Let's talk Netflix's Iron Fist

I am really enjoying the soundtrack.

@deathstriker: i enjoyed the action scenes in luke cage, but yeah i thought were talking fight scenes specifically.

After just finishing the show I'd still probably say it's third with Luke Cage fourth. I got frustrated watching this, but not bored and I did get bored with LC. It's pretty much a toss up between these two shows, since they both have some major problems, especially in the second half. I won't spoil anything, but in the second half it seems like Danny loses his cool and confidence. Claire brings up how he used to seem innocent, so maybe they did this on purpose, but him having the emotional maturity of a child and being aimless about his purpose wasn't fun to watch, also his plans are pretty awful.

I am tired of the "no killing" thing - it doesn't fit every and all heroes. If Danny has been trained to be a living weapon most of his life he should be okay killing. He shouldn't do it in cold blood, but it would be more unique and interesting if he didn't mind killing in a fight. The same going for Colleen running around with a sword but not really using it. Reminded me of the PG-13s Wolverines where he just slices guns in half. They should've given her a staff or something else non-lethal to use. I still wouldn't say it's "awful", but it is heavily flawed, which I felt the same about Luke Cage. JJ and especially DD are way better to me. They probably should've gotten someone who worked on DD to do this, since both shows have the same villains, this needed to be darker, and the fights would've been way better.

Finished the final two episodes this morning, and overall I thought the show was "meh". Finn Jones just doesn't have the physicality to sell himself as a martial arts master, the fight scenes were overall poorly choreographed and filmed, and (like most of the other Marvel Netflix shows) there wasn't enough plot to justify 13 episodes.

My current rankings of the Netflix Marvel shows:

1. Daredevil Season 1
2. Daredevil Season 2, First half with the Punisher
3. Luke Cage, First half with Cottonmouth
4. Jessica Jones
5. Daredevil Season 2, Second half with Elektra and the Hand
6. Iron First
7. Luke Cage, Second half

I finished the series and it's really, really rough. I have a lot of criticisms, but I'll focus on one. I hate the boiler plate "kill and him and you'll be just as bad" theme they inserted and not because it's a common trope, but because they don't explore it. First, is killing a mystical ninja who brain washes disadvantaged youths into joining a private really going to make you as bad as them? Two, they don't have a plan for mystical ninjas. They constantly question whether he should kill them, but they don't have any other plans. Jessica Jones had a plan for Kilgrave, but what are they going to do with mystical ninjas? What jail will hold Madam Gao even if they arrest her? Can they tie her to any crimes? It's just something they bring up so they can pretend the show is about something.

I pretty much binged this series in about 2 days or so. Overall i liked a lot of stuff in this series but I think the final episode is bit problematic ( i think they wasted a good chance for potential season 2 in this episode).

Dont really have to say much about the controversy around iron fist as i didnt even know that such a superhero exists before netflix started promoting this series. Would have been fine with asian actor in the role but didnt find this particular actor wrong for this role either. Though the actress who played colleen wing stood out for me especially. Wouldnt mind watching a spinoff series built around her adventures.

I also agree that they are talking a lot about Iron fist as a living weapon but we really didnt get a scene where he kinda goes all out. They could be saving that stuff for the defenders but dont think that is a good decision in this case.

I gotta disagree with you here. I'm not completely done the series, we are only a couple episodes away. However I felt that the very laid back pacifist approach to Danny as a character is meant to provide a moral compass if you will, around the whole show. How they presented him from the first episode till now, as this care free budhist who is trying to re-discover a world he once idolized as a child plays in pretty great contrast to the city and world as he returns to it. It's why I was also fine with how reserved his fighting style was. He didn't want to be the Iron Fist, he left to avoid that destiny. As responsibility gets thrust onto him, and as he realizes that returning home brings him just as involved with all the rotten stuff going on whether it be the Hand, his company or even the life with his former childhood friends; which side point here. The entire Meechum sub plot is the highlight for this show imo. I feel like the slow build of Iron Fist finding himself and his purpose would absolutely fall flat if that was all the show was. The drama this side plot specifically creates, and some truly fascinating scenes. The acting by all involved, but especially Ward Meechum is stellar. His entire sub plot has been fascinating till this point.

Anyway; I don't feel there is a point to criticize Rand for how they have handled the Gao situation. The show presents Raand as powerful but young and reckless. He very much has very little handle on how to do this, other than to try to limit the danger from his friends his decision making has been all over the place. I feel that is intentional. He's supposed to grow into a super hero, not become this amazing crime solving villain stopping person overnight. The mistakes he makes, and the consequences he faces because of that all feel like lessons in that process. It mirrors how they build his action scenes too. As the show wears on you see him do more and more, but I feel like a big part of this series is him discovering himself. Really that slow build is either going to work for some, or not I find. But as mentioned I was completely okay with that just because the sub plots across the board are fascinating. Even Clarie (Rosario Dawsons) presence, and her trying to discover her place now that her world has been flipped upside down has been enjoyable to see.

On the third episode and have to agree on the fight scenes, not sure why the choreography isn't up to par with daredevil I get they are going for a more wirefu esque(so far minus the wire) but it seems a bit slow and none of the hits feel impactful. I like the main character (didn't think i would) it's cliche but the actor pulls it off ,hopefully something interesting happens soon though. The Hand haven't been that good so far so i am hoping this will do a better job with them than daredevil season 2

I've only watched the first episode but I might leave it at that. Danny Rand or maybe the guy playing him, is a particularly unlikable character in this show. It's hard to see myself rooting for such an absolute toolbag.

@jesus_phish: It gets better as it goes along also you aren't really meant to like Danny in the beginning.

One of the reasons I think is that DD had the benefit of the main character always wearing a mask and so they could have a stuntman in the role for 99% of the time. Also, I suspect that they might have overstretched their resources by making Iron Fist and the Defenders at the same time.

In retrospect I wish they didn't go with the Frank Miller early DD costume because I think that prevented them from wanting to use the classic IF costume.

Going to say the same thing I said in another forum since, although I have seen more of the series and some aspects do improve, the first 3 or 4 episodes can be responsible for the poor reception from the critics:

"I am 4 episodes in, and I can understand the critics reaction. For context, most critic only had access to the first 3 episodes, and based on that, the series was not very well received. It is "Iron Fist" so, even someone with very tenuous knowledge of the character would go for it waiting over the top martial arts scenes and "oriental exotic" mysticism. So far, the series delivers in none of that. Instead, it spend a very large amount of its time with Danny going all "its really me, I really am a missing millionaire" and no one believing him, sometimes going to caricaturesque levels of stupidity and disbelief (specially in a world were there are confirmed sights of mythological gods, mind controlling murderers and guys in power armor). I am not a fan of the phrase "first world problems", but this is all the dramatic tension the series goes for in the first few episodes.

It doesn't really help that the stunts and edition are not very good. As I said, good fighting stunts should be paramount in a series about Iron Fist; yet Jones is very bad at action stunts, and they haphazardly hide it with fast cutting and convoluted camera angles. There is rarely a kick shown in its entirely, and no elegance to his moves. I know they are going with the street brawl style ever since Daredevil, but it makes a lot more sense in Daredevil (the son of a boxer) or Luke Cage (a bouncer whose best fighting experience comes from prison fighting), than in Iron Fist (a guy trained for years by warrior monks in all known martial arts). There should be an ballet-like elegance and ease with his moves, instead we get a guy that spend 5 minutes trying to knock down a single guy with a brass knuckle. Henwick does a little better, but mostly because the bar was set really low, and yet she also falls pray of the "lets cut the shots rapidly so no one notices the errors in continuity" practice, which is a lot more economical and easier than "lets try to shoot this sequence again, from the beginning, and make it right this time".

By chapters 4 and 5, the series improves by giving us a proper villain (cliche as they might be, it is better suited for Iron Fist than caricature stupid rich bully) and getting some distance from the "will he be able to return to his life of luxury and regain control of his billions of dollars" subplot that is more fitting for a Ricky Rich comic than a Netflix series, so I am hoping it continues to improve... But I can totally understand people that after the first 2 or 3 episodes were disillusioned of what is likely to be the weakest of the series."

@jonny_anonymous: Not having a mask was a big problem, especially because the actor doesn't have a martial arts background. There's a clear divide in the quality of the action scenes when they are well lit compared to fight scenes in dramatic shadows with rapid cuts away from his face.

I wanted to finish the series before posting here but god damn it has it been a slog to get through. I'm past the first eight episodes and I'm pretty negative on it overall so far after coming to really enjoy the Marvel Streetimatic universe on Netflix. I think the worst thing I can say about it is that it feels like a ho-hum version of Arrow. That's kind of a damning statement when you consider that there are parts in Arrow, particularly in the first season, that are just GAWD AWFUL. The action is not one of those parts and I would go so far as to say the fights in Arrow are more exciting by comparison. However the schmaltzy character stuff in between the action of Iron Fist is as bad and sometimes worse. Even the primary antagonists at the start, the Meachums feel like an inferior version to the Merlyns from Arrow. They're about twice as slimy and unlikable as the Merlyns, which might be a good thing, but then they also come across as half as competent or interesting in just about every other way. You could sum up the arc of the first three episodes as thus: "It's me! No you're not! Yes I am! No you're not! Yes I am! No you're not! Yes I am! Fine!"

My Chief Beef is that the actual use of The Iron Fist technique has been wholly underwhelming for more than half of the series. I really feel like they should've tried channeling at least a little bit of One Punch Man in this show instead of going the DnD Monk route and only allowing a per-day use of The Iron Fist just 'cuz. Ironically enough Luke Cage came across way more like OPM in his show than Danny Rand does here. The fights end up feeling super contrived in spite of how much the script tries to hype up Danny's combat prowess. I'll probably finish this show because I might as well at this point... I just think the other Marvel shows set a high bar that this one doesn't quite meet.

This show is pretty good. I've got through the first 9 episodes in 3 days and it's gotten better as it goes. Really elevates the back half of Daredevil season 2 as well since I now see they were starting to lay the groundwork for Iron Fist and what is yet to come. The Defenders series has a real shot of being something great. The casting on the titular Netflix heroes has been perfect, all strong performances that bring the characters to life. I look forward to seeing them interact in the team-up.

I find the manufactured outrage by racist critics cringe worthy. If all you care about is the color of the person playing a character, that says more about you than the people who made the show.

@j-mack: Yeah, right there with you on this being a superhero trope that is way past its time. Almost no one actually thinks like that and it ends up being something you have to "overlook" about even good series time after time (Jessica Jones killed though, don't forget about that). Then you get shows trying to own up to it like when Daredevil and Punisher argue, but the arguments always suck because no matter how high your bar is for evidence and clear and present danger, there is always a case in which killing someone is the better option and we've all consumed enough action movies for it to be easy to think of a few.

On episode 9 and i like the show but it's definitely lower quality than the other ones, everything just feels lower budget. One thing that bugs me and maybe i forgot but, when the hell did madam gao become a member of the hand?

@oursin_360: I don't think we ever knew exactly what her deal was, but they hinted pretty heavily at there being some sort of supernatural element to her.

So if you want to Watch a series with truly amazing fight choreography and Swordplay, "Into the Badlands" is the shiznizz. The writing and acting can be a little wooden, but I guess thats only natural when most of the cast are choreography experts. The second series just started, and thankfully they are expanding the scope and the budget in meaningful ways. I thoroughly recommend it.

@warlordpayne: episode later i kinda got my answer, it felt weird because she seemed at odds with the other faction from dd.

I got about 8 episodes in and I just don't care anymore. It definitely got better but it's painfully mediocre.

I just finished binge watching all the Marvel Netflix shows and I actually really liked Iron Fist. I have no clue why it's rated so poorly. My thoughts on each individual show:

Daredevil season 1 & 2: Fantastic.

Jessica Jones: Garbage.

Luke Cage: Mediocre. I liked the Cornell character.

Iron Fist: Pretty good. Second favorite after DD.

It's good! When I first saw Luke Cage I fuckin hated what they did to Luke. Dude was one of the best parts of Jessica Jones and they made him suddenly such a chump in his own damn show. Took me like 5 weeks to get through the first few episodes before I gave up. Didn't want to dive into Iron Fist without finishing Luke Cage though, so I let it run in the background while I played Bloodborne and FFXIV. I dunno if not focusing on it made it so I glided over the awkward extended silences and shoddy acting that had been especially grating before, but I kinda dug it.

Once he got to the part where he was openly fighting off Cottonmouth it got a lot more fun, and it helped a whole lot to have Rosario Dawson show up and actually be able to act.

But yeah, Iron Fist. I appreciated how once you started to get bored with the current storyline they threw in a twist and kicked things into an entirely new direction. Did not buy Davos or Joy going full evil at all. Definitely a weak turn for them (moreso Joy, the way things ended up with Harold before we see that little brunch). The fighting as well was preeeeetty hokey in the early goings, especially compared to Daredevil. The early fight between Colleen and what's-his-name stuck out as two non-martial-artists doing a kung-fu dance through molasses. Certainly no Matt Murdock and Elektra. But I really liked the characters here. Colleen was great, and anytime we were lucky enough to get Hogarth was fun. Also, Madame Gao was fantastic.

Even naive Danny I came to appreciate by the end. Every time I'd get upset with his goofy ass cleary not understanding these people I'd remind myself that he was raised in another dimension by a bunch of zealous monks. Kinda weird that they tried to go the route of "oh, well, your upbringing was also fucked, and just a different kind of bigoted" but then they're like "naw, actually the Hand's pretty evil still." I also liked that guy, the brother, dude from a soap opera. He was alright by the end.

I appreciated the old-school footage of that costumed Iron Fist, but reaaallly wished they gave Danny the doo-rag. I guess it's essentially the same as the season 1 Daredevil mask, and there's no great cause for him to throw it on. In any case, I'm very excited for the Defenders, and really glad that I gave Luke Cage another shot.

Did I miss something? Granted I'm only 4 episodes in, but I don't think its that bad. Its not great, but its also not THAT bad (so far) Maybe it never picks up, but I was led to believe by the initial reaction that it was an unwatchable piece of garbage. The fights scenes are pretty weak, they just seem lazy at times.

@theht:The actress who played colleen did all her own stunts so i respect that, and i liked the character a lot.

@atastyslurpee: Yeah it was alright, i enjoyed it. Wasn't the best one, but you could tell that for whatever reason they didn't use the same budget they did on daredevil.

One thing i can't remember from the first episode but, wtf the was danny going to give harold? He had something in his bag and then it seemed like they just forgot about it?

The wife and I liked it enough. It has it's flaws, but not nearly as many as the average TV show these days.

I'm not particularly fond of this series, but I cannot resist when it's about chinese fighting, so it will have to do.

What is better than chinese fighting is chinese fighting whith protagonists flying in the air. I've watched Ice Fantasy, what else is to be told?

It was nice to see some of the classics revived like the Danny Rand-drunk guy scene (long live "The Drunken Master",1979).

I guess we need to take it for what is supposed to be, lonely-super-hero-pass-time-not-too-fancy-but-popular-series.

@atastyslurpee: We are a point where "mediocre" is garbage to a lot of people. They want more. Mindless media with hints of something deeper/better, even if not fully realized gets shit on a lot more than it used to. Then you add in the other "pseudo political" issues reviews constantly brought up about white savior tropes and the rest.

Once you get past all that, and realize that if you actually watch the show they present Rand as kind of a doofus, which I personally liked. I mean he is so out of touch with reality, which shouldn't he be? He spent his whole childhood after a certain age growing up in another dimension, with no idea how the real world works. I love the early shots of him not understanding stuff at all and just chilling with a homeless guy with his years old giant ass Ipod. It was very telling that they were going for something. Anyway, glad to see more people giving this thing a shot and keeping going with it. It's not perfect by any means, and I felt it went a little long and didn't pay off as well in the end as much as some of the intrigue builds. But I will applaud Netflix in that each of their Marvel shows despite sharing a city and some characters all feel very different in tone. I think it's because they choose to anchor the perspective from completely different characters, and view how they react to what the world is becoming.

Still I maintain that the side characters in every single one of those shows pretty much are the stand outs. Whether that means the villains, or Claire aka Rosario Dawson. Ultimately I'm more excited to see Defenders because of these series, but I think individually Iron Fist has a lot of growing to do if they do a Season 2.

Nice. All fair points.

I'm holding out hope that they FINALLY do a Moon Knight series cause they can get real weird with Marc Spectors other identities and really deviate from the norm.

Want to know if a martial arts fight scene is bad? Count how many camera cuts they make. There is a reason why fight choreographers pride themselves on setting up elaborately choreographed fight scenes in as few cuts as possible. Mainly because it looks impressive and

I have struggled to make it to episode 8 and I think I'm just going to call it quits. Iron Fist is a cool character that is perfect for this type of format but man I don't know what happened but this show is just a trainwreck. Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, and Daredevil were all solid shows what the fuck happened? I think if they decide to go forward with Iron Fist outside of Defenders they need to team him up with Luke Cage for a Heroes for Hire show.

Here's hoping they don't mess up The Punisher as that and Daredevil were my two favorite non X-Men Marvel comic back when I was a kid.

Iron Fist? More like Iron Fine, Just Fine... Not Remarkable Or Anything.

Less flippantly, this show wasn't great. It was a big step down from the other Netflix/Marvel stuff. At its worst, it was Arrow levels of bad. At its best, it was like Chinese takeaway. Easily consumable but in no way memorable. Obvious the fight choreography was lacking, which is a big blow for a show about a mystical martial artist super hero.

Danny just doesn't work as a lead character. I get that they are going for Danny being this kind of child-like duffer whose been sheltered all his life and thus doesn't understand how the world works but it does not stick the landing. All this leads to him coming off as an arsehole too often to be likable.

The show's biggest undoing is that it feels absolutely directionless. It takes far too long for the villains to surface. It takes far too long to get into what the evil scheme is. The show keeps switching out the established villains for another one and just doesn't have the time to establish them and their motivations sufficiently. The Netflix/Marvel shows have done well structuring their shows so they feel like they are building toward a logical narrative conclusion. In Iron Fist, things just feel like they are happening without any real purpose except that things need to happen.

I just can't picture Iron Fist with curly hair.