Marvel’s Iron Fist has finally arrived on Netflix, introducing the final Marvel hero poised to become a part of the upcoming team-up series The Defenders, and Marvel finds itself in a rare position of having to defend its newest series from a medley of unflattering reviews and reactions. Many fans have argued since Iron Fist‘s began production that comic book canon should have been eschewed and an Asian-American actor should have been cast as its titular hero Danny Rand instead of former Game of Thrones‘ actor Finn Jones, to avoid dragging the source material’s outdated tropes into the 21st century. The reviews for the first six episodes critics were allowed to see early were even more damning: a 17% Rotten rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and a sweeping consensus that Iron Fist is just not a good show, ironically packing the weakest punch of Marvel’s Netflix series.
Is Iron Fist really the worst of the Marvel shows found on Netflix thus far? Perhaps it was unfair to make such a declaration based on 6 out of 13 hours of the series without fully understanding the full scope of the story and witnessing what surprises the latter half of the season had in store. With that in mind, binging the complete series is the only way to properly absorb Iron Fist and gauge its worthiness, especially judged against its predecessors – Daredevil, Jessica Jones and Luke Cage.
Iron Fist centers around Danny Rand, a billionaire who was presumed killed in a plane crash in the Himalayas. Fifteen years later, Danny returns to New York City to claim his place in his family’s company, Rand Enterprises, which is now run by his childhood friends Ward Meachum (Tom Pelphrey) and Joy Meachum (Jessica Stroup). Danny must prove his identity as the heir to the Rand corporation, and explain where he’s been – not an easy task, since it’s a pretty strange story.
Following the plane crash, Danny was taken in by a cabal of warrior monks to live in an other-dimensional monastery named K’un-Lun, where he was trained in martial arts. Danny eventually claimed the mantle of the Immortal Iron Fist, becoming the Living Weapon charged with protecting K’un-Lun, but he abandoned his duties and returned to New York. As the series progresses, Danny encounters the machinations of the Hand, the ancient enemy of K’un-Lun, in New York City. Danny makes new friends, like Claire Temple (Rosario Dawson), and gains a partner and a lover in Colleen Wing (Jessica Henwick) – a martial arts teacher harboring a secret.
Those with even a cursory amount of knowledge about the comic book hero expect that Iron Fist would be a kung fu show. Daredevil was a street-level superhero show steeped in Matt Murdock’s Catholic guilt through and through, Jessica Jones was essentially a show about a hard-boiled private investigator, and Luke Cage was a show about a black hero protecting Harlem – they all hold true to their comic book roots. Therefore, it’s shocking how relatively little kung fu there is in Iron Fist. Instead of an exciting superhero kung fu spectacle, the series is much more concerned with the sordid family drama of the Meachums, especially how son Ward has been under the thrall of his father Harold Meachum (David Wenham), who died from cancer 15 years ago but is now very much alive and secretly running the Rand Corporation.
Danny’s quest in the first half of the season is to reclaim his company and his seat on the Rand corporate board – despite the fact that he was 10 when he was taken to K’un-Lun, he has a middle school education at best, and has no real knowledge or apparent desire to run a Fortune 500 company. When he does become part of Rand, Iron First strives to make him “the face of the company” and some sort of corporate folk hero for essentially undermining his company’s business by “doing the right thing” – like Tony Stark did when he decided Stark Industries would no longer sell weapons in Iron Man. In the meantime, when some kung fu fight scenes do occur so that Iron Fist can have some action, the fight scenes are brief, arbitrary and not very impressive. Iron Fist seems to find being a kung fu superhero show a bother, putting little effort into either aspect.
The best action in the first half of the series comes not from Danny but from Colleen Wing. In dire financial straits to support her Chinatown dojo, Colleen does what many Marvel heroes like Wolverine, Angel, and Nightcrawler have done before her: she enters an underground fight club. Taking on bruisers twice her size, Colleen’s cage matches are exciting and visceral. She comes off as braver and more impressive than Danny Rand does in his fights. This is also thanks to the performance of Jessica Henwick, who makes Colleen sympathetic and intriguing, even when the scripts don’t service her character with more than basic motivations and relatively little dialogue. Colleen Wing is the standout character in Iron Fist, with some viewers already interested in her getting her own Netflix show, perhaps titled Daughter of the Dragon.
The second half of Iron Fist concerns Danny’s attempts to fight the Hand, which we learn had long infiltrated Rand Enterprises, and is using it as a front for its heroin dealing operations. The Hand has been the villain in both seasons of Daredevil, and it is the Big Bad once again in Iron Fist, with the ancient evil Madam Gao (Wai Ching Ho), returning as its leader. We do learn there are different branches of the Hand, with its leaders disagreeing with each other’s methods. A different group of the Hand is lead by Bakuto (Ramon Rodriguez), Collen Wing’s sensei, who recruits wayward teens, trains them to be part of the Hand, and empowers them into society as doctors, lawyers and businessmen who will secretly further the Hand’s ambitions. While Iron Fist is at least not inundated with ninjas as Daredevil‘s second season was, the Hand being the primary villain for the third time in a Netflix series – only this time a group of teenage martial arts trainees like the Cobra Kai – is ground that has been tread ad nauseam.
more at the link:
Is Iron Fist Really The Worst Marvel Netflix Show?
Is Iron Fist really the worst of the Marvel shows found on Netflix thus far? Perhaps it was unfair to make such a declaration based on 6 out of 13 hours of the series without fully understanding the full scope of the story and witnessing what surprises the latter half of the season had in store. With that in mind, binging the complete series is the only way to properly absorb Iron Fist and gauge its worthiness, especially judged against its predecessors – Daredevil, Jessica Jones and Luke Cage.
Iron Fist centers around Danny Rand, a billionaire who was presumed killed in a plane crash in the Himalayas. Fifteen years later, Danny returns to New York City to claim his place in his family’s company, Rand Enterprises, which is now run by his childhood friends Ward Meachum (Tom Pelphrey) and Joy Meachum (Jessica Stroup). Danny must prove his identity as the heir to the Rand corporation, and explain where he’s been – not an easy task, since it’s a pretty strange story.
Following the plane crash, Danny was taken in by a cabal of warrior monks to live in an other-dimensional monastery named K’un-Lun, where he was trained in martial arts. Danny eventually claimed the mantle of the Immortal Iron Fist, becoming the Living Weapon charged with protecting K’un-Lun, but he abandoned his duties and returned to New York. As the series progresses, Danny encounters the machinations of the Hand, the ancient enemy of K’un-Lun, in New York City. Danny makes new friends, like Claire Temple (Rosario Dawson), and gains a partner and a lover in Colleen Wing (Jessica Henwick) – a martial arts teacher harboring a secret.
Those with even a cursory amount of knowledge about the comic book hero expect that Iron Fist would be a kung fu show. Daredevil was a street-level superhero show steeped in Matt Murdock’s Catholic guilt through and through, Jessica Jones was essentially a show about a hard-boiled private investigator, and Luke Cage was a show about a black hero protecting Harlem – they all hold true to their comic book roots. Therefore, it’s shocking how relatively little kung fu there is in Iron Fist. Instead of an exciting superhero kung fu spectacle, the series is much more concerned with the sordid family drama of the Meachums, especially how son Ward has been under the thrall of his father Harold Meachum (David Wenham), who died from cancer 15 years ago but is now very much alive and secretly running the Rand Corporation.
Danny’s quest in the first half of the season is to reclaim his company and his seat on the Rand corporate board – despite the fact that he was 10 when he was taken to K’un-Lun, he has a middle school education at best, and has no real knowledge or apparent desire to run a Fortune 500 company. When he does become part of Rand, Iron First strives to make him “the face of the company” and some sort of corporate folk hero for essentially undermining his company’s business by “doing the right thing” – like Tony Stark did when he decided Stark Industries would no longer sell weapons in Iron Man. In the meantime, when some kung fu fight scenes do occur so that Iron Fist can have some action, the fight scenes are brief, arbitrary and not very impressive. Iron Fist seems to find being a kung fu superhero show a bother, putting little effort into either aspect.
The best action in the first half of the series comes not from Danny but from Colleen Wing. In dire financial straits to support her Chinatown dojo, Colleen does what many Marvel heroes like Wolverine, Angel, and Nightcrawler have done before her: she enters an underground fight club. Taking on bruisers twice her size, Colleen’s cage matches are exciting and visceral. She comes off as braver and more impressive than Danny Rand does in his fights. This is also thanks to the performance of Jessica Henwick, who makes Colleen sympathetic and intriguing, even when the scripts don’t service her character with more than basic motivations and relatively little dialogue. Colleen Wing is the standout character in Iron Fist, with some viewers already interested in her getting her own Netflix show, perhaps titled Daughter of the Dragon.
The second half of Iron Fist concerns Danny’s attempts to fight the Hand, which we learn had long infiltrated Rand Enterprises, and is using it as a front for its heroin dealing operations. The Hand has been the villain in both seasons of Daredevil, and it is the Big Bad once again in Iron Fist, with the ancient evil Madam Gao (Wai Ching Ho), returning as its leader. We do learn there are different branches of the Hand, with its leaders disagreeing with each other’s methods. A different group of the Hand is lead by Bakuto (Ramon Rodriguez), Collen Wing’s sensei, who recruits wayward teens, trains them to be part of the Hand, and empowers them into society as doctors, lawyers and businessmen who will secretly further the Hand’s ambitions. While Iron Fist is at least not inundated with ninjas as Daredevil‘s second season was, the Hand being the primary villain for the third time in a Netflix series – only this time a group of teenage martial arts trainees like the Cobra Kai – is ground that has been tread ad nauseam.
more at the link:
Is Iron Fist Really The Worst Marvel Netflix Show?
or was it really that bad? 
