The Man with the Iron Fists 2 (2015)

Wow! What a bizarre film! Unfortunately the few funny moments there were were quite overshadowed by it's completely weird and random vibe throughout.

It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

Blistering performances.

The only association this film has with the original "The Man With the Iron Fists" is the appearance of RZA as the Blacksmith, who may or may not have had the name Thaddeus in the first film. I just don't remember. There is no other continuity to speak of, as this story zeroes in on the Golden Nectar of Immortality and an evil village master who intends to corner the market on it. The bad guy is Master Ho, a poor choice of name as I think about it now as it carries a terribly misplaced connotation. Think about it a minute and it will come to you.What martial art action there is here is fairly sanitized compared to the original, not as bloody or as intricately choreographed with fancy wire work. The Blacksmith doesn't even seem to be the principal character after the opening sequence occurs, as the location of the story moves over to the village of Tsai Fu. The story's hero in this picture is Li Kung (Dustin Nguyen), who after taking his share of hits from the villagers for not doing a better job as leader of the opposition to Master Ho, finally decides to offer a challenge following the murder of his brother.That about sums things up as I don't want to get too long winded here. I wouldn't say it's a terrible film but it's got a lot of the 'if you've seen one you've seen them all' quality to it. One thing that does stand out is the rap lyrics accompanying the martial arts action, that's something I don't thing I've seen or heard before. And lest I forget, the cast credits include what is perhaps the world champion of unpronounceable names for the character of The Abbott - Schnitrnunt Busarakamwong. That's even got Carl Yastrzemski beat.

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.

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 subpar 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.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.While the first movie wasn't that great, it still had production value with famous names and stylish design. This one definitely has less budget as everything looks lackluster. Whereas the screenplay is abysmal, the action might fare worse. The motion seems fake even though it uses slow mo to mask it, some scenes even depict missed punches and overacting but these are still edited clumsily for the final product. It looks awkward for an action film not being able to deliver action sequences.While it may benefit from oriental ambiance, the cumbersome plot and underwhelming choreography sink the movie like two giant anchors strapped on its limbs.

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.