KungFuJosh
Joined Apr 2010
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Reviews3
KungFuJosh's rating
Before watching this "movie" I saw a lot of people blaming Sophie Turner for the crapiness of this crap. I watched the movie anyway. The entire time I watched the film, I thought to myself "this script really sucks." Or even more often "what is wrong with this director?!" The whole thing comes down to poor writing, and worse direction.
The ONLY consistently good acting performances are from James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, and Jennifer Lawrence. That's likely because they've already played these roles under better direction. For the most part, Sophie did fine, with the exception of a couple small scenes, where you could tell the director was probably micromanaging the scene in the wrong direction...everybody sounded like a bad read. Don't get me wrong, the cast in general had good and bad moments. Every time there was a bad moment, it felt the same, regardless of the actor. That clearly points at the director.
This is another movie where the mediocre director focused more on an overabundance of special effects instead of the performances. Worse yet, the effects look cheesy.
Avoid this cinematic masterpiece unless it's free and you're bored...but more importantly, avoid the director/writer. Unless they take some basic writing and/or directing classes at least at a junior college level.
The ONLY consistently good acting performances are from James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, and Jennifer Lawrence. That's likely because they've already played these roles under better direction. For the most part, Sophie did fine, with the exception of a couple small scenes, where you could tell the director was probably micromanaging the scene in the wrong direction...everybody sounded like a bad read. Don't get me wrong, the cast in general had good and bad moments. Every time there was a bad moment, it felt the same, regardless of the actor. That clearly points at the director.
This is another movie where the mediocre director focused more on an overabundance of special effects instead of the performances. Worse yet, the effects look cheesy.
Avoid this cinematic masterpiece unless it's free and you're bored...but more importantly, avoid the director/writer. Unless they take some basic writing and/or directing classes at least at a junior college level.
This show is okay. The acting is okay for the most part. The story is... okay too. Nothing fantastic, nothing bad.
What kills me, is the garbage martial arts skill of the main character (and the mediocrity amongst most of the other actors). James Finn's acting skills aside, he clearly doesn't know anything about martial arts, and especially not kung fu.
I heard somewhere that Iron First is supposed to be one of the top 2 martial artists in the MCU. I don't care for a second that this is backstory and that he needs to complete his training. Iron Fist's skill level looked like he went to 1 or 2 beginner classes and didn't pay enough attention. He couldn't do any of the breathing exercises correctly; he couldn't do any of the hand positions or style postures correctly (except maybe one pose).
Any intermediate level kung fu student (at least 2 or 3 years of training) can do anything Finn couldn't (to be clear, he couldn't do anything). Forget the stunts and stuntman work, I'm talking about demonstrating kung fu or qigong or tai chi, none of which was believable. Danny Rand was supposed to be in training for 15 years. 10 years of real training in the real world gives a good level of proficiency in kung fu. 15 years, even better. But his story said that he did nothing but train all day every day for 15 years, getting beatings when he failed. That's significantly more intense training than almost anybody can claim. His equivalent skill level should be proportionally higher. Talent means nothing, if you stick to the art and train for that long, you will get good. If you get beaten like that, you should be tough as nails.
He sucked. When he was doing a fake qigong set with Ramon Rodriguez's character, Ramon looked 100 times better than Finn. I haven't seen or heard anything about Ramon having a martial arts background (just basketball), but there was clearly a difference there, and it was painful to watch. Hand postures are important. Physical posture, stance work, understanding angles, etc... all important.
What made this so much more disappointing for me was that Netflix had a good rep for martial arts in their shows. Marco Polo (and especially 100 Eyes) is awesome for that. The new Crouching Tiger movie was pretty good too. So why on Earth did they pick somebody with no kung fu skill to play a character that's supposed to be amazing at kung fu? Jess Henwick (Colleen Wing) was the only main character that looked like she had any formal training.
Supposedly, for the first Crouching Tiger, and The Matrix, the actors trained about 6 hours a day for 6 months before shooting began. If they even had 6 hours of training before filming Iron Fist, I would be surprised.
Maybe it was a "we're buddies and we did GoT together" thing that had Finn with Henwick. Whatever it was, was very disappointing. There's a plethora of talented actors/martial artists that ACTUALLY KNOW KUNG FU dying to get good roles. Those actors are forced to be extras, do stunt work, and get other day jobs because of B.S. like this. If you're going to snub the existing talent for whatever reason, PLEASE teach the actors SOMETHING before you start filming.
On another note: the choreography wasn't great either. 1. if Finn was that tough, why did his reaction to fighting normal people look so weak? Why was he not dominating amateurs? 2. Don't pretend to do Drunken Style without drinking. That actor (Lewis Tan) was clearly a better martial artist than most on the show, but nobody pulls off drunken style well without drinking.
What kills me, is the garbage martial arts skill of the main character (and the mediocrity amongst most of the other actors). James Finn's acting skills aside, he clearly doesn't know anything about martial arts, and especially not kung fu.
I heard somewhere that Iron First is supposed to be one of the top 2 martial artists in the MCU. I don't care for a second that this is backstory and that he needs to complete his training. Iron Fist's skill level looked like he went to 1 or 2 beginner classes and didn't pay enough attention. He couldn't do any of the breathing exercises correctly; he couldn't do any of the hand positions or style postures correctly (except maybe one pose).
Any intermediate level kung fu student (at least 2 or 3 years of training) can do anything Finn couldn't (to be clear, he couldn't do anything). Forget the stunts and stuntman work, I'm talking about demonstrating kung fu or qigong or tai chi, none of which was believable. Danny Rand was supposed to be in training for 15 years. 10 years of real training in the real world gives a good level of proficiency in kung fu. 15 years, even better. But his story said that he did nothing but train all day every day for 15 years, getting beatings when he failed. That's significantly more intense training than almost anybody can claim. His equivalent skill level should be proportionally higher. Talent means nothing, if you stick to the art and train for that long, you will get good. If you get beaten like that, you should be tough as nails.
He sucked. When he was doing a fake qigong set with Ramon Rodriguez's character, Ramon looked 100 times better than Finn. I haven't seen or heard anything about Ramon having a martial arts background (just basketball), but there was clearly a difference there, and it was painful to watch. Hand postures are important. Physical posture, stance work, understanding angles, etc... all important.
What made this so much more disappointing for me was that Netflix had a good rep for martial arts in their shows. Marco Polo (and especially 100 Eyes) is awesome for that. The new Crouching Tiger movie was pretty good too. So why on Earth did they pick somebody with no kung fu skill to play a character that's supposed to be amazing at kung fu? Jess Henwick (Colleen Wing) was the only main character that looked like she had any formal training.
Supposedly, for the first Crouching Tiger, and The Matrix, the actors trained about 6 hours a day for 6 months before shooting began. If they even had 6 hours of training before filming Iron Fist, I would be surprised.
Maybe it was a "we're buddies and we did GoT together" thing that had Finn with Henwick. Whatever it was, was very disappointing. There's a plethora of talented actors/martial artists that ACTUALLY KNOW KUNG FU dying to get good roles. Those actors are forced to be extras, do stunt work, and get other day jobs because of B.S. like this. If you're going to snub the existing talent for whatever reason, PLEASE teach the actors SOMETHING before you start filming.
On another note: the choreography wasn't great either. 1. if Finn was that tough, why did his reaction to fighting normal people look so weak? Why was he not dominating amateurs? 2. Don't pretend to do Drunken Style without drinking. That actor (Lewis Tan) was clearly a better martial artist than most on the show, but nobody pulls off drunken style well without drinking.
There's not a lot of great television these days. It feels like everything is "reality" TV, getting worse and worse, and farther from reality.
It's nice to finally see a show being creative AND entertaining. Another reviewer mentioned that the concept of couples therapy isn't realistic in this environment and it would never happen in real life. Welcome to television! Nothing on it is real, that's why it's entertaining. It's called the "suspension of disbelief." I learned that from Howard Stern. Anyway. The only thing that SHOULD be real on TV is the News, and hopefully, one day it will be real again.
The couples therapy is a funny take on the action/dramedy dynamic seen in Analyze This!, The Sopranos, etc... The "couples" aspect of it is a nice twist, and the characters/actors play off of each other very well. The show started off well and has gotten even better as the episodes develop. I'm looking forward to seeing more episodes as this show continues.
It's nice to finally see a show being creative AND entertaining. Another reviewer mentioned that the concept of couples therapy isn't realistic in this environment and it would never happen in real life. Welcome to television! Nothing on it is real, that's why it's entertaining. It's called the "suspension of disbelief." I learned that from Howard Stern. Anyway. The only thing that SHOULD be real on TV is the News, and hopefully, one day it will be real again.
The couples therapy is a funny take on the action/dramedy dynamic seen in Analyze This!, The Sopranos, etc... The "couples" aspect of it is a nice twist, and the characters/actors play off of each other very well. The show started off well and has gotten even better as the episodes develop. I'm looking forward to seeing more episodes as this show continues.