On Saturday night my husband and I went and saw the 10:30 p.m. (this is important, stay tuned) showing of the new movie “The Man with the Iron Fists” directed and written by Wu-Tang member RZA.

If you recall from my last blog the list of my husband’s favorite things, that ahem, did not include me. Well it turns out that Kung-Fu is also one of his favorite things, but just didn’t quite make the list, as is the Wu-Tang Clan. Go figure because obviously Kung-Fu and the Wu-Tang go hand in hand, but I digress.

Back to the movie (when we had arrived I had already consumed four glasses of wine, I mean it was Saturday after all), the movie is about a bunch of gangs in China trying to rule (maybe?) and they, like any good gang, go around killing each other. Enter Russell Crowe (looking sweaty and fat, all of you that think he is sexy have issues) who is trying to also kill all of these gangs as well for some reason that he might have mumbled but I missed that and then there is RZA who is the town’s blacksmith. To the internet for an actual plot summary: On the hunt for a fabled treasure of gold, a band of warriors, assassins, and a rogue British soldier descend upon a village in feudal China, where a humble blacksmith looks to defend himself and his fellow villagers.

Huh, I DID NOT GET THAT AT ALL FROM THIS MOVIE! This movie was a hot mess.

Let’s start with the gangs in this movie. New gangs kept being added as the movie went on by the way, so there were a million people just appearing sometimes for only a short screen shot or two. There are The Lions, The Wolves, The Gemini Twins and The Black Widows (led by Madame Blossom, Lucy Liu).

The Lions were named Gold Lion, Silver Lion, Bronze Lion (clever, non?) and all had hair like a lions mane in order to show which gang they belonged too.  My husband turned to me, after Silver lion’s first appearance, and told me he wished he was Asian and that he wanted that hair. I guess I would approve a highlighted mane over a buzz cut on him any day, so there is that.

The Wolves literally wore wolf heads and a cloak. It looked as if they skinned wolves and just wore the fur/head (this movie really makes you think hard to see symbolism doesn’t it?).

The Gemini Twins were a brother and sister Kung-Fu fighting combo, that would lock swords that formed a Ying-Yang symbol, but also more importantly, once locked the brother would swing the swords around while his sister (holding onto the swords) would do one of those sweet running in a circle air kicking the crap out of people’s faces. I am sure my husband told me what the exact name of this move was, as he liked to point out his extensive Kung-Fu knowledge during the entire movie (there is no name for this, I just said it was awesome* editor’s note). The sister wore white and the brother was outfitted in black, again YING-YANG, get it? SPOILER ALERT: when they meet their end, they lay on the floor hands touching, looking like the ying-yang symbol (seriously, I cannot make this up).

Madame Blossom and her black widows emerged in the end of the movie. Madame Blossom owns the local brothel in town. She walks around with a clicker while her workers emerge in black lingerie (obviously that is what you wear when you are a gang of Kung-Fu prostitutes, duh) and poison their prey, just like a spider would. They also wrapped an enemy in their “web” of the strongest black ribbon I have ever seen. Madame Blossom also gets in on the action, she has a fan of blades, of course she does, she is a classy lady ya’ll.

Russell Crowe, who my husband loves by the way, did not make me throw up in my mouth. I am not a Crowe fan, he, like my arch nemesis Tony Romo, is in my opinion completely OVER-RATED.  His character is a sweaty-British-solider-or something. Not sure, he teams up with RZA who goes on to help the RZA become the man with the iron fists making Crowe’s character like RZA’s Obi-Wan Kenobi. The RZA kind of just lurks around when he is the blacksmith making swords for the gangs while loving up on Lady Silk (one of Blossoms workers) who by the way, plays Mulan on this seasons Once Upon A Time (I hadn’t mentioned this show in two weeks, didn’t want you to think I had fallen out of love with it), fun fact for you there.

Anyway, once the RZA becomes the man with the iron fists, the blacksmith finally “ain’t nothing ta f*** wit” (SEE WHAT I DID THERE!?). He uses those iron fists to fight the big baddy aka Brass Body (his body turns to brass when getting a beat down), played by profesh wrestler Dave Bautista. I did not know this fact, but my husband giggled so loud when he first appeared on screen and gushed like a school girl to me, “Babes! That’s wrestler Bautista. Giggle, giggle, Bautista, awesome.”  Try not to be jealous of those moments in my life (to be fair, I’m more of a classic wrestling fan and just think it’s great when wrestlers get work in movies that aren’t produced by the WWF* editor’s note. Riiiiight – wife’s note).

The movie did seem to slow down the action when we learn the Blacksmith’s backstory. During these ten minutes my eyes began to get heavy and I kept trying to doze off, but my husband would not tolerate this. He kept elbowing me and in a  movie theater appropriate voice whisper yelled “GET UP! You are not allowed to sleep during this movie!” You would think I was missing the movie that was going to define a generation or something the way he kept nudging my poor body awake. I decided to just drink my beer and continue watching to avoid further elbows flying my way. Besides there was a ridiculous fight scene that was surely coming up, oh wait, that seemed to happen every 15 minutes!

In conclusion, this movie was a hot mess. Do you think RZA just woke up one morning and said, ‘I think I’ll make a Kung-Fu movie today’? Because I am pretty sure that was what happened.  At a running time of only 90 minutes, I would highly recommend attending (only after a lot of booze) and I will even let you borrow the Kung-Fu whisperer that is my husband.

Any takers?  Bueller, Bueller…Bueller….

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Kacie Baum is a professional partier, mother of two pugs, and the wife of Matt Baum. She tolerates the constant presence of the Two-Headed Nerd in her home each week. She did not write this bio. Pre-THN entries of Girl Meets Nerd can be found here.