There are a lot of opinions flying around about Marvel’s latest Netflix offering, The Iron Fist. Many reviews found the show to be slow, plodding along at certain points and taking too long to get to the action. I feel like these people forget how slow some of the other shows have been, but that’s neither here nor there; the point is that some people found the show to be slow, others found it to be building a backstory for all the ninja-madness happening in New York City.
There are a few problems with the show, so let’s get to those before we get to what I liked about the show and my final verdict. I think it’s important to discuss some of the elements that hurt the show leading up to its release, but it’s also important to couch it within the context of what the Iron Fist team was trying to accomplish with this go-around. With that said, let’s get to the rippin’ and the tearin’.
As I already mentioned, New York, particularly eastern Manhattan, but they’re ninjas and ninjutsu is definitely not Chinese, which is where Danny Rand was trained. With that said, I have no idea how how the August Personage of Jade (Yu-Ti), the ruler of K’un-Lun, a mystical city that you’re not even supposed to leave, came to be the sworn enemy of a group of Japanese dealing heroin, but that’s above my pay grade. Iron Fist uses an almost generic approach to Asians in the writing and thus far it has not been stated by Marvel that was specifically the plan for a logical reason.
I get that the character is based out of the Kung-Fu craze in the 70’s, but there are a lot of Asians being portrayed as criminals in this Netflix project and I can understand why that might piss a few people off. It’s possible the Pan-Asian approach to things was to avoid pissing off a specific group. Why piss of one when you can piss off the whole community?
This brings me to the inevitable discussion of the show’s star, Finn Jones, rage quitting Twitter after having a back and forth with Geeks of Color about Asian representation in the show. A lot of people feel like the show’s character should be Asian. I’m not among those people. Danny Rand has always been who he is and it really doesn’t make sense to make the switch for this show.
I’m big on representation and social issues. People who didn’t grow up with comics probably won’t realize that comics have tackled social issues and embraced inclusion long before most of America got around to doing so. Now that doesn’t mean they haven’t had some horrifically racist characters in past issues, but they’ve taken a lot of steps to righting past wrongs and that’s important if you have a product meant to reach a global audience. If people don’t feel included, they’re going to tune out.
If I were running Marvel, I would change the Iron Fist going forward, much like they did with Ms. Marvel and Captain America. Create a new character and give him the mantle of Iron Fist.Doing it without warning on Netflix would have caused numerous headaches for Marvel. The entire story would have to be reworked, as much of Danny’s presence in the comics is on him being an outsider. It’s literally brought up in the first issue of Marvel Premiere #15. I’m being truthful when I say that I think it would have been–and would still be less work–with a newer Fist being trotted out under the all new, all different platform Marvel is currently running.
I realize that people feel strongly about representation in comics and I saw how important it was for my black friends when Black Panther was announced and Chadwick Boseman made his debut in Civil War. The importance of the Panther to black culture cannot be understated, so I truly believe the Asian community has a point about the Iron Fist, but the timeline for the project did not allow for a complete rewrite of the character’s history, and given the show’s reviews, I don’t think an Asian actor would have saved it from the pacing people seem to hate so much.
It wouldn’t be fair if the first Marvel bomb featured an Asian lead, as simple-minded folk tend to tie one with the other. An Asian Iron Fist deserves a rich and wonderful background story, not some half-assed version borrowed from the comics. Instead of rushing the transition, Marvel ought to bring in a host of talented Asian writers, artists, and minds to flesh out a place in the Marvel Universe for a true Asian Iron Fist, one they can be proud to call their own.
It’s imperative that Marvel get it right going forward, but I do strongly advocate for an authentic Asian Iron Fist, given his own background that wasn’t created out of a phase, but rather to be written by someone who understands and is a member of the Asian community. Much like Marvel is currently doing with America and author Gabby Rivera, who is a queer Latina writing about a queer Latina. Or there’s Ta-Nehisi Coates’ writing the newest Black Panther series; having someone who understands the culture is important and matters.
Moving off of the racial component and back to the crappy elements of the show, let’s talk about the fighting. This was a mixed bag for me. Some of the fights were slow, almost methodical and they definitely looked like they were choreographed action sequences more than a fight to do the death, which is strange given RZA’s known love for action sequences. Here is an interesting article as to why they were bad, so that could explain some things. As bad as some of the fights were, there were some epic fights.
*******MINOR SPOILER AHEAD**********
If you’ve read the comics, especially Ed Brubaker’s Immortal Iron Fist, then you likely recognized a boatload of elements, including a couple of immortal weapons during the Mortal Kombat that takes place in episode six. The Bride of Nine Spiders was a fantastic inclusion and the way Marvel slapped B-09-S on her door was clever surprise for fans looking for source material on the little-big screen. Scythe was fantastic, too. But the king of all fights was also with a famous Iron Fist enemy, Zhou Cheng, using the Zui Quan, also known as drunken fist.
If you want to see RZA at his finest, watch that fight scene a couple times in a row to grasp the performance given by Lewis Tan, it was downright epic. It’s also a credit to RZA, who has openly talked about Drunken Master being an all-timer, that he was able to put together a scene that memorable. Outside of Frank Castle’s murderous mayhem in Daredevil season two, the fight with Zhou Cheng was one of the best fight scenes Marvel has put on Netflix.
Flip the page for spoilers and final review…