Three episodes into Netflix’s Iron Fist, and several things are evident:
One is that Finn Jones has a certain relaxed charm. He’s charming and engaging in the role, for the most part. Another is that you do not mess with Colleen Wing. She will own your ass. The third, sadly, is that for the first time we have a season of a Netflix MCU show that is not gripping in its early going. (The two most flawed of the previous four, Luke Cage season 1 and Daredevil season 2, had their issues later in the season.)
I will have a more detailed review of the entire season once I’ve viewed all thirteen episodes, but here are my impressions of the first three episodes from three different perspectives: as a fan of the Iron Fist comics character, as a martial artist, and as a regular ol’ TV watcher.
SPOILERS FOR IRON FIST SEASON 1 EPISODES 1-3.
From Page to Screen
In the comics, K’un L’un exists in another dimension and only interacts with our world once very ten years. In the MCU, that’s adjusted to fifteen years, but in both instances, Danny Rand lost his parents in the Himalayas, got rescued by the people of K’un L’un while it was intersecting with our world, then came back to New York the next time the city came into our world again.
The similarities end there, however. The four-color version of the Rand family went to the Himalayas on purpose, with Wendell Rand specifically seeking out K’un L’un, and dragging his wife Heather and kid Danny with him, his business partner Harold Meachum tagging along. Meachum then killed Wendell, declaring his love for Heather. Heather was so impressed that she drove him off with rocks, then was later killed herself. Danny is taken in by K’un L’un, trained to become the living weapon, and then when Earth is accessible again, he goes home to track down Harold Meachum and exact revenge.
None of those motivations are present in the television adaptation, and they sadly have yet to be replaced with anything of use or interest three episodes in. The Rands appeared to have been flying over the Himalayas on their way somewhere, and crashing near K’un L’un seems to have been a coincidence. (Wendell not only was specifically looking for the city in the comics, but he also had a history there.) It also appears to have been an accident, but even if Harold Meachum turns out to have been responsible for the plane’s going down (which seems likely, given what we see of Meachum), Danny doesn’t know that. And where comic-book Meachum spends ten years as a paraplegic (thanks to frostbite) living in fear of Danny’s return (thanks to legends of K’un L’un he heard while recovering), TV Meachum is utterly gobsmacked by Danny’s return.
So if he isn’t coming to New York to enact revenge, why did he come home? After three episodes, it’s totally unclear.
Colleen Wing interacts with Danny in the comics because her father also knows of K’un L’un. She interacts with Danny in the TV show because they happen to bump into each other on the street. I do like that she uses “Daughter of the Dragon” as her arena nickname in her underground MMA fighting—she and Misty Knight go by the name “Daughters of the Dragon” in the comics.
Ward and Joy Meachum taking over the company (called Rand-Meachum in the comics, inexplicably still called simply Rand in the TV series, even though the entire Rand family is believed dead) and Ward’s role as the bigger asshole of the two remains the same as from the comics, though Ward and Joy are uncle and niece in the comics rather than siblings. Carrie-Anne Moss’s Jeri Hogarth (introduced in Jessica Jones and also seen in Daredevil season 2) is based on Jeryn Hogarth, who started out life as an Iron Fist character. Here we see Hogarth return to the character’s comics roots as the Rand family legal counsel.
Fall Down Seven Times, Get Up Eight Times
For a show that’s supposed to be about a living weapon who’s a martial arts bad-ass—indeed whose very existence is owed entirely to the kung-fu craze of the early 1970s spearheaded by Bruce Lee—and for a show that is being produced by the same subsection of the MCU that gave us Daredevil and its magnificent fight choreography, there is surprisingly little martial-arts action here.
Things look promising in the first episode when Danny tries to enter the Rand Building, and only after he is stymied multiple times does he resort to physical violence. And even then, Finn Jones moves with a compact grace and simplicity. He doesn’t waste any energy, doesn’t waste any moves to look fancy, he just gets the security guys out of the way as efficiently as possible. It reminded me of some of the best competition fighters I’ve seen, who barely seem to move a muscle, and suddenly their opponent is on the floor…
We also see him fighting the security guards again in episode 1, then he spends basically all of episode 2 in a mental hospital, and almost all of episode 3 sitting in rooms talking to people, with the only fight being against the one guy who torches his old medical records, a fight that has none of the elegance of either of his fights with Rand security in episode 1. And it’s only one guy, and mostly you wonder why Iron Fist is having so much trouble with one dude sent to set a fire.
And then we have Colleen’s dojo.
First of all, let me say that Jessica Henwick is magnificent. She imbues Colleen with a weary strength that is very compelling. She knows exactly what kind of world she’s living in, and she’s doing what she can to protect the people she cares about from being destroyed by it. Henwick trained in wushu in preparation for her role in the 2010 British show Spirit Warriors, and that training pays off here, as she is utterly convincing in her teaching, in her sparring with Danny, and in her MMA cage match. I particularly like that her style is indeed more high-energy than what Danny does, as Danny himself points out when they spar, and it is less efficient than his fighting style. (Well, except when he’s fighting dudes in hospital records rooms.)
Having said that, the Chikara Dojo that she runs allegedly teaches karate, kimpo, jujitsu, and kanjutsu. We see Colleen teaching kanjutsu, and her assistant teaches karate, but a dojo that small isn’t likely to be teaching so many disparate styles.
At one point, Danny says to Colleen that she should have a kung fu class. Her response is, “I don’t need the hassle.” While that’s a smart line on the face of it—lots of people get into martial arts because they want to kick ass, and they would take one look at a 5’6″ female instructor and immediately try to take over the class. (In fact, Danny does that very thing in episode 3.) But a more true response would be, “We don’t do Chinese martial arts here.” While mixed martial arts is obviously a thing, if you’re doing a dojo with different colored belts to denote rank, you’re very unlikely to mix a Japanese form (which all four listed on the dojo’s billboard are) with a Chinese one.
It’s not impossible, mind you, and I’m probably focusing way too much on a single sign that probably wasn’t even put together by anyone writing for the show but rather a set designer who looked up four styles on Wikipedia. Still, it feels off.
I’m also surprised that Colleen doesn’t have classes with little kids in them. That’s where the money is in martial arts training, and that’s where you often find some of your best practitioners—start them when they’re four or five or six. You certainly get bigger classes and more tuition money…
Still and all, the first three episodes have shown only a cursory knowledge of martial arts, which is kind of unfortunate for a series about a martial artist.
Bingeing the Living Weapon
So leaving aside the two separate loads of baggage that I myself carry coming into this as a comics fan and as a black belt: is the show any good?
Not so far. Several of the problems I mentioned earlier are issues regardless of their connections to the worlds of four-color comics and martial arts. Danny’s lack of motive for returning to New York City remains frustrating. It doesn’t help that the show has been parsimonious with details regarding Danny’s life prior to returning home, which wouldn’t be so bad, except they keep showing us the plane going down over and over and over again and not much else.
Danny spends the entire first episode coming across as a crazed stalker, which isn’t a great way to introduce our theoretical hero. It doesn’t help that his attempts to convince Ward and Joy that he’s who he says he is are just idiotic. In episode 2 we find out that Danny and Joy used to avoid the brown M&Ms. In episode 3 we find out that Danny broke his arm as a little kid and Ward took him to the hospital, and only the two of them knew about that. Which raises the question of why the hell Danny didn’t mention either of these things in episode 1.
(By the way, when Joy shared with Ward that she sent Danny a package of M&Ms and he sent them back with the brown ones removed, I kept waiting for Ward to dismiss her claim that that was proof by saying, “Maybe he’s a Van Halen fan…”)
Colleen’s portion of the story is frustrating on several levels, mostly because she feels like she wandered in from a different show. Her connection to Danny is tenuous at best, as she only knows Danny because they happened to bump into each other on the street. It’s also frustrating because the show she wandered in from is way better than this one.
On top of all that, after Vincent D’Onofrio’s Kingpin, David Tennant’s Kilgrave, Jon Bernthal’s Punisher, Mahershala Ali’s Cottonmouth, and Alfre Woodard’s Mariah, the pitiful duo of Ward and Harold Meachum, played with tiresome snottiness by Tom Pelphrey and David Wenham, is a major letdown. Wai Ching Ho’s Madame Gao appears briefly in one scene in darkness, and she’s got more menace in that cameo than Wenham can scrape together in three episodes.
There’s time for the show to improve, but the first impression it leaves is not a good one.
Keith R.A. DeCandido is the author of several bits of prose based on Marvel’s heroes, including two Spider-Man novels, short stories starring Spidey, the X-Men, the Hulk, and the Silver Surfer, and the recent “Tales of Asgard” trilogy: Thor: Dueling with Giants, Sif: Even Dragons Have Their Endings, and the forthcoming Warriors Three: Godhood’s End. His latest project is Mermaid Precinct, the fifth novel in his acclaimed fantasy police procedural series, currently looking for support on Kickstarter. Since 2004, he has trained in Kenshikai Karate, an Okinawan karate style based in New York City, achieving his first-degree black belt in 2009 and his second degree in 2013. He has been writing for Tor.com on various bits of pop culture, including twice-weekly rewatches of classic TV series, since 2011.
Folks, I’ll be doing a more detailed review of the whole season later this week or early next week, so if possible I’d like to limit the spoilers to just the first three episodes — at the very least, put in a spoiler warning if you’re going to talk about anything from episodes 4-13. Thanks muchly!
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
Charming is not what I would use to describe Finn here, though I admit I didn’t manage to even finish the first episode.
I dunno, I got to disagree about how Finn Jones looked in that first fight; he seemed to me less efficient than he was kind of listless.
Also he’s swinging that shinai around like a jian, and, as you can see even from that one production still, he’s terrible at it.
Jones just released an interview where he said his martial arts training amounts to three weeks before the show started, and fifteen minutes or so to learn each fight, so I guess it’s not fair to expect him to do very much, but on the other hand, who makes a kung fu show with a guy who can’t do kung fu?
I’m really interested to hear your opinion of the fight scenes as you continue your viewing. I’m only a little ways ahead of you (through episode 6 at this point), but all the fighting I’ve seen has struck me as realistic — as in, something that a person with extensive martial arts training could actually do, without superpowers. Colleen more so than Danny, at least so far, and I also wondered just why the would-be arsonist was giving the Iron Fist so much difficulty, but on the whole, pretty good. So I’ve been puzzled that so many people seem to be disappointed in the fight scenes, and I’m wondering if my few years of tae kwon do training have given me a better idea of what’s realistic in such a fight? That seems unlikely, but I’m curious to know what a more experienced practitioner would think.
I have to admit I found the dojo scenes fairly accurate, with respect to how students in that situation would behave. I didn’t see the sign that you saw, so I figured she was teaching only karate to the majority of students. I’ve never been to a dojo in New York, so perhaps they usually are that small, but the columns right in the middle of the mat really bother me. I keep wondering how there’s any room to do forms in that space.
Honestly just another whiny critic leaching off what other critics say who had a predetermined opinion of the show based on the actor cast for Dany Rand. I can take all your criticism and plunk it down into the previous shows. Lack of action. Bad or confusing fight choreography. Bad acting. Meandering plot. All the previous defenders shows has suffered from it but critics have chosen iron fist to single out all because of who they cast as Dany. As somebody who grew up reading power man and iron fist, I am thoroughly enjoying the show so far. Finn is doing a good job portraying the innocence of somebody raised in isolation from the outside world and somebody who has that lethal danger letting beneath. His action scenes are serviceable and exciting. And I love the underlying tension of the hand’s presence in the first few episodes. Get down off your high horse and actually try to enjoy the show. You’ll be surprised…. Oh and BTW your article lost all credibility when you included Diamondback in your list of villains. He was absolutely horrible and made Luke Cage nearly unfinishable.
Scotty: Um, I didn’t include Diamondback in my list of villains, which was quite deliberate, as Diamondback was awful. I only mentioned Cottonmouth and Mariah from Luke Cage. And I didn’t have a predetermined opinion of the show — quite the opposite, I really wanted to like it, and never had a problem with casting Finn Jones. (I generally don’t object when a comics character is cast with an actor who looks like the comics character.) There are ways to make Iron Fist work, but I’m less than impressed with what I’ve seen so far, especially since few of the changes made from the comics are good ones.
I’m hoping the next ten episodes change my mind.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
I’ve been eagerly awaiting your post(s) on this, Keith. I binged the entirety of the season by last Saturday. I’ll avoid spoilers, other than mentioning the fact that it was a real treat when Snape showed up in episode 7 and then killed Gandalf in episode 8.
But seriously, the amount of bashing this show has taken isn’t deserved, but it’s not up to the calibre of its predecessors. And honestly, I kinda feel like the Netflix MCU shows have gone consistently downhill since Jessica Jones.
The issues (again, avoiding spoilers) with the show in general are largely to be attributed to the writing. More on that in a moment.
I know there’s been a big deal made of casting a white guy, but honestly Danny Rand being a spoiled New York rich kid prior to the accident is a pretty big part of the character and some of his inner turmoil. You could have had the entire Rand family be of another race, but you’d still need to have it be an American who was taken in by monks from K’un L’un. I don’t feel the fact that they cast a white guy is the problem.
I think they failed to include a good martial artist as Danny Rand. Finn Jones’ acting is fine (if a bit overwrought in many cases), but his fight scenes come across increasingly like David Carridine in the Kung Fu tv series, when his moves should look more like the guy that was SUPPOSED to do Kung Fu.
I say this is partly on Jones – I don’t know how much martial arts training he put in, but he looks good at times and bad at other times – and moreso on the writing. I don’t recall ever seeing Iron Fist in the comics when he didn’t have his mask on. I know the MCU is much more of a “show the face” type deal, but it seems like the writers just didn’t realize that one reason Daredevil’s fight sequences work so well is their ability to swap the lead actor out with a stunt double, due to the mask.
As to the villains, I think the Meachums become more captivating as you progress through the episodes, and there are other villains that enter the picture as well, but yeah, nobody compares to Kingpin and the Purple Man.
In general, my main issue with the show, I think, is you have a character that is supposed to be one of the absolute top martial artists in the entirety of Marvel, and I can make a very quick list of other MCU characters who could easily mop the floor with him, without powers or special gadgets/weapons (on either side):
1. Melinda May
2. Daisy Johnson (Quake)
3. Bobbi Morse (Mockingbird)
4. Black Widow
5. Hawkeye (debatable, but I’m going with Clint on this one)
There are more that come to mind, but I’ll stop here. They show Colleen Wing getting “schooled” by Danny, but when you look at how he fights in other scenes, it almost seems like she was letting him win.
I too enjoyed that Danny’s moves are sparse and simple. I do agree that at times (like with the arsonist) it’s hard to see why he’s having that much trouble. Also, I appreciated that they didn’t turn the show into an entire martial arts fest; although I can see why a fan of Iron Fist would want it otherwise.
As for why Danny doesn’t think of the M&Ms thing from the start… well, he’s undergone a wealth of traumathic experiences, starting with seeing his parents die in front of him, and being raised in K’un-Lun, completely apart from the world her knew. He’s got PSTD, and it shows even in the first three episodes.
Even in those first three episodes, it’s obvious Danny escaped K’un-Lun when he could, to come back to his previous life. He IS Danny Rand, and wants to be Danny Rand again, at HOME.
And I enjoyed the show from the start, sorry to hear you haven’t.
Oh yeah, Colleen rocks. Love her cage scenes.
My wife, who knows nothing of comics and was expecting nothing, was thinking of it as an odd kind-of-boring Meachum family/office place drama. She liked the fact that it was not as violent as Daredevil or Jessica Jones.
I was crushed because I wanted The Raid 2: The Series.
I just can’t get over the way Danny is portrayed. Childish naivete mixed with unbearable smugness. The fish out of water who still thinks he’s smarter than you.
At the end of the second episode of Daredevil we got one of the greatest action scenes of the decade. At the end of the second episode of Iron Fist, Danny opens a door.
Despite being a bit rude and wrong on a number of things I think Scott@5 was right that Iron Fist suffers from a lot of problems of the other Marvel Netflix series. However, the problem isn’t, IMHO, that critics are being extra hard on it because “they cast a white guy,” but because it doesn’t have any of the redeeming features of the other series.
Daredevil was new, had some really kickass action scenes and some phenomenal acting with Fisk and Stick. It skated by a bit on novelty than it might have if it came, say, third out of the gate (but I feel Daredevil is probably intrinsically more popular a character than Iron Fist and would have skated by on that too).
Jessica Jones, complex female main character who was occasionally unlikable, talking about PTSD and rape trauma and a creepy-as-hell villain that laced every scene with tension because he took away your very free will… and dared to occasionally try and make you sympathize.
Luke Cage had a phenomenal cast of mostly non-white actors (which, yes, IS something to applaud in a mainstream show, even in 2016/2017) that was unapologetic about existing in and commenting on black culture while still being accessible to all. Sure, the last few episodes went on a steep downgrade, but the first few were really watchable.
Iron Fist? It’s just another average-quality Kung Fu-Guy-Fights-Crime series, with the problems of the usual Marvel Netflix shows tacked on. It’s fine, aside from a few really wonky choices here and there (and I’m not talking about the casting, I’m talking about the narrative which was sometimes shockingly lazy in the later eps).
The fact is, Iron Fist could have been done on Network TV at any point in the last 20 years, except for a bit of swearing, gore and nudity and the biggest dealbreaker… that nobody thought people would watch it. It’s practically Arrow, for that matter. So yeah, people are harder on it. If you’re going to bring your Iron Fist to a Netflix gunfight, it had better be a lot better than average network Kung Fu show with a bit more blood.
I’m enjoying the show, thought not as much as I did Daredevil or Jessica Jones. Looking forward to reading the rest of these reviews, as I know nothing in particular about martial arts but am always curious about how accurately they’re being portrayed on screen. Thanks Keith!
To two quick thoughts on points which have come up:
(1) re: Danny Rand’s motivation for returning to New York: it’s home! And he’s Danny Rand. He’s clearly returning home at his first chance and wants to be himself again. Wouldn’t we all? (To me, this also justifies much of his awkward behavior… he hasn’t been in New York City since he was a boy; he’s never been an adult in the real world. Of course he’s naive and awkward).
(2) re: the arsonist. Doesn’t the guy catch him completely by surprise and sucker punch him? Add to that the fact that Danny is trying to stop him from burning the place down by throwing the lighter… advantage arsonist. I didn’t find the scene unbelievable. (I also appreciate the fact that he doesn’t just get to mary sue every fight in the show.)
The arsonist catches him by surprise, but I didn’t really bought that, it still seemed to easy. Otherwise, we do seem to agree on the show. I liked it less that JJ or LC; mainly because while this show doesn’t have the pacing issues LC has after the fifth episode, LC and JJ highs were higher than IF’s.
The show does get somewhat better later on, I think, but it does have a weak start. The plot of the first two episodes could’ve been done in one, and their pacing is glacial. And it’s hard to care about a spoiled, entitled billionaire scion trying to get his wealth and privilege back as much I was able to care about outsiders like Matt, Jessica, and Luke who had real causes to fight for beyond a sense of entitlement.
I’m going to try to say this without specific spoilers… but I was hoping that a show with a white Danny Rand could engage with the problems that raises rather than uncritically perpetuating the cliched narrative. And I think it does make a decent attempt to do that. Danny is the embodiment of privilege; he assumes he’s just entitled to have his desires fulfilled and to make people do what he wants, and that impulse causes most of the problems in the show. Even when he’s taking action for the right reasons, he still does it in an arrogant way that makes things worse. He’s not a hero, he’s a well-meaning but arrogant brat and kind of a doofus, and he needs a couple of women of color to knock some sense into him, sometimes literally. We see this in episode 3, where he assumes he’s entitled to take over the dojo and boss the students around and Colleen schools him in what a jerk move that was. There is definitely an implicit theme of white privilege here, in both Danny and the Meachums, and it is shown how toxic it can be, although the show is more forgiving of Danny than perhaps he deserves.
I agree that Jessica Henwick is magnificent as Colleen — not only a compelling actress but a real beauty. Netflix absolutely needs to start developing a Daughters of the Dragon series right away. She’s a lot more cherubic-looking than her comics counterpart, but she embodies her strength and sadness marvelously. As for the Meachums, the actors didn’t thrill me at first, but they did a pretty good job overall — not on a Wilson Fisk or Kilgrave level, but good enough at a more ambiguous villainy. I don’t think it’s a spoiler to say that my favorite villain in this was Wai Ching Ho as Madame Gao, though. She has a terrific voice and presence. I think it’s unfortunate that she was never billed as a cast member in the opening titles; she deserved to be.
One thing about the production values that became very distracting to me over the course of the series: The skyline backdrops beyond the windows of the Rand building’s office sets are incredibly fakey and flat-looking. I know Netflix shows don’t have a feature budget, but couldn’t they have invested in a greenscreen and a digital cityscape? Or at least position the backdrops further back from the windows so that their flatness wasn’t so obvious?
Well PG beat me to it but I was gonna say that that the arsonist fight began with him being sucker punched in the back of the head with some brass knuckles. I may not be a blackbelt but I’m pretty sure that will scramble your skills in the short term. I was more surprised that he got so easily sucker punched in the first place.
These first three episodes could certainly have been condensed down a bit and the Iron Fist certainly needs to come out a bit more overall but I mostly enjoyed my binge.
@krad My apologies on the Diamondback thing. I skimmed the article (I’ve read far too many of these things give them a deeper reading) and I thought I had seen Diamondback in that list. While I agree the Wendals are a weak “villain” I stand by everything else I said. Most of the criticism of IF was predetermined based on casting. There’s nothing wrong with the show that can’t be picked up and placed in the other three and yet for some reason I can’t understand why the trashing of IF. There’s only one criticism that can’t be placed in the other shows…casting. Plot sluggishness (DD season 2, JJ, and LC all suffer from it at times). Although, I rarely find myself wishing the plot would move forward faster on IF. Action (JJ had long stretches of nonaction). Bad acting (oh my goodness gracious, LC was littered with it). Headscratching plot decisions (LC killing off a much more interesting, and better acted, Cottonmouth). Unrealistic fighting (DD both seasons suffered from poorly angled shots that showed punches “land” that missed by a foot). The plot itself (it’s like people want the same 4 seasons DD, DD2, JJ, and LC rehashed instead of giving IF a completely different plot…which makes no sense because it’s a completely different story. Those other 3 are street level plots while IF has a completely different backstory. If he came back and started fighting for the common man on the street, people would question his motives. IF came back to fight for the one thing he still had in the world from his childhood and that’s his family’s company…oh and to be a total BA toward the Hand…different backgrounds, different story). And honestly, I can’t think of anything other reason for all the criticism other than it stems from the criticism the show received before the first scene was ever shot.
I can still sympathize with Danny even if he’s rich: he’s still someone who lost his parents at age 10 and is trying to return home and reclaim the only “family” he still has left: the Meachums.
And while I appreciate and understand the criticism of cultural appropiation that some believe are present in this character and show, I never thought of him trying to claim Colleen’s dojo and students as something born out of white privilege, but of the culture he learned while at K’un-Lun.
Also, krad, I don’t see how it’s so hard to believe that they’d keep the name of the company unchanged. A lot of companies retain their name even several decades after the original founders have left.
@17/MaGnUs: It’s the same either way — both in K’un Lun and in New York, he acted out of the same assumption that he could act on his own desires and whims and not consider the consequences to others. That’s actually a major factor in the K’un Lun side of the narrative, going right to the final shot of the season. And the reason he made that assumption throughout his life is because it’s the way he was raised as a super-rich kid. He was used to getting everything he wanted, and he never outgrew that expectation, even though it became filtered through the culture he learned in K’un Lun.
For most of his life he was not a super rich kid who could get what he wanted. Quite the opposite.
I’d prefer to get our host’s thoughts on this, but — assuming we’re talking about the dojo scene where Danny chews out the kids for horsing around — I can say from my own experience that’s not white privilege, that’s rank privilege. If I were in my own school and saw students goofing around and disrespecting the instructor like that, I’d be hard-pressed to keep my mouth shut, especially if the instructor were lower-ranking than me. The only thing that would stop me — and absolutely should have stopped Danny — is that it’s not my class, and in Danny’s case, not his school. The fact that the red-belt instructor doesn’t say anything is likely because either a) he has no idea who this guy is or why he’s taking over the class, or b) he knows Danny outranks him, and therefore has the right to take over.
The fact that Danny shuts the student up by sweeping him is entirely in-line with the way Danny was taught (and probably pretty restrained, by his standards, as the student was more startled than injured). It’s also entirely out of line for a modern American dojo, and Colleen is entirely correct to read him the riot act for doing so.
Danny should definitely have more respect as a guest in someone else’s dojo, where they practice a style he wasn’t taught, but his disgust at the students’ behavior is completely understandable.
I could wonder why Colleen wasn’t on the mat supervising, whether she was teaching the class or not, but I’ve seen masters do that often enough that it’s realistic.
Agreed, Brian.
The thing about Netflix shows is that they’re practically designed to be binged (otherwise they’d be releasing them one a week like network/cable does). So, yeah, while they can feel a bit slow at times, If you take the series as a whole, I have trouble remembering what parts happened in which episode, but the narrative itself, in my mind, is seamless.
I do love Madame Gao, and it seems to me that they’re setting her (and The Hand) up to be the Big Bad in The Defenders.
Lazerwulf, I agree that we can’t take Marvel/Netflix shows (not all Netflix shows are like this) are meant to be binged, and are thus more like a chapter-ified movie; but some still suffer pacing issues, like Luke Cage. Iron Fist, on the other hand, is slow, but the pacing works well.
I’m only through ep 6, so things may well change, but my main gripe about the show is the apparent lack of motivation from Danny Rand. (I always forgive martial arts stuff, because I studied martial arts and many, MANY shows get it wrong)
I didn’t read these comics (some of the few I haven’t read a least a few of), but the show Danny explicitly mentions that he doesn’t even know what he wants or why he’s really even in NYC. While perhaps realistic, since many people don’t really know what they want, it really hurts my investment in the character. Dude doesn’t know why he’s there and it is clearly NOT for his purpose as the Iron Fist, so why do we even care? And that’s on the writing, not so much on the actor, although a better actor may have been able to skate past that problem on charisma.
I love Colleen Wing and…other characters who show up later (no spoilers), but Danny is a hard protagonist to care about, which isn’t the case for all other Netflix MCU shows (except maybe JJ at first.) That is an issue when the pacing of the show is so slow to start. Things do start picking up after ep 2, but yeah. I hope the last 6 episodes flow better. And Danny really needs a purpose. This aimless crap is killing me.
After bingeing the whole thing, the gist for me (w/o spoilers) is that every part of the show — the Hand in New York following up on Daredevil; the corporate drama with the Meachums; Madame Gao’s story; Colleen Wing’s story — would work better without Danny in it. Danny is unnecessary to this show.
That’s on the writers. There’s a lot of good potential narrative arcs they could have written for Danny (some with Finn Jones, some with a Chinese-American lead) but they didn’t settle on one. I agree with what ChristopherLBennett said in #14 — he has a beginning that should give him a lot of room to grow; I’ll be interested in what KRAD thinks of how that growth turns out.
So, I think the writers dropped the ball, and also somehow they produced this without giving Finn Jones enough training or prep time. And someone above said that he didn’t have a stunt double? — that would have made the fights look better, and can certainly be done. The martial arts in Agents of S. are done with stunt doubles (the actress playing the redheaded Inhuman who can . . . double herself . . . is the main stuntwoman).
There are still some very enjoyable moments in every episode, usually when Colleen is around, but also sometimes when Iron Fist is fighting interesting people.
“the first three episodes have shown only a cursory knowledge of martial arts, which is kind of unfortunate for a series about a martial artist.”
This is a symptom of something that’s been bugging me through all the Marvel Netflix shows. They’re determined to place these characters in a more gritty, grounded, realistic environment…but seem unwilling to do the research necessary to make things grounded and realistic! So we get lawyers who hardly work cases and a bad journalist who can’t write; a private investigator who hardly does any investigating; police officers cobbled together from TV cliches who seem oblivious of police procedure; and now sorta martial arts?
All of the professions are vague backdrops for the characters to just do hero stuff against, which means the performances reaaaally need to carry the day.
@19/MaGnUs: “For most of his life he was not a super rich kid who could get what he wanted. Quite the opposite.”
But he still acts like he is. He goes through the whole season assuming he’s entitled to get his wishes and refusing to consider the consequences of his unilateral choices, even when others tell him the problems his choices will cause. He means well, he’s trying to help people and live by his principles, but he’s just barreling forward and not thinking things through.
@20/Brian: As for the dojo sequence, I’m not talking so much about what motivated the (imaginary) character as about how the scene can be read as a commentary on the issues of racial privilege and entitlement that Iron Fist tends to stir up. It shows a white man acting in an overbearing and condescending way toward a room full of people of color, and a woman of color standing up to him and helping him see that he was wrong to do that. It showed that the writers’ sympathies were not purely with the white character, that they weren’t assuming Danny automatically deserved to be treated as smarter and better than the nonwhite characters around him. So that’s good.
ChristopherLBennett
I don’t think tackling the aforementioned incident from a thematic angle matters because what’s dramatized isn’t a direct allegory, but characters performing plot due to ______ (i.e: motivation). What are the internal structures that lead to _____ acting out _________.
Brian was getting at this along with shorthanding Martial Art norms for a general situation as to why the conflict was handle in this direct way.
Whatever theme you find hidden, if deemed intentional, is fine but first we must stick with character because this is a story where characters come first. They aren’t pieces of wood, metaphoring only. The main cast have a life outside them.
@28/Bimpy: You’re talking like we’re somehow required to choose only one level of analysis to the exclusion of all others. That’s not how analysis works. Stories can and should be analyzed on multiple levels, both in-story and behind-the-scenes.
After all, the problem with white-savior and cultural-appropriation narratives is not about what choices their characters make, it’s about the assumptions made by their writers and their audiences. So we can’t talk about that particular issue without analyzing the creative choices being made behind the scenes. And I’m saying that I feel the show handled this issue somewhat better than I feared it would. It’s a positive.
I’m with Mr. Bennett on this one. My reading of the situation was drawn entirely from my real-world experience, and I found the characters to be acting consistently with what I would expect, given the situation and their established backgrounds, which is a good thing.
Mr. Bennett is looking at it from a step further back — I don’t know his martial-arts experience, if any, but it doesn’t really matter in this case. Regardless, Colleen ripped Danny a new one, deservedly so, whether it’s because he was out of line in somebody’s else’s dojo, or because the white guy needed to be taken down a peg, or most likely both.
Or possibly because Colleen Wing, sensei and secret cage fighter, is a better story than boardrooms-and-lawyers Danny, and the show secretly knows it.
@30/Brian: Yeah, Colleen’s story is rather more interesting. To an extent, Danny Rand/the Iron Fist is almost more the McGuffin of this story than the protagonist. He’s the entity that motivates the other characters’ actions, as they pursue him or use him or react to him. I’m a bit reminded of Big Trouble in Little China‘s Jack Burton, thinking he was the hero of the story when he was actually the sidekick.
I have no martial-arts experience beyond a longtime interest in it in the abstract, and as a thing to watch in movies and TV. I tried a little t’ai chi many years ago as a form of exercise, but I never really got any good at it.
The first three episodes (and, sadly, most of the rest of them too) commit the number one sin of entertainment television:
They don’t show, they tell. And tell and tell and tell and tell and oh my god isn’t this supposed to be a Marvel Superhero story? I felt like I was watching an episode of Downton Abbey.
Hi! Relative to say Green Arrow, The Flash, Legends of Tomorrow or most of the stuff on CW I feel The Iron Fist is still in the Netflix class of real drama.
Just some thoughts!
1. My city! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! for not using “my city”. The Arrow, Dare Devil and Mr. Big keep going on and one about my city. Geez.
2. Drab. I really enjoyed the the style, the scenes, the clothes and the soundtrack of Luke Cage. The Iron Fist has no style, period. It is like they didn’t even try with the Iron Fist. Art Deco should have at least one Tiffany lamp! Always a nice touch in Joss Whedon verse to see a beautiful Tiffany Lamp. I really didn’t get a sense I was moving between worlds with the Art Deco building and the streets like you did with Luke Cage.
3. No humor. Where is the hack writing? Of all the Netflix, Marvel shows this has the least humor, like none. Hello? Deadpool? There isn’t even a humor relief character. The two faces of drama are comedy and sadness. The only comedy was the physical comedy in the cage fights. Which was actually quite good!
4. Where’s the sexy? Joy? Please. They even managed to make Rosaria Dawson look drab.
5. I like the brother/sister angle a lot. It was one of the things that made Firefly special for me. 6. The Austin Martin! Okay, this is one part of the show that was sexy and had style. Loved it. But it so didn’t fit in with anything else and Danny’s excuse for buying it was weak tea compared to everything else he espouses by being a Monk.
7. Madame Gao. They need to write her better with more than one dimension of just being a smart ass. But still. The only person in this show I’m rooting for is Madame Gao.
Definitely the weakest installment for me of the Netflix MCU. The lack of humor, soundtrack, style and sexy leaves one wandering if this is a comic or a weekly police procedural where the police consultant tagging along is a kung fu fighter.
Cheers!
-Mybrid
Without going into spoilers, the reasons for Colleen’s presence in Danny’s life is made clear in the latter half of the series.
I wonder if Netflix mandates the episode lengths. Shorter episodes would tighten up the pacing and get rid of some of the sluggishness. Again without specifics, there is a scene in a later episode where Claire Temple has a conversation that feels like she’s wading thru molasses. As great as Rosario Dawson is, even she can’t seem to overcome the inertia.
Perhaps making these seasons shorter would help too. Seems we’ll find out with Defenders as a series of only eight episodes.
Nit pick: the opening credits and music are my least favorite of the four. DD and LC are almost a tie for me, both for visuals and music. JJ was a bit jangling, but it represents the character’s state of mind well. IF’s is just too inky dark. It could’ve been a dark green with more powerful iron fist effect, instead of the little yellow sparks. The music punctuates a couple of the movements well, but overall pretty bland.
ChristopherLBennett
I’m talking about before we dive into themes we must first dive into the human condition that supports the plot event Brian brought up. Allegorical implications are just icing on a cake. Those hidden subtexts we find do not inform us of things like behavior.
@34
Agreed, I didn’t like the opening credits at all, though fortunately they were almost exactly a minute long so very convenient to skip past.
So I came in with *very* little knowledge of the character other than he hits stuff with a fist. I like viewing the netflix stuff blind, it avoids preconceptions.
On the whole I liked Finn as the Iron Fist, despite his lack of good fight choreography. He has a real relaxed zen air about him, which ties in with the whole “eastern mysticism” air that his archetype demands. I also feel that a character like this is entirely about the cultural appropriation trope – he almost feels like the opposite of Batman – spoiled rich kid, who loses his parents and gains a company, yet he generally manages to deal with his darkness, rather than bottling it away in petty rage.
Joy and Ward were irritating for most of the front half, especially Ward since it doesn’t make any sense how they can run such a large corporation so well. Also some of the rules seemed very weird – I presume the Meachums have a significant shareholding as well, so how does a board *that they are part of* act behind their backs to remove a majority shareholder? Besides, surely Danny can just turn around and vote himself back in at the next shareholder meeting?
Colleen was a delight, and felt very real throughout. Loved her story arc.
Madame Gao is always a pleasure – it’s good to see properly intelligent villains showing up more often.
I’ll be very interested to see what krad thinks of the latter half of the series, to me it showed the same problem as Luke Cage – a weak ending that wasn’t justified well by the lengthy buildup. And once again they introduced characters too late for them to be properly significant.
I do like the little nods to the other series as we go through – “I got a private detective to take the photos for me, good work when she was sober”.
@33/Mybrid: “4. Where’s the sexy?”
Did you not see Colleen Wing?
“But it so didn’t fit in with anything else and Danny’s excuse for buying it was weak tea compared to everything else he espouses by being a Monk.”
That’s in keeping with how Danny’s written. He’s trying to be a wise K’un Lun master and Richie Rich at the same time. He doesn’t really know who he is or what path he should choose, so he’s all over the place.
@34/Sunspear: My favorite title sequence of the four is Jessica Jones, which is terrific both musically and visually. Luke Cage is next — it’s not my style of music, but it’s strikingly done and showcases the series’s sense of place and cultural heritage marvelously. I’d rank Daredevil and Iron Fist about equally, although at least DD’s is more colorful.
@36/Mayhem: The titles actually had a little “Skip Intro” box you could click on to bypass the main titles. I used it on episode 2, but after that I realized that since the cast, writer, and director credits are in the intro, I shouldn’t skip it. (Although it seemed that Rosario Dawson was not credited in her first episode, oddly enough. Even if they wanted it to be a surprise, they could’ve credited her in the end titles.)
@37, I disagree with you that Danny’s “whiteness” played a role in the dojo scene, but agree whole heartedly regarding Colleen Wing bringing the sexy. Between her, Claire, and Joy, there is nothing to complain about in that regard.
@37. ChristopherLBennet
Colleen Wing never wears anything other than athletic gear and sweats, all which you can buy at Walmart. Do you come to a comic book expecting Wal mart or fantastic? Not sexy. By comparison, Marvel’s AoS, May, dresses fit to kill. In fact, even the scientist on AoS is given a far sexier appeal than Wal-mart Wang.
Corporate sexy, for my money, is defined by Gina Torres’ role on Suits. I’m not sure what they were thinking with Joy’s outfits. Iron Fist has the potential to be a fantastic Suits combined with AoS and completely misses the mark.
The only scene I found where there was any conflict with Danny being rich was the 2 minute Austin Martin scene. Nowhere else in the show did I find any K’un Lun master and Richie Rich at the same time. He was far more worried about his family name and being the Iron Fist. But I found even his family name conflict scenes were every bit as hollow as the Austin Martin scene. He was ten. Why would his “family” name matter? I don’t think the writers were really invested in any conflict other than Danny being the Iron Fist and Danny’s betrayal leaving his post.
Well met! All my criticisms are meant to be targeted at the production of the show and not the actors. I just think they could have put some effort and polish into the trappings rather than re-create my living room. I don’t need to watch TV to see my living room, thank you. ha! Is this Breaking Bad or a comic book?
Also, I’m reading a lot about the sub-par action sequences. While I agree that they don’t hold a candle to the Daredevil fight scenes, I still prefer them over the action scenes in Luke Cage. I found the action in LC to be boring. They consisted of Luke getting shot, walking up to people and punching them*. Even with choppy editing, the fights in IF are more fun to watch.
*The fights in Jessica Jones had similar problems, but David Tennant’s Kilgrave made that series for me, so it gets a pass on the “ok” action scenes.
@39/Mybrid: What has wardrobe got to do with it? If sexiness were exclusively about clothes, we’d all be lusting after mannequins.
@40 I think in Jessica Jones and Luke Cage this style of fight choreography was very intentional (though maybe didn’t fully make sense in Cage’s case). After all, Daredevil and Iron Fist have trained in martial arts for years. Jones and Cage are just strong and tough. Jones especially isn’t fighting with technique, but rather her super powers. Where this breaks down somewhat is that Luke Cage has supposedly had some time in the military (am I right in remembering Army Rangers) and would presumably have had at least some training in unarmed combat.
Daredevil season 2 was especially good for fight scenes. I really appreciated the way that different characters had different fighting styles depending on their backgrounds and capabilities. I would have thought Iron Fist would lean on that very strongly given that it is the most martial arts based of the Netflix series.
@34/Sunspear: I totally agree with you that the title sequence leaves me cold. I kept expecting that the camera would zoom up or out and we’d discover that he’d been writing Chinese characters with his moves. But…no. Apparently, it’s just a guy who likes to practice while covered in ink, and occasionally throw off sparks. Whatever works, dude.
@42, I agree that the sparse fight choreography in JJ & LC were most likely intentional. With that being said, I don’t think it is only choreography that counts, it is also intensity. One of my favorite fights in all four series is Castle’s fight in the cell block in Daredevil S2. Its ugly, but so intense.
@43/Brian: I guess the title sequence was meant to imply Chinese calligraphy, but I think maybe it would’ve been more appropriate if the trails had been in yellow light like the Fist itself.
I kinda-sorta live-tweeted as I binged the show, but my ultimate take-away was “meh”.
It felt like they filmed the half-speed rehearsals for the fight scenes which was ridiculous for a show whose raison d’être is superheroic mystical martial arts. The opening scene of season 2 of Into the Badlands had more verve and inventiveness than the entirety of Iron Fist.
I ended up liking Ward’s character the most, mostly because he did something. At least he has an arc.
Danny mansplaining martial arts to Colleen in her own dojo was painfully awkward. It was matched only by their lack of chemistry.
On the positive side, their American accents were pretty good.
@26: This is nothing compared to the way they handle corporate drama in that show. I don’t know anything more about it than I know about lawyers or journalism, but even I could see it was so nonsensical that it was painful to watch, especially in the next three episodes.
Regarding the Arsonist scene, he was less than three days removed from some serious drugs, as well. He wasn’t in complete control of himself, or his Chi, yet. I agree it seems like random dudes do a bit too well against him for plot reasons though… that continues to be a problem through Episode 7 (where I’m at now.)
I will also say there are some other things in here that are presuppositions in the OP based on limited information. For spoiler reasons, they will have to wait, however. Your main complaint is that you haven’t been given enough information in the first 3 episodes. That is valid. However, I’m not sure that a show designed for binge watching in its entirety over a weekend should be viewed and critiqued in the same context as a similar show released over months. They have different designs, by intention. Since I watched the first 6 episodes in two days, I got more information than you did. I was satisfied with what I got. I probably wouldn’t have been if I’d viewed the show over 6-8 weeks, like a typical network show.
@43/Brian the funny thing is that it is an old, old cliche in HK martial arts shows that martial arts and and calligraphy are the same thing. Or at the very least that if you are very skilled in fighting then it can be detected in your writing.
This reminds me of the old 3D Realms video game Shadow Warrior where they peppered it with lots of Asian references but in a third- or even fourth-hand way that made it clear the creators weren’t truly familiar with the cultures they were trying to “homage”.
@49/Anthony: I don’t agree. Having a binge format is no excuse for a slow start. In any form of writing, whether it’s novels or movies or short stories or whatever format you use, it’s a mistake to “walk to the plot,” to take too much time on preliminaries before getting to the meat of the story. After all, you aren’t entitled to your audience’s attention. They have other things they could be spending time on. You have to earn their interest — start off with a strong enough hook that they want to stick around for more. This is one of the most basic lessons any writer has to learn — to start the story as late as possible. If the important stuff doesn’t start to happen until Chapter 3, then you probably don’t need Chapters 1-2. Good writing is the result of editing, trimming away anything that isn’t needed.
@34 – Sunspear: Ugh, I know, those credits. I was looking forward to them after Luke Cage’s had the best credits sequence of the bunch, and I was thoroughly disappointed. Not only it should have been green and yellow (man, you’re not giving him his costume yet, at least use the friggin’ colors), but that inky stuff that trailed his movements whas too thick, to dense; it should have been more ethereal. And bland defines the music perfectly.
@36 – Mayhem: Watch the spoilers, this article is only for stuff in the first three episodes, or general considerations about the show.
@42 – vinsentient: The fight scenes in JJ were purposely messier and less attactive than in DD, but a lot of people just thought that was a failure of the show. Same as the pacing of JJ, which has to do with the lot themes, and many just found it lacking (including me at first).
@49 – Anthony: Agreed with that this show needs to be watched in at most three sittings.
@51:
But that’s just the thing, CLB. It DID hold my attention in it’s current format, where it WOULDN’T have if released on a network TV schedule.
The delivery method can change the perception of the exact same product. What might hold my attention on a binge show, with all episodes available, might not hold it for a month on network TV.
There’s a difference between interesting and important. The first three episodes were interesting enough for me to get me to the important stuff in the middle. They might not have been on a network TV schedule.
I have that problem with Legends of Tomorrow. I couldn’t get through the first season while it was airing, but I really liked it when I binged it. I found myself losing interest in Season 2, so I’ve set it aside. I bet I’ll find it interesting enough while bingeing this summer.
@53/Anthony: For myself, I was quite bored by the first episode. I’ve seen plenty of other shows designed for bingeing, and I don’t recall any of them having first episodes quite as bland and sluggishly paced as this one did. Yes, bingeing makes for a different experience, but that does not make it okay for the creators to assume they can get away with being sloppy or lowering their standards.
@53, I did the same thing with not only Legends, but all of the WB superhero shows. I’ve just been spoiled by streaming in that I hate waiting week to week. I’d rather wait and binge it all at once. When WB’s deal with Netflix changed, it made it that much easier.
So, while what I said about the first half of the season stands, I’ve watched most of the back half now. I haven’t watched the last two episodes. The show suffers from the exact same problems as DD2 and Luke Cage. The back half is horrible, and there are FAR too many plot contrivances created by characters wearing the idiot hat. There’s nothing as egregious as Diamondback, the performances remain solid, if not spectacular, but boy, is there some lazy writing in the back 6 episodes. I’m hoping for some redemption in the finale arc.
It seems to me like a lot of these problems could possibly be solved if they cut the number of episodes from 13 down to 10. It would allow them to pick up the pace and hopefully avoid the painful lulls that these shows are experiencing. I have hope that The Defenders series will avoid this as it is supposed to be only 8 episodes.
@56, Diamondback was cringe worthy.
I only got Netflix lately, and the only series I’ve watched is Jessica Jones. Which I thought was great, but they could have edited a few episodes out, or at least have made them more into ‘Monster of the Week’ episodes if they needed to have 13 and the main arc couldn’t support it.
I liked how the heroine was mostly on her own, rather than in some sort of superhero ‘gang’, even if the original material is apparently oriented that way.
They probably couldn’t have told the story if Jessica had agreed with the *obviously* correct viewpoint of the cop ex-military guy that Kilgrave needed killing, immediately – so I won’t hold that against them.
Only two episodes into Iron Fist. It’s slow-paced but keeps my interest. More of a relaxing watch than JJ, perhaps.
@57 – Jason: My fear regarding Defenders is that they have too many characters, not only the titular four heroes, but also their supporting cast, including important supporting cast members like Karen Page and Colleen Wing, and in 8 episodes everything will feel a bit rushed and not everybody will get the screen time they deserve.
@59/MaGnUs: Yeah, let’s see, who’s supposed to be in The Defenders? That would be…
Daredevil, Elektra, Karen, Foggy, and Stick.
Jessica Jones, Trish, and Malcolm.
Luke Cage and Misty Knight.
Iron Fist and Colleen Wing.
Claire Temple and Jeri Hogarth.
Plus Sigourney Weaver as a new character, Alexandra.
That’s 15 people, although according to IMDb, only the four Defenders, Elektra, Colleen, and Alexandra are in all 8 episodes. Its info may be incomplete, but it lists Claire as being in 6 episodes, Foggy, Misty, and Trish in 4 each, and the others in 3 each.
Hopefully, they’ll manage the characters right.
Well, they can forgo much of the setup, because we are really, really familiar with all these characters now. If Civil War can manage 22 characters in 2 hours, with two major character introductions, I think Defenders can manage 15 in 8.
What I was most happy about with Iron Fist was imagining how his character will interact and blend in with the rest of the Defenders. He really is a different flavor. I can just imagine Jessica snarking at him, and Trish psychoanalyzing him, Luke digging him, and DD just totally accepting him as he is. I wonder if they will keep the level of imbalanced crazy he displayed throughout the Iron Fist series while transitioning to Defenders.
Well, Civil War managed that amount of characters, but most of them only show up for fight scenes. This has to be more of a character and plot driven affair that the roles that most characters had in CW (where only three or four characters were actually in the spotlight outside the action scenes).
MaGnUs: You’re misremembering Civil War. There was significant character stuff happening for Cap, Bucky, Iron Man, Spider-Man, Black Panther, Zemo, Black Widow, Vision, Scarlet Witch, Black Widow, and War Machine. The only ones who just showed up for the fight scenes, as you put it, are Ant-Man, Falcon, and Hawkeye.
Also, for everyone’s information, my review of the full season of Iron Fist will go live tomorrow at noon.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
No, I’m not, as I watched Civil War about a month ago again. “Most of them showing up only for the fight scene” was an exageration, as I know there are character scenes with those characters you mention; but I just don’t think it was that significant, moreso when compared to Cap/Bucky/Iron Man.
MaGnUs: Really? You don’t think Black Panther had an interesting character arc? To my mind, his journey was the most important one in the film.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
I’m not saying it wasn’t interesting, or even significant when it came to the character himself. I’m just talking about the time they devoted to these other characters, which allowed them to focus on the main three.
If anything, my first comment regarding CW wasn’t very well written.
*laughs* Fair enough. I adore Civil War and find it and The Avengers to be master classes in how to give all your characters something important to do without seeming overcrowded.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido