L'Homme aux poings de fer

"We had decided to leave this place, but it turns out that the universe had other plans." When a legend of a golden treasure is heard of a group of various warriors come to a village. When an evil faction looks to take control it is up to the local blacksmith (RZA) and a rogue British soldier (Crowe) to stop them and protect the village. I have to admit that I am not a huge fan of movies like this. I have never really been into martial arts type movies although I have seen some really good ones. That said, while not being all that amazing of a movie itself this one was super entertaining and had some interesting fight sequences that I really enjoyed. The movie is way over the top and unbelievable, but it fit in this movie. If you are looking for an Oscar worthy type martial arts movie then I recommend 13 Assassins or War Of Arrows. This movie is really just visually fun and the fighting is entertaining, which is good sometimes. I liked it more then I expected. Overall, better then anticipated, martial arts fans may really like this. I say B.

I have recently been reading reviews of this film and I think people have been suffering from overly high expectations. It is NOT Django! It is a tongue in cheek take on old school martial arts films and I for one enjoyed it a lot. The fight scenes were outrageous and rightfully so. If you appreciate the beauty of Asian women then you are in for a real treat with this film. The plot wasn't deep but it wasn't meant to be. It is just a bit of fun and nostalgic for the films made by such production companies as golden harvest. Sometimes a guy wants to watch a movie and not have to think and this is the perfect film for that.

I found it interesting that Russell Crowe was in this film. He must have quite a sense of humour. Casting Batista I thought was pretty good as the character suited him well. Lucy Liu is always sassy and I the other actors brought some much needed humour to the movie.

Okay so I read a lot of reviews on IMDb before deciding whether or not to watch a movie, but this is my first time writing a review. Because I was really interesting in seeing a movie by RZA and the preview made it look like a Tarantino kill bill-esque movie, which I really like. I felt I had to review this movie because the rating is currently pretty low. I watch a lot a movies and am really into writing and screen writing, so of course I wasn't expecting an exceptionally scripted or written movie.

In the past couple of days I have seen a few movies I wasn't too excited about seeing, but I'm running out of new ones. I saw Abraham Lincoln Vampire hunter, Alex Cross, and Sinister. I just watched this movie this morning and although all of those movies are very different, I was by far the most entertained by TMWTIF. I though Russel Crowe did a pretty good job with what he was given, and RZA did okay as actor and I really like when he narrated. Also the fight scenes soundtrack is really cool, with good wu-tang beats and a few verses. It was pretty cool seeing the Kung-fu fighting with the rap playing, pretty different.

All in all, if your looking for a movie with a really good storyline, plot, and script, then you probably shouldn't watch this movie. If you just want something to put on that's really cool to look at, with good music, attractive Asian women, and really good fight scenes then you probably won't be disappointed. It's a fun movie and deserves a little better rep. I'd watch a sequel.

Okay, I've never reviewed movies but I'll give it the old Jr. high try. This movie with it's solid effects and even nicer fighting is still flawed. Maybe a review is too strong of a word here's my bad/ good list. I've left a grade to give a better Idea of my disapproval.

The bad: 1. Focus the dang camera (C-), I'm not an expert but who the hell is focusing? Lucy Liu during a big speech has her helper in focus and she just off focus. If I spent $2000 on a wedding video I'd like the bride in focus, geez. The focus was out of control in a lot of places which was distracting.

2. Rza (D-) although I do really think this is a work of love and it shows, WTH was he thinking staring in this? If he's too afraid of what his friends think of him if he stops doing his best droopy impression, don't be the lead actor! I mean it's 10-20 minutes, or however long he's in this, of him looking emotionless. I mean grimace man or look sad when bad things happen! How hard is it!!

3. Flashbacks (F)There's an origin flashback an boy is it misguided and uncomfortable! It's just so underdeveloped, maybe the extended version would make sense of it but it really could have been shot better. I imagine this is to Southern Americans (not South America, the Hey Y'all kind etc), what bad American war movies are to Germans. If you're gonna deface us do it with a little finesse.

4. Character motivations sucked(big ol' F), I mean really sucked! I would have been happy to give this a 7 if the characters would make a little sense. Somethings could have been resolved easily I think by just a few lines of dialogue but nope it's all thrown at you with no solid direction.

5. The "almost" makes it a crime(F), like where was everyone's head? You have an almost great movie and no one could ask for help or give it??

6.Split screens (F), Why? Was action happening at the same time?, nope. Bad call, again in the right hands maybe. Here 4 minutes of film that wasn't worth the editing time.

The good:

1. Costumes(B+) were cool, I liked them even the goofy ones, had no problems really. The wigs were really fun and funny.

2. The action(A-), was really great. Fun and funny with no real let downs you get into it and the end battle to me wasn't disappointing except for rza's acting but he was actually passable here(sort of).

3. Effects(A), yup solid, don't care if it looks Kill Billish. Come on, I've actually watched anime since forever and that's how blood sprays in most of those. Dumb to even bring kill bill into this(sort of).

4. Weapons(A+) lots of great gags and deaths. You can tell a lot of time went into conceiving these and the deaths.

5.The villain(A++), Silver Lion and Bronze Lion are great and eat up the screen, none of the heroes come close to these two guys charisma on screen! I mean why the heroes played it so straight without any wink wink moments is beyond me. Did they really think this was a serious movie?

Which comes to my overall review! 5/10 C+, basically there's a lot going right here enough to be watchable, enjoyable even become a classic b movie. But it was so close to being more it's a little sad.

nuff said, MEMO Art

Firstly, a disclaimer: All in all, this movie succeeds in what it sets out to do. It's a homage to grindhouse Kung Fu movies of the 70's and 80's and it succeeds very well in being just that kind of film. People go around saying how crap it was, but let's remind ourselves, not every movie is trying to be a masterpiece, and your subjective expectations don't mean this is a bad movie. Everyone went in expecting to see Kill Bill for some reason, because it was produced by Tarantino.

At any rate, the film has quite a nice plot, reminiscent of the movies it tries to pay homage to. It's a simple plot, not many twists and turns to it, but it does draw you in. It has drama, it plays on base emotions like greed and lust for power, and it involves a bloody multi-faction war. Basically, the governor of a Chinese province is transporting some gold (for no specific reason, I assumed it was collected taxes or army wages), and assigns a warrior clan (the Lions) with protecting the shipment while it passes through their area, which is infested with several crime syndicates. The Lions clan leader is murdered by his lieutenants as they want to claim the gold for themselves. Later on, the story starts involving another warrior clan that is protecting the gold (Geminis), a crime syndicate (Wolves), a mercenary army (Jackals), a blacksmith (RZA) that just wants to leave with his beloved woman, a whore house where said woman works (The Blossom House), a mysterious assassin (Poison Dagger), a mysterious cowboy (Jack Knife, played by Russel Crowe) and the son of the murdered Lions clan leader (Zen Yi or X-Blade).

The film contains several fight scenes and violent acts and if you are an action fan, you are gonna enjoy this. The cinematography is quite good, especially in the final battle scene. The acting is excellent for the most part (except RZA at some parts) and considering this was intended to resemble a grindhouse b-movie film. I especially enjoyed the obese Russel Crowe in the role of Jack Knife.

Overall, it's a good watch if you don't go in expecting to see the masterpiece of the year in Kung Fu movies, or a parody along the lines of Black Dynamite. It was certainly much more enjoyable than Argo 7/10