The fourth series in Marvel's group of Netflix shows, Iron Fist, arrived this past weekend amid a flurry of poor reviews and controversy. Nonetheless, because I am a Marvel fanboy and because, honestly, the premise of the show intrigued me, I still wanted to watch it. And, to my surprise, I found myself really enjoying it. Yet, I find a need to write about it if only to try and sort out my feelings towards both the show and the conflicting issues with some of it's content and certain tropes that exist within it.
Danny Rand (played by Finn Jones) had been missing and presumed dead for the past 15 years. He had been flying to China with his parents when their plane crashed in the Himalayas. All that changes when one day he walks into the headquarters of his father's company, Rand Enterprises, asking to see the head of the company and announcing he's Danny Rand. This comes as a big surprise to the joint heads of the company Joy Meachum (played by Jessica Stroup) and Ward Meachum (played by Tom Pelphrey), who initially assume Danny is a crazy person and certainly not their childhood friend (their father helped Danny's father run Rand Enterprises). It doesn't help that he shows up in a scraggly beard, filthy clothes and bare foot. However, little by little they come to accept that Danny is who he says he is. The big question is, where has Danny been all this time? Well, it turns out that Danny, the sole survivor of the plane crash, was rescued by the warrior monks of K'un-Lun, a mystical temple that only appears on the earthly plane once every 15 years. During his time away, Danny has trained hard in the art of Martial Arts, eventually earning the title and power of the Iron Fist. His return to New York is to fulfill his duty as the Iron Fist and take down the evil organization known only as The Hand, an organization that has infested his family's company. Along the way he gains the assistance of the owner of a local dojo, Colleen Wing (played by Jessica Henwick) and Claire Temple (played by Rosario Dawson)
I went into this series knowing full well the negative reviews that had been released, specifically of the first six episodes. I have to respectfully disagree with the critical consensus as I quite enjoyed the series from beginning to end. Now, Iron Fist is probably not going to satisfy those who are looking for an action packed show. While there are certainly action scenes throughout, the series also does have quite a bit more character development to establish first than the other Netflix Marvel shows had. This is definitely more Jessica Jones than Daredevil or Luke Cage. That said, I was riveted from the first episode. A lot of that credit has to go to the character of Danny Rand. He has a very clear sense of right and wrong and is baffled by a world that doesn't correspond with that. Finn Jones does a good job showing the emotional rollercoaster Danny is going through dealing with everything. At the start of the series, he has this sort of sweet innocence about him that I couldn't help but find really endearing but as the season progresses and Danny sees the true reach of The Hand, there is a sense of overwhelming despair as he tries to figure out his next move and Jones did a great job of portraying that. I couldn't help but relate to that in the way that I often find the moral flexibility of the world we live in today and the toxic apathy that goes with it equally baffling. The show then contrasts this with the current heads of Rand Enterprises, brother and sister Ward and Joy Meachum who face each problem less with what is right or wrong but rather what is good for the company.
We also have the addition of Colleen Wing, who operates a small dojo in Manhattan and is one of the first people to help Danny upon his return to New York. She is initially resistant to getting involved in Danny's life and all the potential problems that come with it, preferring to keep her focus on her students. But, the two continue to come together until Colleen realizes Danny needs her help in his battle against The Hand and that like it or not, their fates are now intertwined. They make for an interesting pair as Danny was first drawn to her as she represented, in his mind anyway, a cultural touchstone to the world he had been inhabiting for the past 15 years, yet to her Danny's experiences are at least somewhat foreign to her, but yet draw her to him all the same. At first she seems unsure if she can trust him or if she should let him into her life, but yet the more she learns about Danny, the harder she finds it to walk away. It's also through her that we see franchise staple Claire Temple pulled into the story as well. Claire has been with the Netflix shows ever since the first season of Daredevil and continued to pop up in the other shows as well. Here, she's taking martial arts lessons from Colleen as a result of her misadventures with Matt Murdock, Luke Cage, and Jessica Jones. She becomes a welcome ally not only because of her background as a nurse but from her past dealings with The Hand in season 2 of Daredevil.
There has been a lot stated in the past week between critics and viewers who called the series boring and uninteresting. I can understand how some people may feel that way, but I found the series to being the exact opposite and was riveted throughout. So, clearly one's mileage may vary with this one. For myself, I was intrigued by the story it was telling a specifically the character of Danny Rand was an interesting one for me. He was born a rich kid who lived a privileged life until the age of 10, when he suffered a traumatic plane crash that claimed the lives of both his parents (which we see in flashback a few times throughout the season). He found himself alone and injured in the Himalaya mountains when he was rescued by a pair of monks from K'un Lun. He was taken back to their village where he lived for the next 15 years. As Danny explains in the series, he tried to replace the emptiness and sense of loss he felt from the death of his parents by learning all he could in terms of Martial Arts, working towards and eventually being chosen to become the Iron Fist, the protector of K'un Lun and sworn enemy of The Hand.
It's this part of the series that perhaps grabbed my attention the most, the story of a kid who was completely foreign to the land of K'un Lun and not only embracing it but flourishing with in it really captured my imagination. Now, I can see how this plot line can be problematic and is something I will touch on further down, but at the same time what I responded to the most. It's funny how there are significant similarities between Iron Fist and CW's Arrow but I hated the flashbacks on Arrow and craved them on Iron Fist, but yet there are very few in the latter series. This was probably for a number of reasons, but most likely, A. They just didn't have the time in the limited 13 episodes, which is already cramped with plot lines and B. They didn't have the budget to properly show K'un Lun as they would've liked to. It was a disappointment for me as a viewer and hopefully something they will revisit in future seasons. But even without it, I really liked the character of Danny Rand and his journey of trying to rejoin a world he hadn't been a part of for the past fifteen years. That, more than anything, is really what appealed to me. The team of writers and directors managed to keep the plot lines of the series moving forward at a brisk pace and keeping things reasonably focused. They did have a lot more set-up that they needed to get established than the previous Marvel Series, which more or less were able to hit the ground running. Here, they had to reintroduce Danny to the modern world, have him re-establish and prove his identity and re-take his place in Rand Enterprises (with some nice assistance from Jessica Jones' Jeri Hogarth (played by Carrie-Anne Moss)).
One of the biggest points of contention with the series was that the fight sequences were not up to scratch to the high standard that had been set by previous series, especially Daredevil. While it is true that the action isn't quite as cracking as the previous Marvel series, I didn't find it to be completely terrible either. Part of the issue is that Iron Fist had a rushed production schedule that did not give either the cast nor the crew the proper time to choreograph truly spectacular action sequences. That being said, there are a few memorable fight scenes, in particular one that I'm fairly certain was an homage to the Kung Fu classic The Legend of Drunken Master (you'll know it when you see it). In fact, in many ways Iron Fist is as much a nod to 80's and 90's Kung Fu movies as Luke Cage was to 70's blaxploitation or Jessica Jones was to film noir. The action sequences do get more impressive and intense as the series goes along, with a great hallway fight scene in Episode four that spills over into an elevator, making for some memorable close quarters combat as well as a couple real cracking good ones in the last two episodes. But the series never relies on it's action sequences anyway, with the story and it's various twists and turns as Danny and his allies learn, often the hard way, just who they can and cannot trust.
Now, we get to the controversy that has surrounded the show from it's announcement. The main bone of contention is with the character of Danny Rand himself with people calling it whitewashing. I take issue with this because it is a misuse of the term. Whitewashing is when a minority character is played by a white actor. Danny Rand has always been a white character. Therefore, him being played by a white actor (Finn Jones) fits. Some said that they should have broken from the comics and cast an Asian American actor. I can certainly see that perspective, but it would be trading one controversy for another with racial stereotyping in place of (perceived) whitewashing. It's a quagmire of a situation that was never going to 100% satisfy everyone. While I don't feel that Iron Fist is guilty of whitewashing, the claims of cultural appropriation and white savior tropes are a little harder to defend. Anyone who had issues with the show on those grounds I would absolutely concede to them on that matter. Personally, as far as being a white boy from Midwest America whose knowledge on the subject doesn't expand far beyond Jet Li and Jackie Chan movies, I felt like they were being reasonably respectful towards Chinese culture within the confines of a fantasy television show and the intention was not to offend at all. If anyone had a different response to that than I did, I would be very interested to hear their thoughts though. As for white savior tropes, yes the show is guilty of it to an extent. In the show's defense though, Danny Rand is not very good at being anyone's savior, let alone his own. He relies on help at most turns from Colleen and Claire, has a tendency to charge into situations without thinking things through and at one point a character literally calls Danny, "The worst Iron Fist, ever."
There has also been some criticism towards the character of Colleen Wing and to a certain extent it is fair. The show infers that she is of both Chinese and Japanese heritage at the start when Danny first talks to her, he talks to her in Mandarin, which she shoots down saying she's more comfortable speaking in English or Japanese. This is an interesting part of her character that remains frustratingly underdeveloped. We learn a bit more about her background, but I feel like there was room for more. As it stands, she basically becomes the all-purpose good Asian character, able to fill any role needed to help Danny on his mission against The Hand, which is genuinely disappointing for someone who in many ways is every bit as interesting a character as Danny Rand. That being said, Jessica Henwick does a great job with her character and gives a great performance. I also loved her partnering with Claire throughout the season, with Claire being the voice of reason to the far more impulsive Danny and Colleen.
Despite it's flaws, I still really loved Iron Fist. I mean really, really loved it. I was in my squeeing happy place all through it. Granted, I may be a bit biased as I have been a Finn Jones fan since, well basically since that scene of him and Renly in season 1 of Game of Thrones (you know, the shaving scene). But even beyond that, it was the characters and the story that drew me in. Yeah, it had it's faults but I was able to look beyond them and find a genuinely entertaining show that I, much to my surprise, really enjoyed. It was a show that focused as much on intrigue and power plays as it did on traditional superhero action. It might not be everyone's cup of tea and clearly people's mileage has varied with this one, but I thought it was a blast.
