu), you would expect that Danny would have mastered more than just the physical element, but also the mental arts of fighting, dealing with conflict resolution, how to talk a fight down, and other elements of fighting that are purely based in conversation. Danny exhibits none of this, which is extremely frustrating to watch. He can’t have a normal conversation, and just seems like a goofy, airheaded hippy throughout most of his interactions.
Then there are Danny’s business partners, the Meachums. Joy is portrayed at first as a confident, strong business woman, who is capable of using her mind and charisma to achieve her goals. After that, her character starts to fall apart. She clearly used to have a thing for Danny when they were kids, but now she can’t decide how she feels. She isn't sure if she should be trying to take him down, if she supports his directions, if she wants to sleep with him, or if she wants to kill him. It would be understandable if it was different plot points that was the cause of her teeter-tottering, but instead it seems like she flipflops within the same conversation with Danny. I can’t tell if she’s supposed to be a love interest, or an adversary. Danny’s reactions to her and others are so impossible to read, I’m honestly unsure if Danny has any sexual interests whatsoever. Maybe that was something they took care of during his training to keep him focused (like the Unsullied from Game of Thrones). However, Ward is probably the only real and consistent character in the show. He just hates Danny, disagrees with everything he says, and understands his place in the company.
Colleen's connection to Danny is so clearly forced, and it comes off as annoying. She has next to nothing to do with the plot, but keeps getting shoe-horned in. Her background of Chinese or Japanese is unclear, and her Martial Arts skills are infuriating (see below). It is unclear if she is supposed to be highly trained, or just a simple novice who is slightly better than those around her. She has zero background or character development, and the only thing that is known about her is she teaches ‘martial arts’, but what style, where she learned it from, how she learned it, are all non-existent. It’s almost as though they just said, ‘Well she’s Asian, so she knows Asian things and martial arts, but we don’t want to pick anything specific, so we can use her to cover more ground’.
Editing/Design
I’ve been watching this show in 4k HDR. It is pleasant that Netflix offers their content in this format. It helps me feel as though I’m seeing more of what the editors and designers wanted me to experience, in its more ‘true and pure form’. However, as I have said about the other elements of this show, it all just comes out bland. There aren’t any stunning shots, any picture-esq moments, or anything that stands out as ‘wow that’s a beautiful scene’. Everyone remembers the fight scene from Daredevil’s second episode, where he fights in a hallway, just piling up bodies. The fight choreography was excellent in that scene, and the camera work really made it amazing. Even Luke Cage, which was a relatively dull show, had some very cool shots that really sold its overall feel.
Iron Fist is sloppy in its editing and unimaginative in its scenes. As silly as this may sound, in order to determine whether or not a scene is interesting, I oftentimes visualize that if I were to do a freeze-frame during a scene, take that picture, and use it as wall art or a desktop background, would it be an impressive picture? Are characters, items, and settings being used to further the story? For example, the final shot of Samurai Jack tells so much of the story, the struggle, and the rewards of his journey, just in one frame. There has yet to be a single moment in the show where I have been impressed visually with what is actually on my screen.
Fight Choreography
This is a special category that definitely needs to be considered for this show. To preface, I have practiced karate for 16+ years, and this is an element that is very important to me. As a show supposed to be all about a guy trained in a ‘kung fu’ monastery there should be amazing fights in this show. Sadly, they are garbage. Most of the show looks like they are play slapping eachother. Their punches have terrible technique - they are slow, no level of control, and no level of force. It is some of the worst, obviously poorly trained fight scenes I have ever seen, and it is apparent the actors have no idea what they are doing. From doing research online, that’s exactly the case, as the actors had no more than 3 weeks of training.
Now, I understand elements of this may not be important to some, but try to think of it related to your profession or hobby. If you like fishing, think of it as someone on a show fishing, but they have no lure, just throwing the line with an empty string into the water. Or if you’re an EMS provider, think of defibrillating a patient magically using their bare hands. The point is, they are pretending to preform an action, while missing a huge and extremely important element. There is no consistent style to their . It makes everything look untrained. Really, it looks like a four-year-old who just watched Power Rangers and is now trying out their own moves.
For comparison, look at Into the Badlands. The show is filled with amazing Wushu and Kung-Fu fight scenes, primarily due to Daniel Wu’s in-depth background in studying martial arts. Accompanied with experienced martial arts producers like Stephen Fung, it is on point with its fighting and choreography. Iron Fist appears to have no one on staff with any martial arts training, and it really brings the show down. They should have hired someone people with actual experience. Badlands can have an episode with only fighting that carries the whole episode. Iron Fist can’t hold attention for more than 30 seconds. The fighting should be the main stand out, but it's the worst problem. For a “martial arts master”, Iron Fist really sucks at martial arts.
Overall
Overall, the show is pretty poor, a 4/10 on the Trakt scale. The characters and plot are boring and bland. A lot of the show is repeating and generic. It's nice to see more of these Netflix’s Marvel shows, but this one seriously dropped the ball. I’m sure I’ll appreciate the tie ins with the other Netflix’s Marvel shows, but so far that’s about the only interesting component. The element that should be perfect is the fighting, and it’s the worst part of the whole show. I still have more episodes, I can’t imagine the show will improve. Even if the show does a complete 180, and is amazing, the first third was still horrible. It’d be like having a piece of toast with 1/3 having mold on it - you can’t just cut that off, and I’m not eating that toast. If someone was looking at this long-winded review for a recommendation, I’d say Netflix’s Iron Fist is a hard pass. Hard pass.
Review by Movie Spoiler AlertsVIP 9BlockedParent2017-06-14T14:23:30Z
With stellar Marvel shows like Jessica Jones and Daredevil, Netflix’s Iron Fist found itself missing its mark, with its slow-paced plot, poorly choreographed fight scenes, and oftentimes unbelievable and unreliable characters. I just finished the 4th episode, so spoilers won’t go beyond there, but frankly, this show was a big disappointment, especially coming from someone with over 16 years of martial arts experience.
Plot Summary
The show revolves around Danny Rand (Finn Jones), the son of a business mogul who co-founded Rand Enterprises with Harold Meachum (David Wenham). At the age of 10, Danny and his parents were involved in a plane crash in the Himalayas, where both his parents died, and he ended up going to some secret monastery in a place called K’un-Lun. There Danny trains to be an elite warrior, known as the Iron Fist. Fifteen years later, Danny returns to New York, and after meeting up with Ward (Tom Phelphrey) and Joy (Jessica Stroup) Meachum, the children of Harold Meachum, Danny takes over the company. Harold nearly died from cancer, but was saved by a secret organization called The Hand, the same one seen in the second season of Daredevil. As the Iron Fist, Danny is trained to defeat The Hand, and it seems as though their paths are destined to cross, especially as The Hand has some control over the actions of Rand Enterprises. Danny also befriends Colleen Wing (Jessica Henwick), a local martial arts instructor, who possibly could be a love interest down the road.
Plot Analysis
While from the summary this show seems like it could be reasonably interesting, its frankly not. Danny’s training in K’un-Lun is just confusing and very inconsistent. At first it seems as though it was a very peaceful, non-violent place, with teachings of Zen and chi in order to attain a higher level of understanding through understanding oneself. Sometimes however, Danny seems to act like it was a Martial Arts boot camp, with grueling training and regular beatings to prepare him for war against The Hand. Then at other times, it is referred to training in a realm of heaven with these masters in order to prepare to fight the evil Hand, almost as though Danny is an agent of the gods, and will defeat The Hand as if they were “Satan and his demons”.
So, are the masters in this realm dead? Did they also get transported there? Have they always been there? Did Danny train with anyone else? None of the these are even explained, and are just glossed over. I understand, I’m not completed with the show, and maybe this will be explained more in detail later on, but at this point, its just bad story telling. How Danny’s time is described seems more like a psychedelic dream rather than 15 years of physical and emotional training. A couple of flashbacks to his time during his training would have done wonders for the story - giving the viewers a better sense of where he comes from, instead of sounding like a madman.
Which brings me to The Hand. From discussing with friends and family, their storyline was the most boring part of Daredevil, and unfortunately, they are a big part of the Iron Fist storyline too. This is a very generic ‘shadow organization’ that seems to have their hands in many things, however what their exact intentions are, what their methods are, belief system, structure, is all extremely unclear. They come off feeling like super standard ‘scary-ninja-guys-in-masks’. They also seem to not be able to decide if they are Chinese, Japanese, or some other culture in origin, which comes off as feeling as though their creator wasn’t fully aware of the difference. I haven’t read any comics on The Hand, and I’m certain they are more fleshed-out there, but from a TV-viewer standpoint, they just seem boring.
Many parts of the plot just seem typical, and we shouldn't just have to take that. Ward Enterprises is business company that makes business and money, but their products are relatively vague. Martial Arts are seen throughout the show, but as to a specific style or type, there is none, which I discuss in more detail below. K’un-Lun and The Hand are just your Good Guy vs Bad Guy, but no real reason why one is good or bad. Most interactions with the characters are generally exactly what you’d expect, and are often times redundant, such as talking about things that they have already discussed. A lot of the events are mainly inconsequential, almost time fillers. For example, there is a scene where Danny needs to get some medical records to prove he is actually Danny Rand, but an agent from Rand Enterprises destroys the documents. Then in the very next scene, Danny produces some other piece of evidence that shows he is who he says he is, making the whole looking for medical records pointless. There is a great deal of inconsistencies in the plot, from characters switching their opinions for no reason at all, to even simple things like saying one number in one scene, and a different number in the next. Does no one proof read?
The plot for this show is generic, repeating, and all over just boring. By trying to keep elements secretive, instead of enticing viewers to watch more to learn more, they are turning them off and making these elements just uninteresting.
Characters
The characters of Iron Fist follow very similar to the plot of the show. On the surface, they could be quite interesting, but sadly, they just aren’t.
Danny Rand has a relatively interesting, almost batman-like, back story. He could be this wise, worldly man, who is now able to approach business with a new angle that he would only have due to his training. Instead, Danny is a naïve man child, who comes off as uneducated and empty. He tries to apply different phrases or quotes to situations, but they feel forced and out of place. He acts as though he hasn’t talked to a real human being over the past 15 years, and its trying to remember how he talked 15 years before when he still lived in New York. It seems similar to Robin William’s character in Jumanji, where he really hadn’t talked to anyone in decades. But Danny clearly has spoken with his Masters and other pupils. And if he didn’t, THEN EXPLAIN THAT! His past 15 years are such an unexplained and mismatched history, that his development really doesn’t make sense. Someone who spent that many years doing martial arts training (they say Kung Fu, but his training is clearly not Kung Fu), you would expect that Danny would have mastered more than just the physical element, but also the mental arts of fighting, dealing with conflict resolution, how to talk a fight down, and other elements of fighting that are purely based in conversation. Danny exhibits none of this, which is extremely frustrating to watch. He can’t have a normal conversation, and just seems like a goofy, airheaded hippy throughout most of his interactions.
Then there are Danny’s business partners, the Meachums. Joy is portrayed at first as a confident, strong business woman, who is capable of using her mind and charisma to achieve her goals. After that, her character starts to fall apart. She clearly used to have a thing for Danny when they were kids, but now she can’t decide how she feels. She isn't sure if she should be trying to take him down, if she supports his directions, if she wants to sleep with him, or if she wants to kill him. It would be understandable if it was different plot points that was the cause of her teeter-tottering, but instead it seems like she flipflops within the same conversation with Danny. I can’t tell if she’s supposed to be a love interest, or an adversary. Danny’s reactions to her and others are so impossible to read, I’m honestly unsure if Danny has any sexual interests whatsoever. Maybe that was something they took care of during his training to keep him focused (like the Unsullied from Game of Thrones). However, Ward is probably the only real and consistent character in the show. He just hates Danny, disagrees with everything he says, and understands his place in the company.
Colleen's connection to Danny is so clearly forced, and it comes off as annoying. She has next to nothing to do with the plot, but keeps getting shoe-horned in. Her background of Chinese or Japanese is unclear, and her Martial Arts skills are infuriating (see below). It is unclear if she is supposed to be highly trained, or just a simple novice who is slightly better than those around her. She has zero background or character development, and the only thing that is known about her is she teaches ‘martial arts’, but what style, where she learned it from, how she learned it, are all non-existent. It’s almost as though they just said, ‘Well she’s Asian, so she knows Asian things and martial arts, but we don’t want to pick anything specific, so we can use her to cover more ground’.
Editing/Design
I’ve been watching this show in 4k HDR. It is pleasant that Netflix offers their content in this format. It helps me feel as though I’m seeing more of what the editors and designers wanted me to experience, in its more ‘true and pure form’. However, as I have said about the other elements of this show, it all just comes out bland. There aren’t any stunning shots, any picture-esq moments, or anything that stands out as ‘wow that’s a beautiful scene’. Everyone remembers the fight scene from Daredevil’s second episode, where he fights in a hallway, just piling up bodies. The fight choreography was excellent in that scene, and the camera work really made it amazing. Even Luke Cage, which was a relatively dull show, had some very cool shots that really sold its overall feel.
Iron Fist is sloppy in its editing and unimaginative in its scenes. As silly as this may sound, in order to determine whether or not a scene is interesting, I oftentimes visualize that if I were to do a freeze-frame during a scene, take that picture, and use it as wall art or a desktop background, would it be an impressive picture? Are characters, items, and settings being used to further the story? For example, the final shot of Samurai Jack tells so much of the story, the struggle, and the rewards of his journey, just in one frame. There has yet to be a single moment in the show where I have been impressed visually with what is actually on my screen.
Fight Choreography
This is a special category that definitely needs to be considered for this show. To preface, I have practiced karate for 16+ years, and this is an element that is very important to me. As a show supposed to be all about a guy trained in a ‘kung fu’ monastery there should be amazing fights in this show. Sadly, they are garbage. Most of the show looks like they are play slapping eachother. Their punches have terrible technique - they are slow, no level of control, and no level of force. It is some of the worst, obviously poorly trained fight scenes I have ever seen, and it is apparent the actors have no idea what they are doing. From doing research online, that’s exactly the case, as the actors had no more than 3 weeks of training.
Now, I understand elements of this may not be important to some, but try to think of it related to your profession or hobby. If you like fishing, think of it as someone on a show fishing, but they have no lure, just throwing the line with an empty string into the water. Or if you’re an EMS provider, think of defibrillating a patient magically using their bare hands. The point is, they are pretending to preform an action, while missing a huge and extremely important element. There is no consistent style to their . It makes everything look untrained. Really, it looks like a four-year-old who just watched Power Rangers and is now trying out their own moves.
For comparison, look at Into the Badlands. The show is filled with amazing Wushu and Kung-Fu fight scenes, primarily due to Daniel Wu’s in-depth background in studying martial arts. Accompanied with experienced martial arts producers like Stephen Fung, it is on point with its fighting and choreography. Iron Fist appears to have no one on staff with any martial arts training, and it really brings the show down. They should have hired someone people with actual experience. Badlands can have an episode with only fighting that carries the whole episode. Iron Fist can’t hold attention for more than 30 seconds. The fighting should be the main stand out, but it's the worst problem. For a “martial arts master”, Iron Fist really sucks at martial arts.
Overall
Overall, the show is pretty poor, a 4/10 on the Trakt scale. The characters and plot are boring and bland. A lot of the show is repeating and generic. It's nice to see more of these Netflix’s Marvel shows, but this one seriously dropped the ball. I’m sure I’ll appreciate the tie ins with the other Netflix’s Marvel shows, but so far that’s about the only interesting component. The element that should be perfect is the fighting, and it’s the worst part of the whole show. I still have more episodes, I can’t imagine the show will improve. Even if the show does a complete 180, and is amazing, the first third was still horrible. It’d be like having a piece of toast with 1/3 having mold on it - you can’t just cut that off, and I’m not eating that toast. If someone was looking at this long-winded review for a recommendation, I’d say Netflix’s Iron Fist is a hard pass. Hard pass.