Watching episode #2 now. First impression: if the Marvel movies are like ivory, this show is like cardboard. The lead actor Finn Jones is great, he's making the show. But so far the other actors just aren't. Sorry.
Jessica Stroup is a pretty face that knows her lines, but doesn't demonstrate even the tiniest bit of character depth. It's like she comes to the studio, plays her part, and leaves without giving it another thought.
Tom Pelphrey, well I know he's a good actor, he was great in Banshee. But over here, in the first two episodes he's such a superficial character, it doesn't do him justice so I hope that will change as we get further along. Because he needs a character with a proper backstory so he can show his talent. Like the guy he played in Banshee: it wasn’t even a main character really, but even so, he left me wanting and wondering. It takes talent to be able to pull that off. He’s got it.
Anyway. Iron Fist. The storyline so far is lame. I won't give spoilers, except for maybe one word: Arrow. Generally, it gets really cheesy and full of cliches we’ve all seen a thousand times in various movies and series already. Psych ward, really?
The lines and story details are lame. Who in the world would not recognize a childhood friend 15 years later?! Only in Netflix land do these things happen. And you can almost predict what the characters are going to say next, like all the time.
I’m doing my best to not give you any real spoilers here, but ffs, no sensei in the world would call themselves a master and then go out to teach their pupils martial arts by letting them try to mug the sensei. And a real sensei would never talk down on their students. What were the writers thinking?!!
Choreography... It’s like they didn’t even try to make an effort. Not impressed at all. It's easy to imagine where the jump ropes were used.
Camera work.. let’s just say they do use nice color filters. That’s not a compliment. The staff knows what they’re doing, but here it shows in a bad way, like how bored they are after making the umpth Netflix tv show.
And finally the set like most of the walls are made out of cardboard. Sounds like it too. Audio quality (from boom mics) is horrible.
All in all.. well like I said, I’m only two episodes in. So it might get better. But that being said, it does have a really cheap taste to it. This is not the Marvel I’m used to. It has all the elements except for the most important one: soul. It lacks a soul.
So here’s to hoping it’ll get better. Would I recommend watching it? Yes. You might be less critical than I am. If so: great. Hope you enjoy every second of it. After I finish writing this, I’ll do my best to enjoy it too.
But I just had to get this off my chest first, and if you agree with my review, it’s time for more of us to start voicing this stuff to the degree that the studios will listen. Because we want quality, but what we get is cardboard box degraded entertainment. It’s not worth ploughing through if this is how it stays, so the rest of the story better be damn good, it’s a Marvel’s show for heaven's sake, not DC Comics!
If things stay like this though, I predict that I’m not staying a Netflix subscriber for much longer. Because if there’s any general indication to quality running down hill with them, this show proves how sloppy they have become.
Come on, tv show makers, at least try to make an effort, please!
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.
To me, someone who have not read any Marvel Comic neither when young or as adult but have watched a most of the contemporary Marvel TV productions, they have a chronic problem without an easy solution: the story line from almost every one follows the same structure, something that makes them quite predictable even to the level of guessing exactly what it's going to happen take by take. After watching a couple of titles it starts get boring, you are watching almost the same "story" every single time only changing the names.
And because they churn them as mid-budget series, there's not even the visual appeal of a fine production series with lots of exterior shots, visual effects, FX, cast and great post-production work. I truly think they have been burning much faster than they thought the goodwill they had built with the generation that grew buying superhero comics
I suppose their comics were similar, the found a formula (storyline) that worked and kept churning out comics with different superheroes doing all basically the same. It may have worked 50 years ago but today I don't think it will cut it any longer. And especially with the audience to which the TV Shows are targeted
I have seen the whole season and it's neither visually impressive nor the story is original, moreover I'll dare to say that it's too slow, dull, with cardboard like characters. If you decide not to watch it, you wouldn't be missing anything and if you do watch it, don't expect much - just another way to kill a few hours but nothing more.
Hope Netflix realizes the Marvel Mine is already kind of exhausted and starts looking elsewhere for its in house productions
I get about the same feeling from this show as I do the other Defenders characters. I feel the Marvel brand is so diverse in how it chooses to tell stories, people have wanted to see an extra "it" factor in this that they presume Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, or Daredevil already have. In reality, you get the nitty-gritty details of the daily lives of singular heroes that will inevitably feel like it plods along unless you give yourself over to the world they're depicting. Sure, the bad guys are a bit one-dimensional and there are fight scenes that are less than wildly impressive, but the series doesn't feel lazy or haphazard no matter how unfamiliar you might think the writers are with the source material. Marvel transcends itself by tapping into an ethos of the times, often what we need to see or get better at. This story unfolds slowly as a lost and foreign element fights his way back into a familiar world corrupted by enemies old and new. The series doesn't think too big of itself, like the main character, and as it explores his relationship to friends and family let alone his moral responsibilities, you walk the tension that comes with asserting your name across worlds designed and bent to repel you.
Review by WiseBlockedParent2017-03-18T09:04:08Z— updated 2017-03-25T10:20:06Z
-- DISCLAIMER: THIS BELOW IS ENTIRELY MY PERSONAL OPINION, YOU MIGHT NOT AGREE WITH IT --
When you're used to the level of the MCU, such as like: Daredevil, Jessica Jones and even Luke Cage, you go in with such high expectations for the next one that it's really easy for them to make simple mistakes.
But here I won't be talking about simple mistakes, I'll talk about HUGE mistakes.
Danny Rand is the Iron Fist, a child survivor of a plane crash that killed his whole family, gets adopted by mystical monks on the Himalayas that train him in every combat style, armed and unarmed and make him "The Living Weapon" or "The Iron Fist", bonded to a lifetime duty to protect the monastery.
You might say: "There's nothing wrong with that", and I fully agree. Iron Fist's background, and development, and history has been one of my favourites to read in Marvel Comics.
In this TV show, we get an underpowered, discredited and frankly... with not that much screen time Iron Fist.
I started the show, AT LEAST, expecting sick fighting scenes, I mean, these are people trained to become warriors, skilled in every combat art.
And what do we get?
SLOW FIGHTS. actors CLEARLY WAITING on set for the counterpart attack to resume the fight, almost EVERY fighting scene had terrible choreography. There was nothing put into it other than a few sick jumps and two punches done right using a body double.
Really, if you pay attention and put aside the hype of seeing Iron Fist fight, these scenes are all terrible.
This story is filled with mental diseases from everyone.
Danny seems like a bad version of Batman with rage controlling issues. As I said before he's WAY UNDERPOWERED. He can only light up one fist, break one gun, take down one wall, or one door at a time and then going into the LONGEST cooldown humanity has ever seen. In the comics he punched a helicarrier so hard he made it "land".
Ward's character is a mess of... paranoia and frustration, but there was really nothing put into him other than daddy issues, there was no depth to the character at all other than a constant jokerish attitude, making jokes about everything that made him feel uncomfortable, and the stupid ass "drug addict" attitude, not to mention the UNEXPLICABLE hallucinations he's getting for some reason that didn't get explained, and... the murdering rampage, obvious as a blue sky.
Joy's is plain as cardboard as well, same daddy issues Ward's got. The PERPETUAL struggle between dark and light inside of her. Doing bad stuff with her company, and crying and complaining for two straight episodes afterwards. Then, when she gets a possibility to make everything right, to change life, build something she likes, nah, she banters that she feels useless, that she wants to keep the company because it's something she made. After 9 episodes of seeing her cry and conflicted for working that very same job.
Claire and Gao took the entire first season on their backs and kept it there, if it wasn't for them I wouldn't have kept watching. Gao's malicious as fuck and the actress like in the other MCU series did a marvelous job. Claire had better fighting scenes in those 10 seconds she did than Colleen and Danny put together for 12 episodes.
Colleen is a mystery to me. Looks like she was placed there to be the girlfriend, that's it. I didn't like the Karate Kid sensei attitude she had, I didn't like her inexplicable idea to go fighting in the cage after literally one episode before she was bantering one of her students not to. Also... why the hell doesn't she use her katana in 8 episodes? Like... WHAT?! Bushido my ass Colleen.
I'm not even going to talk about the other characters, because they were utterly useless, the had no impact at all in the entire season and they shouldn't be mentioned for that very same reason. They were there to say a few words and go out. Yes, I'm also talking about Ward's and Joy's father.
The story is very predictable, there's no cliffhanger, no unexpected twist, it's all out there waiting for you to think one second and reach to the same conclusion you will later see. At episode 8 it got so boring I've fallen asleep for a while.
Also, some scenes look like they were taken out of the Power Rangers. Sometimes the audio was clearly changed in different recording studios, you can clearly hear the actor's voice changing in echoes and quality. Sometimes it's simply plain and with no effect that should emulate the room they are in, in the episode. Sometimes new b level actors pop up with stupid lines put there just to extend the episode's length, with plain "I'm on camera" looks on their faces. I'm just... blown away.
All MAIN actors aren't that bad really, this was just poor writing, poor character placement and not a lot to work with. There's no synergy, no connection at all between then, this was just terrible.
Finn Jones doesn't really get the character to a point where he could just simply take the entire series on his back, just like it happened with Luke Cage. He's got the looks and the chest tattoo, but nothing more.
Tom Pelphrey is pretty good I gotta admit, even with his stupid ass character, his acting skills where very emphatic, I felt his fear, his frustration, his rage. And I gotta admit it made me uncomfortable.
Jessica Stroup is a beautiful face that couldn't do more than the character they gave her.
Jessica Henwick is a mystery to me.
Thank you Rosario Dawson and Wai Ching Ho for saving this entire horrible first season.
So, all points concluded I gotta vote this series no more than 6.
This was WAY below the level the other series put up front.
Even whilst Luke Cage lowered that level a lot, this still wasn't as near to it.
All considered this seems way more of a... "transitional series" to what will become either a very budget powered Iron Fist or a fantastic Defenders series. We will see.