It seems that Iron Fist has finally settled into whatever the hell it’s trying to be, but that doesn’t mean that what it’s trying to be is what we actually want. Little by little, the show is easing itself deeper into that mix of big business drama and Kung Fu shenanigans at the speed you ease yourself into a bath you’ve run way too hot, but what’s proving to be especially frustrating is that Iron Fist: the show seems to have little to no faith in the comic it’s based on.
It’s a shame, because for all it’s gritty nuances, the various Defenders shows really could stand to embrace the crazy a little more. Sure they refuse to pull punches when it comes to violent content that actually involves punches, but this corner of the MCU is normally so determinedly po-faced, it certainly could use the sight of a masked green and yellow martial artist punching holes in people with his magical death hand. Yes, more of the comic book trickles in with every episode, but is Iron Fist more concerned about looking cool that just going for it and having fun?
When last we saw young Danny Rand, his attempt to follow Ward into a secret section of Rand Industries saw him pushed off the side of a skyscraper. But after landing heavily on a ledge, he awakens to find he’s not only been saved, but he’s in Harold Meachum’s secret penthouse. This proves to be something of a shock, as the world (and Danny) believed that Harold had lost a battle to cancer years earlier, and he now knows that his earlier meeting with the Meachum patriarch was no hallucination. Much to Ward’s alarm, Harold tells Danny everything – that he did actually die, but he was resurrected by the ninja cult known as the Hand and ordered to work for them while operating in seclusion. However, after hearing that Danny claim that the Iron Fist’s true purpose is to vanquish the Hand, he’s welcomed Rand into his tiny inner circle in order to get out from under their shadow.
In a show of goodwill, Harold orders that Danny be restored to his rightful place on the board of his father’s company complete with his 51% share intrest, and after an awkward press conference, Danny’s innate goodness sees him botching billion dollar deals simply to do the right thing. While positive press pours in concerning a CEO with actual empathy, Ward seethes quietly with jealousy – but beyond all this big business malarkey, the Kung Fu aspect of this plot is steadily rising.
Firstly, Colleen Wing’s growing addiction to earning money at that brutal, illeagal fight ring now has her demanding to fight two thugs at once and secondly, Joy Meachum’s underhanded tactics to unknowingly secure property for the Hand (through Harold via Ward) has gotten her in hot water with the Yakuza. While Colleen can obviously take care of herself, Danny protects Joy from a small army of hatchet wielding goons – but what will the Hand think about this?
Look, I know that I’ve been going on about this for three whole episodes now, but the biggest problem the makers of Iron Fist seem to have is that they’re blatantly terrified to make an actual, Iron Fist show. All the basic bits and pieces are there – K’un-Lun, the ability of the Iron Fist, Rand Industries – but the writers seem genuinely uncertain about how to actually put them all together and still make it edgy and cool. It’s worked for the other Defenders because visually, the respective worlds of Daredevil, Jessica Jones and Luke Cage (crime opera, detective noir, blaxsploitation) all lend themselves to the grittier aspects the showrunners are aiming for. However, the comics were (for better or worse) an attempt to capture the Kung Fu craze emerging at the time and what’s still missing from the show is an attempt to fully embrace a modern take on the numerous movies made by Shaw Brothers. Films like Five Deadly Venoms delivered hard hitting action, sage martial arts wisdom and impressively gaudy costumes, but once again, we find the show retreating to the far safer realms of corporate drama time and time again.
I’m not sure if the show is unsure if casual viewers can handle such a mix, but I will admit that the fighting aspect of the character is slowly becoming ever more prominent. It’s just a shame that they’ve cast an actor who plainly can’t do martial arts – a problem that could easily be contained with a handy, yellow cowl that could conceal stuntmen who could string more than three moves together. It’s not that Finn Jones is doing a particularly bad job – he’s actually the more likable and relatable here than he’s been all season – but he obviously just hasn’t had enough time to capably handle the physical demands a master of Kung Fu requires, and no amount of frantic, Taken 2-style editing is going to disguise that.
Still, while Colleen Wing’s plot thread seems to have plateaued a little as she starts getting off on beating off two guys at once (steady now), the fact that Danny brings Joy to her after their run in with the Yakuza means that the cast is starting to merge and mesh more. Him popping her dislocated finger back into place as an act of mawkish flirting is genuinely adorable and is far more fun than whatever he and Joy have going on. Elsewhere, Harold’s obvious plotting goes into overdrive as he attempts to seduce a still pretty gullible Danny into fighting the Hand for him, and watching the slippery sod try and play both sides still proves to be the most entertaining aspect of the show so far. Everyone in the cast is now settled, Danny has his company back and Harold has revealed himself to our hero, so Iron Fist is officially now in full swing – but there’s that continous, nagging feeling that I don’t actually know who the show is supposed to be for. While fans of the lesser-known character obviously aren’t enough to guarantee large viewing figures, I genuinely wonder how the show is playing to casual MCU types who don’t know their Hands from their Ten Rings and who are here presumably because of weaponized FOMO. We’re four episodes in now and the drip feeding of Iron Fist lore has only just granted us, a glimpse of Danny’s iconic dragon tattoo. Again, I wasn’t expecting a full, comic accurate costume right from the word go, but it would have been nice to have a martial arts-based character actually be in a show that embraced martial arts.
Still, watching the perpetually upbeat Danny try to negotiate the world of high finance, while similarly being stoked that the stickers he stuck under his father’s desk as a child are still there, is finally giving us a lead character that’s fun to be with – but the fact that it’s taken four episodes to do this is fairly worrying.
There are times when I wonder if my (admittedly) basic knowledge of the character is ruining certain aspects of the show for me – but then I realise that a lot of changes, alterations, or holding back of some major Iron Fist character traits would be tantamount to having Spider-Man travel around New York on a motorbike, or having Captain America throw a boomerang. To reiterate, I don’t hate Iron Fist, but I’m beginning to suspect that some of the producers might…
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