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Iron Fist Season 1 Review

Hey everyone!

So far I have posted reviews of movies and shows that I really liked. Here starts my first negative review of a show that I absolutely did not like due to many reasons. Not everything is good, you see.

(SPOILER Alert, as usual. A swear word will be there on a picture attached below. Just thought of letting everyone know)

Marvel's Netflix series have been a bit of a mixed bag so far.
Daredevil was simply thrilling, the action scenes were realistic, engaging and beautifully shot, the storylines were really interesting and the villains were complex and superb. If anyone asks who are Marvel's best villains (which is very tough to answer, sadly), the common answer you would hear is Loki, but I would add to it "Kilgrave". The stuff with the Hand towards the end of Season 2 (child zombies?) and Blacksmith stuff with the Punisher was kinda weird though.
Jessica Jones was simply boring. It had nothing to make us care for Jessica, when she is so careless and always "doesn't give a damn". It had an amazing villain (Kilgrave), which became lame after we realise why he is doing what he is doing. Also, it focused too much time on side characters we didn't even care about. The only plus point were the actresses Krysten Ritter and Rachael Taylor. (You know what I mean :P)
Luke Cage did a really good job of incorporating the Harlem city in itself as a character. It had some cool, funky hip-hop music, but really really messed it up with its villains. Luke was over-powered, and a story which Luke could have single-handedly ended in say 4 episodes got stretched to 13, mainly due to various superhero tropes/ cliches.

Guess what, Iron Fist is worse than all these shows!
Here are some of the major problems with this show:
1. SHOW US THE DAMN FLASHBACKS!! : One of the major reasons why I hated this show is not showing the flashbacks, when this show badly needed to, in order to sympathize / get to know / wonder at how Danny Rand got his powers. How he became the "Immortal Iron Fist", how he is able to channel his chi and summon the fist. How he bloody learnt the damn martial arts! Well, guess what. They don't. Not even a little bit. All you keep hearing from Danny is "I trained for 15 years at Kun-Lun". "I am the Iron Fist". "My parents died in the plane crash and I was the only one alive". He even slayed a goddamn Dragon! Dude, a godddamn dragon! Why, just why. Do you say lack of sufficient budget? Well then I blame whoever allocates the budget for this show!
This comment on a YouTube video perfectly summarises what I wanted to say here:


2. Not so great action scenes: The show is supposed to be all about martial arts action sequences. It is supposed to be cool, entertaining and well crafted. I don't think I am wrong in expecting such stuff after seeing how amazing it was in Daredevil. Here, they seem poorly edited, they are not engaging, and the saddest part is that the scenes with Colleen (Jessica Henwick) were much better than the scenes with Danny. Unbelievable, right?
The Hand was portrayed as a dangerous, ruthless group of ninjas in Daredevil. If you have seen Daredevil, you would know how difficult it was for Daredevil and Elektra to fight them off. Here it was like the Hand sent its junior trainees to fight Danny. LOL.
I heard the crew had very less time to prep and train. I mean, just why? Why did it have to be so... normal and just the usual?

3. The character of Danny Rand - So he is supposed to be a trained warrior, who has undergone rigorous training to be calm and composed, fight using his inner peace, restore his chi, and summon the Iron Fist. Turns out he retains none of it, when he is back in New York City. Danny is always portrayed as a whiny, school kid who thinks he is the Iron Fist, and he just keeps whining!! If you ever count the number of times he uses the Fist, it's not even 1%. The one cool scene what he does with the Fist was already shown in the trailer. Wow. The Fist is the USP of your show, and you focus instead on other stuff.
Which brings me to my next complaint-

4. Too much time on corporate board meetings: A lot, I mean a loooootttt of time is spent on corporate policies, strategies and problems faced by Rand Corporation, the huge-ass company now run by his friends Joy and Ward Meachum, who are the children of Harold Meachum, the close friend and business associate of Danny's father, Wendell Rand. The show creator thinks he is developing their characters, how they are, what they are doing for the company etc, but you and I know this is just filler. Usually fillers somehow have an impact on the bigger plot as a whole. Fillers, if done right, can do characters and screen time justice. Here, no no no just no! Nearly 8 frigging episodes (at least run-time wise) are spent completely on the damn company. Who the hell cares???? The main point of the show should be all about the mystical stuff - How Danny became the Iron Fist, what he can do with the Fist, how the Hand becomes a great villain for him, and some cool fighting. But no! We dont have the budget. Hence, we are going to waste our precious time on Joy and Ward dealing with corporate matters! How exciting! (Not)
Scenes with Harold and Ward and Joy weren't that great either. It looked interesting at first, with one of the most complex villains being Madame Gao involved with what's going on with Harold, but it still couldn't lift this show

5. The ending - If you thought the fight scenes were just ok so far this season, you will laugh at the finale! What the hell was that fight between Harold and Danny on the rooftop? Full of stupid stuff such as Danny hitting Harold and then just running away, fighting in hiding! I mean wth! You are a skilled warrior! Hit him with your damn normal fists that's enough! Also, the very end scene was so contrived and forced for Season 2. It was so sudden and out of place. So finally when Ward and Joy come to terms with Danny, you suddenly see Joy teaming up against Davos (the one could've been interesting character, who was a friend of Danny's back at Kun-Lun) along with Madame Gao! I mean, what? What indication did you even show for these 3 to team up against Danny? So Joy knows Harold is bad, Danny kills Harold, and Joy is furious for that? What the hell!!!
You are even almost teased at least a glimpse of Kun-Lun, and then you come to know someone had closed the barrier. Ok that's an interesting set up for Season 2. But still no idea on how he became the immortal Iron Fist. They almost showed the damn dragon he was going to fight. And then "Oh Snap! Budget cuts. Sorry!" I am like "UGGHHHH!!. Damn it."

The one thing I did like was how they developed the character of Ward. He became from a irritating dick to a guy who finally overcame his dad bossing around him. I felt his character was at least given some kind of justice, and that was good.
Claire is just here, just like she was in all the 3 shows before. She was a superb character in Daredevil. Her character after that is just "Eh!. Oh look it's that Night Nurse from the previous shows". Colleen and Joy were good-looking though, so there's a +.


I guess this is my review or rather reasons why I didn't like this show at all. It had the potential to be a kick-ass show, but ended up falling flat on it's face. I still have hopes in The Defenders show. I think Danny can bounce off of other characters, and he would be a much likeable character.

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