The Man with the Iron Fists 2 (2015)

Simply A Masterpiece

Good , But It Is Overrated By Some

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

When a stranger, Thaddeus, is found badly wounded near the village, miner Li Kung and his wife Ah Ni offer him refuge. As he heals, he becomes entrenched in a conflict that pits the townsfolk against the evil Master Ho, his nefarious Beetle Clan and the terrifying Lord Pi. The Man with the Iron Fists 2 is a sequel to the highly entertaining and highly suprising and well made first film from 2012 and unfortunately this was nowhere near as good as the first film especially in terms of story, acting and there's even a ridiculous fight sequence between RZA and Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa and it was just corny and stupid. This wasn't nowhere near as good as the first but not even good on it's own. (0/10)

While the first Iron Man ... sorry Iron Fist movie had some good actors in it (alongside RZA), this one is even more straight to video/DVD, than that. If there is going to be a third one, I hope they'll go either back to hire some good acting talent and/or someone who's gonna polish the look (action wise and just framing and set design wise too).Whatever you thought about the previous entry, you couldn't fault it for its looks. Russell Crowe seemed a bit nonplussed by it, but at least he was in it. And while I really like Wu Tang and RZA music wise, he really should go back to producing. Or get a great director and just a small role (like he did in Ghost Dog). There really isn't much to save this, watch at your own peril (to waste your time that is)

Plot was a bit weaker than the first. These types of films are not made to win Oscars. The Rza has spoken widely on his, and the Wu- Tang Clan's love of Eastern thought and specifically Kung-Fu films. I think is just another love song to that genre and a reference to milieu that might be a little odd to westerners not familiar with the Asian culture. I think the Rza in his own small way is trying to touch on concepts and loftier concepts , just not being an adept at storytelling, one can see gaps and weaknesses in the arc and theme, Story goes that there's an entity on a mining town that feeds on life force. The people of this town also have to content with oppression from the ruling clan. Meanwhile Thaddeus (RZA) is unexpectedly involved in a rebellion against the dictator. Main focus of the movie is the struggle of town folks, there's barely any continuity from the first movie and RZA himself only here as a supporting role. The plot tries to resolves its several subplots, only to be hampered with poor execution.Writing and characterization are not satisfying, it follows the usual rebellion theme with screeching pace. Though it has a couple of twists, the direction is so slow, one can skip thirty minutes of the movie and doesn't miss much. The build-up is inconsistent with shady acting, and change of setting to beach town doesn't prove to be amusing as well. Environment only consists of a dark barren town and a rural village. The use of color contrast feels archaic, it's nothing more than the visual of B-movie. Furthermore, the soundtracks don't fit the theme, it may be intended as clash of cultures, but the end result is borderline intrusive.RZA is definitely passionate about martial art movie and he invests a lot of time for this niche, but The Man with the Iron Fists 2 is a sub par action movie. It has low production value, the exotic location surprisingly isn't appealing, the script is flimsy and most importantly the action choreography is utterly disappointing. Fights are no better than scenes from ancient action flick from decades ago, and with this flaw the movie just loses its main appeal.I thought to avoid watching this movie, because is a sequel of a terrible-boring wrongly directed movie called THE MAN WITH THE IRON FISTS(2012), which is characterized by wrong choices and wrong decisions in all levels: Producer, Director, Actors, Writer... The first movie was a child attempt of RZA to become a Writer-Director- Producer-Music- Protagonist ...all in one: A monumental ego catastrophe.Maybe is not one of the best action movies of the year, perhaps far from that, but the movie has some valuable elements that make you feel satisfied at the end. Is a kind of crazy movie that some times make you remember the style of action of movies like Kill Bill.I give 10 stars rating, for this entertaining action movie.

The positives in this movie would be the story, which is quite decent. And apart from Tagawa I was only impressed with Carl Ng's performance that made the story watchable till the end. With all the great, good looking Chinese actors and actresses we see, I must say this was the weirdest cast I have come across.I expected more of RZA but way past the halfway mark of the movie I realized he may not be playing the main role. RZA, who I would say really did good in "Brick Mansions" was terrible, flapping his "rubber" Iron Fists. As I mentioned Carl Ng does a pretty decent job in the beginning building up his character to be a real bad-ass, although it leads to big disappointment as the story progresses with very bad fighting scenes. A good fight would be one key factor we expect from this movie that lacks, apart from number of other elements like poor acting, poor selection of cast.