Books

Even hip hop music couldn’t save Iron Fist from falling flat

Published

8 years ago

March 19, 2017

Erika

Let me write spoilers and shit, so people won’t get all in their feels…

If you know me then you know I absolutely love when hip-hop and comics meet. Hell, I will buy just about any comic book with a Wu or DOOM reference to it but Marvel’s Netflix Iron Fist forcibly tries to incorporate hip-hop in boring and random scenes that falls flat on creating making magic. This isn’t to say the music selection isn’t good because it’s dope, it’s just the selected scenes they choose to have the music in is off.

Episode 1:
They start off with OutKast’s “So Fresh, So Clean”, and while this song plays a part in his story and background, this is probably the only song that actually makes sense in the series.

Episode 6:
RZA actually directed this episode and we heard what could be Iron Fist’s theme song by Killah Priest, “Heat Of The Night”. Another dope song selection but it does not create add magic to the dry scenes of Iron Fist. Episode after episode just seemed like watching white, rich people “struggle”. It was pretty boring overall.

What was enjoyable about Iron Fist?

Colleen Wing
Colleen Wing hands down. She’s bad ass and she can fight. Unlike her stiff lover, Danny, her skills appear to be more fluid. Her fighting was impressive and even though Danny is Iron Fist, she still looked like she could kick his ass.

The Meachum Family
Daddy Meachum and crew were the highlighted villains of Iron Fist and their dynamics was the typical rich family vs rich family storyline. The Meachums were jealous of the Rand family and played a part of the deft of Danny’s parents. Daddy Meachum, who many assumed was dead isn’t really dead because he’s made some type of deal with Madame Gao who is the baddest, most unfuckwitable villain (next to The Hand). I love this lady as she’s one-step in front of everyone.

Madam Gao
Read above. She’s untouchable. She probably owns my life and I don’t even know it. She proclaimed in Iron Fist she’s been around since the 17th Century. She’s probably a vampire-witch. She can’t die and she gets superheroes and humans shook. Don’t fuck with her or get in her way.

Jerri Hogarth
Another badass female character. We saw her in Jessica Jones being a cutthroat, boss and she’s back on her shit again. Her appearance made me miss Jessica Jones.

Zhou Cheng
Fine ass Lewis Tan. Just fine ass Lewis Tan, drunk, fighting Iron Fist almost beating his ass but you know, reasons and shit. Crazy how he almost landed the part of Iron Fist but didn’t.

What was not enjoyable?
Finn playing Iron Fist was just flat. I found myself becoming easily distracted. Iron Fist is something to watch while you are cooking dinner as background entertainment. For a guy that is supposed to be great at fighting, he fights so fucking slow. Maybe it was for effects? I was also bothered by the forced Asian tie-ins. It’s like ok, I get it, this dude has spent over a decade in Asia but does he speak Mandarin to every Asian person he sees? He assumes all Chinese people speak Mandarin or does he assume all Asian people are Chinese?

Those slow ass fights. That was hard to get over. Smh.

Ok, so we also discover that Danny is a hip-hop head right? That’s why he’s grooving to Killah Priest, Outkast and Anderson .paak? Ok cool, no big deal right? So why’d Danny boy think it was appropriate to address brown and black kids of color as monkeys? Even in context, what tone death writer thought this would be ok? Nobody thought it would be smart to have Jessica Jones or Luke Cage make an appearance? Episodes 11-13 were better but even the ending of Iron Fist had me like confused. The writing for this was all over the place and the hip hop music they chose were placed at some awkward times in the show. It’s hard to believe Danny trying to find his Chi to Anderson .Paak with Colleen. All I could think about was poor Misty Knight. Will this really be her boo? Yikes.

I give it a 5/10 as I am a big fan of Marvel Netflix, but they get an L for this.