Iron Fists and Kung Fu Kicks (2019) User Reviews

Should have been SOOOO much more

[jellopuke · 7/10 · 22 December 2019]

There's some good stuff here, but it's undone by the lack of consistency and scattershot nature of the timeline. Jumping back and forth and all over the place, many times lacking context and making some logical leaps that maybe don't work. But you'll probably get a few watch ideas, so it's still worth a look.

Encyclopedic? No. Entertaining? Yes.

[Pjtaylor-96-138044 · 7/10 · 11 May 2020]

'Iron Fists And Kung Fu Kicks (2019)' is a fast-paced, mostly chronological look at the history and influence of the coveted 'Kung Fu' genre. It's clearly a project of passion, with plenty of insightful interviews with industry giants and clips from pretty much every picture referenced. It isn't too deep but it does provide a great overview of its subject matter, recounting its Hong Kong origins and exploring its evolution right into the modern day. If you're a fan of this sort of stuff, the piece is a delight. It's sometimes a little too frenetic for its own good, but it's an entertaining and informative experience, sure to provide at least a snippet of new information (unless you're Quentin Tarantino, perhaps). A lot of the things it talks about are available to view on Amazon Prime and, if you're anything like me, you'll want to watch them right away. 7/10

Fast (Kung) Food

[kosmasp · 7/10 · 2 January 2020]

If you are interested in the easter movies, you probably have many reasons to watch this. But be aware that this is quite general and has a lot of opinion pieces. A lot of actors today or from the high Shaw Brothers era talk about the influence or how they made their living. One specific scene is really great, where we get to see how sound was created on set! Yes while the people were fighting, others made the noises! This was an incredible nugget to see.

Apart from that there is fast paced interviews, a lot of cuts (one imagines this can be seen as "choreography" - hits after hits). and a lot of small digestable information. If that sounds good, go ahead and watch it.

functional surface work

[SnoopyStyle · 7/10 · 27 December 2019]

It's a documentary of the Hong Kong Kung Fu movies and their influences to today. It starts with the Shaw brothers in the 60's, then Golden Harvest with the explosion that is Bruce Lee, then the Bruce-ploitation period after his death, early success in America especially in the black community and its influence in breakdancing, new stars in Jackie Chan and Sammo Hung, move to America after the 1997 Asian financial crisis, and YouTube & beyond. It's less than two hours and can really only be surface level examination. It's a functional recounting of events. It could do well to compare the early HK action movies with their cohorts in America and Japan. It doesn't arise in isolation or solely from Chinese opera. Mostly, I wish for more details in every section except the last one. This is good shorthand notes for all cinephiles and action lovers.

Straightforward clip compilation

[Leofwine_draca · 6/10 · 24 August 2020]

IRON FISTS AND KUNG FU KICKS is a simple, straightforward clip compilation documentary exploring the world of the martial arts film, from its inception in the late 1960s through to the present day. There's a wealth of diverse clips present here, typically focusing on Hong Kong and American fare, with the occasional foray into the likes of THE RAID on the side. I was particularly pleased that both Shaw Brothers and Golden Harvest are given such prominence alongside the more obvious inclusions like Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan. Interview snippets are provided in between the footage, and there are some well-chosen stars such as Scott Adkins and Richard Norton.

Good..

[RosanaBotafogo · 7/10 · 5 November 2022]

It tells the story of martial arts films and delves into their cultural influences from the Shaw Brothers in Hong Kong to today's major Hollywood productions.

A little bit of the history of Kung Fu in cinema, its introduction, prejudice, adaptation, and success, almost immediately after a meticulously rehearsed ballet in the fights that gain brilliance and take flight on movie screens that won the world... fan, but I recognize that the scenes are a spectacle apart, beautiful and demand a lot from the actor, almost an athlete, interesting the portrayal of prejudice with the eastern, the difference between films in Hong Kong and Hollywood (safety you improvise).. ..

Fascinating Chop Socky documentary

[singhlall · 7/10 · 3 April 2022]

I am not a kung fu geek but enjoy the genre and this was pitched perfectly. I found this to be fascinating. This breaks down the history of Kung Fu movies including their origins and the major names and studios. Well worth a watch.

Nice

[mikeiskorn · 6/10 · 29 July 2020]

Great documentary about Kung Fu. Enjoyed how each part was broken up and the links between East and West Kung Fu films and how they were made.

Fantastic series

[njboden · 10/10 · 21 November 2022]

I strongly recommend you watch this highly underrated documentary on NetFlix while you can (last chance to watch is Nov 30th, at least in the U. K). It is jam-packed with exciting fight scenes and information about the genre. It talks about the Shaw Brothers and Golden Harvest studios and stars like Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan but it also mentions many other films that I haven't seen or even heard of but seem brilliant (such as 'Five Fingers of Fury', the first film where a martial artist plucks out an eyeball, later famously appearing in 'Kill Bill', which also samples this film with its siren background in the soundtrack) as well as some cult classics that aren't as famous or appreciated as they should be like such as '36 Chambers of Shaolin' and 'Snake in the Eagle's Shadow'. It's also interesting how Cheng Pei-Pei was a famous female action star in 'Come Drink With Me' in 1966 long before starring in 'Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon', 'La Femme Nikita' in 1990, or the more recent spate of action/spy/assassin films with a female lead, the cream of he current crop being the painfully underrated 'Hanna'. They also point out that wires were used in action films in Hong Kong long before 'The Matrix'.

It's also interesting to see the influence on popular culture more generally, such as on hip hop breakdancing and parkour (they interview the founder of this sport) and the black kung fu stars who based themselves on Bruce Lee and are little known outside the African-American community. I learnt from this doc that Ugandans have started making Kung Fu films, coining the term 'Wakalawood' to describe those made in the slum of Wakala (where an American martial artist plays the lead in the films and in one scene gets covered in faeces from an open sewer!).

I was slightly surprised they didn't say more about Van Damme or mention the film 'Ghost Dog: Way of the Samurai' or 'Kill Bill' but an excellent and entertaining programme that deserves a 10.

It's alright

[inacan-90-894261 · 6/10 · 21 May 2022]

It doesn't know what it wants to be. Is it the influence of king fu films on modern culture? Is it influence of kung fu on black hip hop culture? Influence of kung fu on parkour? A history of kung fu films? It doesn't know. What it does remind you to watch older films and reminds you how much Cynthia rothrock was ahead of the time.

It gets a 6 mainly for the clips not the structure.

All over the place - no consistent tone

[Ricardo-36 · 5/10 · 3 December 2019]

While rich in material, footage and commentary, this documentary about the classic wushia action films from Hong Kong is so badly connected, a narrative that goes everywhere and nowhere, thus making it inaccessible for general audiences unfamiliar with the genre. It starts very abruptly, talking about Shaw Bros without a proper context of what was the scenario and how these movies came out to be - it starts in the middle, then it goes back briefly, then it goes forward again. It doesn't get too deep into the production, it goes back and forth in the timeline, misses some key moments and mostly sticks with the american perspective, particularly of sleazy movie theaters in uptown NYC in the 70s. That is all fine, but, how about a little international perspective? Or from the HK/Chinese market?

I give it 5 stars for the subject matter, the footage and some of the interviews; I give it 0 stars for the HORRIBLE editing and directing.

Ok but.........

[dpandolfo-86852 · 3/10 · 25 September 2022]

So I was really liking this documentary. Getting a good history legend on the film genre. I enjoyed the documentary until they started going into strange woke segments. Some point in the during the Bruce Lee part they started going into oppressor and oppressed theory and I was kinda taken aback because this far in the film I didn't feel that wokeness in the documentary. Started noticing the females on the interview panel couldn't stop mentioning cringe stuff all the way up to the end. But the real thing that bothered me was their total glaze fly by of Jackie Chan's impact on Martial Arts movies or even just not mentioning Jean Claude Van Damn at all. Before Chan and Van Damn the genre was dead. Yet they have this entire segment of black martial arts that had very little impact at all on the film genre. Please stop with woke ideology, you are ruining the film industry.

Liberal Propaganda film using martial art films as a medium.

[tefen · 1/10 · 11 December 2019]

This documentary if you can call it that mainly comes off as presenting the views and opinions of Kung Fu movies from the view of African American person. It should be noted however that neither the writer, director, or producer are African American people. Almost a good majority of the movie is spent talking about movie theaters in African American neighborhoods and about how the African American people were responsible for the uprising and success of Kung Fu movies according to the opinions expressed in the film. It also spends much time talking about African American martial arts actors. The film also closes off with talking about Wakaliwood films. I have nothing against African American people but the whole movie seems to have a racial and gender undertone. It fails to mention much besides some small parts earlier on in history about China, Hong Kong, and the East-Asian market and support for the films. This is to be expected from a movie made by Veronica Fury and Serge Ou. What is also to be expected is that the film has no focused proper focused direction and feels like they just pasted together what they were lucky enough to pull together for people willing to let them interview them and video clips they managed to afford buying the rights to use. The video talks for a decent bit about Jackie Chan but of course they failed to obtain any interview with him at all. In fact, they were not able to get interviews with any famous martial arts celebrities of the last 30 years.

The film attempts to rely on large amounts of video clips of Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan along with some quick clips of Tony Jaa to hopefully win over the audience and make them think that this is a quality film. The film leaves out many very important people like Jet Li, director John Woo, and many others. It even talks about Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon without once mentioning Chow Yun-Fat but spends nearly 5-10min or more talking just about the female actors. The film also spends much time talking about protesting and rising up against oppression etc. Much time is spent talking about how things progressed up until the 1980's and then from 1980-1999 the entire timeline is just summed up with "During this time the videos came to home-video thanks to the support from African Americans during the 70's so all you wealthy suburban white people that watched the movies in the 80's and 80's can thank the African Americans for that!" then it proceeds into talking about The Matrix (1999). They skipped Jackie Chan's entire career outside of his initial Hong Kong films, skipped Jet Li and didn't even mention him once. After 1999 they jumped right into talking about how other countries started getting into martial art films and just left out the entire last 20 years of history. I guess it was too much for their budget to talk to anyone relevant from the last 20 years or even use video clips from that time period(save the few they used for talking about other international martial arts films).

Like usual Veronica has put large amounts of effort into using the film as a method to push Liberal propaganda as the film does not go 5 min. without making strong liberal messages. What is sad is that there is little effort made into actually making a documentary about Kung Fu movies and it seriously shows. Veronica and Serge used Kung Fu films for mental manipulation to push their political agendas with this film which was very disrespectful to the industry, actors, community, fans, and people who care about the films of the genre. It makes sense why no mainstream actors were willing to do interviews and support this film. I prefer not to pick a side in politics and have no hate for liberals. I just find it disappointing when people can't just make movies to be about the subject matter the movie appears to be about, instead the main intentions of the film are just to push political propaganda and the "subject matter" was just a medium used to manipulate the viewers with the propaganda.

Unwatchable.

[tjwhale · 1/10 · 14 December 2019]

I literally cannot watch this due to the editing. Like a youtube video it cuts every half second between completely different images, there's no time to take anything in.

I'm interested in the story and think kung fu is really cool but I'm bailing after 5 minutes.