Iron Fist [TV] (2004)

Any self-respecting Hong Kong movie fan has seen or at least heard of The Story of Ricky (1992), a cult action movie of ridiculously bloody and fantastic violence, starring an otherwise unknown Terry Fan Siu-wong. Despite his starring role in this gore fest of a martial arts movie, Fan’s career as a kung fu movie star never took off. However, his martial arts skills were not completely wasted for he found his calling as a star in martial arts mini-series for Hong Kong television, one of which was Fist of Power.

As part of a string of DVD releases meant for English-speaking audiences, Tai Seng has saw fit to re-edit, subtitle and dub the series into a three-hour plus movie entitled Iron Fist. Despite many flaws, this movie delivers a mammoth amount of quality kung fu and wire fu action featuring popular and very talented stunt actors Moon Lee (Inspector Wears Skirts IV), Johnny Wang Lung-wei (Challenge of the Masters) and Xiong Xin-xin (Once Upon a Time in China and America) who has since gone on to become a successful Hollywood fight choreographer.

Having originally aired in 1993, the series is heavily influenced by martial arts movies of the day and focuses on the exploits of real-life kung fu master Wong Kei-ying, best known as the teacher of celebrated folk hero Wong Fei-hung who was played by Jet Li in Once Upon a Time in China. This series is notable in that it is one of few that stars actual martial artists and stunt actors with extensive experience in making martial arts movies. Hong Kong has produced hundreds of martial arts series, but most of them starring television stars with little martial arts training and a lot of trick camera work to mask that fact. These series often rely more on soap opera storytelling to keep their mostly female audiences hooked. Iron Fist has its share of melodrama, but thankfully has even more kung fu action that’s hindered only by a limited budget.

In releasing this series as a more easily-digestible movie, Tai Seng undoubtedly cut out a lot of plot and character development and probably whole subplots or characters not crucial to the story. Even so, it’s evident that the story becomes strained and repetitive towards the end so it’s just as well. The story focuses on a young Kei-ying (Terry Fan) who initially finds himself caught in a rivalry between his master of the southern fist, another famed martial artist named Luk Ah-choi (Chan Hung-lik), and northern kick master Miu Cheuk-fung (Johnny Wang Lung-wei). Tied in with this is Tien Wai-lam (Moon Lee), a young female martial artist with a serious grudge against Cheuk-fung who eventually becomes Kei-ying’s love interest. Despite her hatred, she becomes Cheuk-fung’s student. The first half focuses on the elder masters and the second half focuses on the two lovers who step forth to inherit their masters’ place while struggling to maintain their relationship, their lives and justice in the face of corrupt Ching officials who are trying to sabotage a reform movement and a devious Japanese official (Patrick Tam) who desires Wai-lam.

As a martial arts series, Iron Fist definitely produces the goods with many combat and training sequences. The sparring is very dynamic and creative. It matches the kind of action found in movies produced at the time where wires, power powder and extreme camera angles are used liberally to enhance the fights. There is nothing distinctive or original about them though and avid fans of the genre will recognize various action scenes that are obvious lifted from Warriors Two, Swordsman, and The Tai Chi Master to name a few. Also, wires can be seen at times and the crazy camera work gets sloppy and repetitive.

The actors all perform well in their action scenes, although doubles are used for some of the acrobatics. It’s a particular treat to see two generations of kung fu stars going at it together. Old school movie veteran Johnny Wang Lung-wei looks great and goes toe-to-toe with Fan and girls-with-guns starlet Moon Lee. He has a sizable role, even in this edited version, and one with a bit of depth for he plays a remorseful kung fu master who regrets killing Lee’s father and tries to make it up to her. Lee belts out some great moves, but has her action role tempered by being forced to play a martial artist who is never quite good enough.

Terry Fan never really got show off more than his chiseled physique in The Story of Ricky. Here, he reveals himself to be quite adept and versatile when it comes to performing a wide variety of moves including classical forms and modern acrobatics. He lacks Jet Li’s stoicism and Jackie Chan’s spirited nature, but possesses his own charm. It’s a shame that the characters themselves end up being rather dull. It’s even more of a shame that Xiong Xin-xin, easily the most talented stunt performer out of the cast, has such a minor and inconsequential role with few opportunities to show off his fighting skills.

The production standards are poor as with most Hong Kong TV series, but good enough to get the job done. The soundtrack is probably the worst aspect of the series in this regard. It’s made up of stock samples you’ll hear in other Hong Kong series, in movies and in one case, Michael Mann’s The Last of the Mohicans. In addition, the music is poorly edited together and used over and over again.

The story and characters are forgettable, but Iron Fist is still reasonably entertaining by genre standards thanks to the large quantity of solid kung fu action featuring some great talent. This is one of the more enjoyable TV series-to-movie releases from Tai Seng in terms of action and editing, at least until the second half devolves into overly-contrived melodrama.