L'homme aux poings de fer 2

Review: What a complete waste of time! I thought that RZA would have learnt from the first movie but this one is even worse. Without Russell Crowe and Lucy Liu, this sequel really didn't have a chance, especially with its terrible storyline and weak characters. Basically it's about a evil man who runs the village and forces the men to work in a mine. The miners group together to try and take out the vicious evil-doer but they always end up getting murdered, until Thaddeus comes along. After getting saved by one of the miners daughters, Thaddeus makes them weapons to take out Master Ho and the leader of the miners, Li Kung, challenges him to a duel. With the help of his fellow miners and Thaddeus, they battle to take down his clan with there martial arts skills and weapons. The storyline is really bad and the heavy hip hop beats throughout the movie didn't match the mood of the film. The acting is pretty poor but it does look authentic and some of the scenery was impressive. Personally, I don't know how RZA was able to release another one of these movies because the first one was a joke. He seemed really out of place throughout the film and his fighting skills were terrible and hard to watch. Anyway, I personally think that this was a total waste of time and money and I'm not surprised that it went straight to DVD. Terrible!

Round-Up: Although the music throughout the movie didn't suit the scenes, I was bopping my head to RZA's beats so he should really stick to what he's good at. The whole iron fist concept really didn't play a big part in this movie and RZA seemed to be missing most of the time. On the plus side, the film didn't look low budget and some of the gory fighting scenes were OK but RZA really needs to do something with Thaddeus, who just seems to be in a bad mood all of the time. If he's going to come out with another movie in this franchise, he's need to do the Iron Fists in America because the Oriental flavour really isn't working. 

I recommend this movie to people who are into their martial movies about a group of miners who want to take down there evil boss with the help of Thaddeus. 2/10

I enjoyed the first one... OK, it's nothing new, and it's was nothing outstanding, but still, it was very entertaining...the cast had some world class names, from Russel Crowe to Lucy Liu and Dave Bautista as well...

I was awkward to see this second one... I've read the reviews, and I found myself thinking: "The first one was entertaining... the second one, as any sequel, will be mediocre, at best..."...and so, last night, I give a try.. Glad that I did... first, the cast here, is more "B-level". They are well known from Asian movies or action B-films... Dustin Nguyen, Carl Ng, Sahajal Boonthanakit and the most famous of all, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa.

This second movie, doesn't evolve around Thaddeus (Rza), but over Li King (Dustin), as the leader of an enslaved mining village. MAster Ho, and his henchmen, abuse physically and mentally of every villager, and those who do not submit to his will, are tortured and killed. The arrival of Thaddeus to the village, is the sign the villagers were waiting for, to fight back, against tyranny.

So, this second movie is more about martial arts, itself. Nguyen is awesome, as always, and the old kungfu moves, are very good. Even though it has it's flaws, the movie is good... from my personal point of view, I prefer this one to the first one...

But still, I recommend you to see it, and make your own conclusion. Remember, it's not class A material... but is still, a good movie.

MAN WITH THE IRON FIST 2 review by: Mike Smith

Thaddeus The Blacksmith (RZA) is back in this action adventure inspired by Kung-Fu classics. A reluctant villager joins forces with a mysterious outsider to fight off powerful evil forces, both earthly and otherworldly, in a 19th century Chinese mining town.

Let me start by saying I didn't mind the first Man With The Iron Fist movie; it was a nice Kung-Fu action Grindhouse movie but it was forgettable. Besides the start of the film, Man With The Iron Fist 2 shys away from the Grindhouse feel of the first film and focuses more on the Kung-Fu genre. One thing I was disappointed about is that this films story isn't really based around the adventure of Thaddeus The Blacksmith. The story is about a minor who must save his village with the help of Thaddeus The Blacksmith. Man With The Iron Fist 2 just helps build the legend of Thaddeus The Blacksmith a bit more, so don't expect just to watch RZA whoop ass through the whole film like the first one.

I'm not the biggest Kung-Fu movie fan but I really enjoyed myself. The fight scenes are really well done and kept me wanting more. The story is a classic stand up to evil story and this film tells it well.

Unlike the first film, there are not a lot of big named stars in this movie, but it doesn't take away from the film. Everyone does a great job in Man With The Iron Fist 2 and it feels like a love letter to classic Kung-Fu films.

But like all films, Man With The Iron Fist 2 does have some flaws, like the use of modern day lingo. You kind of forget that everyone is supposed to be in 19th century Chinese, even though it takes you out of the film I find it part of the charm. The music is all rap and/or big rap beats; I'm not by far a rap fan and yes I know RZA is a rapper so I knew what to expect and I enjoyed the beats and the scores.

Man With The Iron Fist 2 is not a top shelf movie but I did enjoy it even though it's not what I was expecting after seeing the first film 3 years ago. This film is strongly forgettable but has some fun lines of dialog. If you want to watch something a bit different and turn your brain off for 90 minutes check this out and no you don't need to watch the first film to watch this one.

Cheers and remember like won't suck as long as there is a good movie to watch.

6 out of 10

Edited by Samantha Locke

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I'm only writing this review because some of the other reviews are far too harsh. Yes, this is a bad movie, but it's not any worse than most other low budget chop socky I've watched, if anything it suffers from a lack of fighting. My biggest complaint would be that the asians in this flick all speak english to well and detracts from that asian market grindhouse martial arts feel. Anyway if you've watched more than five none hollywood kung fu movies you'll see it's Ok.

Here you can learn, how a movie can start and actually also end as an real epic movie - with elements from one of the oldest and proudest cultures on earth and perhaps the greatest and oldest philosophy our human civilization has developed on earth, and get transformed to an B-grade movie, in no time. Lot of crap effects with red fluid in slow motion and meaningless violence. Nothing really fits in this movie - from HipHop to music from a old Western: 'the good the bad and the ugly'... A black American actor as black American blacksmith...? If the story were great, we will probably not care about the detail so much. But a weak story, the viewer begins to wonder about all the mixed up elements from different genres.

Landscape from Thailand (with even elephants...?) - no Chinese language language at all and the play and fighting scenes are performed poorly, more like in a school theater - all of this is staffed inside a Chinese Martial-Art movie. With all this elements, incongruent set together, it seems like a awful wast of money - producing and to buying the movie.

There are beautiful scenes of Thailand... There are very deep spiritual thoughts in very small glimpses, but used like parsley on a inedible mush. Then back to the rather mechanical fight scenes. I could nearly hear the director on set: "People will see action, people will have distraction from their own miserable life, so don't bother with the story or anything else, just show some action". Underestimating the viewer and at the same time a perfect recipe to produce a B-grate Movie!

• Shooting a typical french movie in the Netherlands, with all the tulips and Windmills i the background, will probably be for some people in US not disturbing - it's all together in Europe anyway and doesn't matter for them. Or... Asia is Asia... Thailand, China... whatever... For us who are, or have been in China and Thailand many times - there are enormous difference in nature and building-styles and a totally different experience to be in this two different countries. I have never been a fan of Western movies - made in Italy in the 1970s - either. I had also he kind of experience like "something is not right and steals the focus"e already 40 years ago. Perhaps you will not buy this movie and see it instead on one of the millions of super commercial TV stations - with 5 minutes movie and 15 minutes commercials. With a good mix of toothpaste, call your plumbing specialist, hairstyling, Real Estate and Carwash - you will enjoy the 5 minutes movie, in between the commercials and don't realize any in-congruency anyway. It is still to us humans one of the finest Art to make a great movie, where there are being taking care of all the details and everything fits together. Then the whole world will stand up and applaud excited.