Iron Fist (2017)
TV-MA
Starring Finn Jones, Jessica Henwick, Jessica Stroup, Tom Pelphrey, David Wenham, Wai Ching Ho, Rosario Dawson,
Created by Scott Buck
The Story:
When he was 10, Danny Rand (Jones), was presumed dead in a plane crash that killed his parents. Control of Rand Enterprises went to Harold Meachum (Wenham) and his children, Ward (Pelphrey) and Joy (Stroup). Over 15 years have passed, when suddenly some guy claiming to be Danny Rand strolls into Rand Enterprises with the craziest tale about who he really is and where he's been all these years.
So begins the tale of The Iron Fist...
It's amusing that to explain the Iron Fist saga any deeper than that, you will come off nearly as crazy sounding as Danny does in those first few episodes as he tries to convince everyone of who he is.
I was explaining it to my wife, the mystical city of K'un Lun, how his powers work... and even began to chuckle.
Yes, it sounds weird, but it all makes sense as it plays out.
Unless, you happen to be a professional critic.
This series has been savaged by reviews that basically can be summed up by the 3 things below:
1) Danny Rand should have been recast as an Asian-American.
2) It's boring.
3) Finn Jones has no charisma to play Iron Fist.
First, Danny Rand always has been a white guy from his very inception. Whether it was in response to the Kung Fu series of the 70s, this is history. This wasn't some racist, non political correctness on the part of Marvel.
They wrestled with changing Danny's ethnicity, but in the end, it makes way more sense to see how Danny is treated by everyone if the Iron Fist is a white guy.
As for the boredom issues...
Everyone that has read any of my reviews for Daredevil, Jessica Jones or Luke Cage, I've nearly copied and pasted the following in some form or another:
"It's a great 8 episodes stretched over 13 installments".
More of the same follows here.
It's a pacing thing, and I get that.
Marvel runs the risk of putting TOO much story into 13 episodes if they don't pad and stretch.
It is what it is.
With The Defenders, they are planning on 8 episodes. Sounds just about perfect.
Finally, Finn Jones. He bounced around in the series as too brash, no charisma, too much, then towards the end, I realized that Danny Rand is still very much a child. He was 10 when his parents died.
Then raised by monks for the next 15 years, he was trained to fight, but never given the chance to grow up, so he is still very much an adolescent.
Looking back, Jones does play the little boy who has to grow up, finally, as the series moves along.
In fact, I dare say that the entire cast actually enjoys possibly the most character growth as a cast that any series from Marvel and Netflix has enjoyed yet.
Where Danny and all the Meachums start the series is a far cry from where they end up.
The one thing I will agree with most critics on:
Colleen Wing (Henwick) is easily the best character on the show.
Iron Fist also pulls the tapestry of the Marvel Netflix Universe much closer together, whether by mentioning other characters or those that happen to appear in this installment.
The biggest disappointments for me from the series:
a) The lack of any flashbacks to training in K'un Lun
b) The lack of Iron Fist's costume.
Both will probably be rectified in the future, but when you have a costume as visually striking as Iron Fist's, that needs to be seen sooner, rather than later.
The setup for season 2 is there, and I'm not really sure whether it will take place before or after (or during?) The Defenders.
But I'll be back!
Final Grade: B to B- range.
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