Iron Fist

Are there any Chinese films (or wherever) that feature people coming back from The West* with superpowers?

* As in hemisphere.

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Heā€™s secretly been ANDY KAUFMAN all along!

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This doesnā€™t really answer your question but it did remind me of this:

http://www.okayplayer.com/news/a-film-on-yasuke-japans-first-black-samurai-is-in-the-works.html

Samurai are basically super-heroes if not outright superheroes, right?

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I hope you didnā€™t mean I was throwing shade? No, not at all. I was just sayingā€¦never mind.

Your problem with the choice to include non-conventional, diverse versions of characters and new characters is that that they donā€™t meet your standards of proper diversity?

Isnā€™t it quite common for long lasting cultural tropes to be adapted by the society that they exist in? Now, what if the same, originating society evolves out of a particularly stalwart past of racism and prejudice? Shouldnā€™t an art-form which seeks to comment on society have the tropes, and the characters which embody those archetypal forms, reflect the society as it is rather than as it was in the past?

If we want to represent period pieces then set the overwhelmingly white characters in their original substrate.

The same overtly racist, prejudiced, sexist (early) 1900ā€™s that they emerged in.

I donā€™t get why you are so precious over the specific incarnation of what amounts to characters in a fable.

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No problem here. Sorry boss

Perhaps I should have said ā€œthe problems you have with the material that you are highlighting with your criticism,ā€ although, given the context, I wouldnā€™t have thought I would need to spell that outā€¦

No apologies necessary.

Deleting your account seems a bit much.

Bye!

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technically the on screen Nick Fury is not a reboot. He comes directly from the Ultimates universe version who was the reboot from the comic book original. Hitch and Millar specifically stated when they were doing the alt-universe Avengers(The Ultimates), they chose to have Nick Fury be Samuel L. Jackson. They didnā€™t care nor think about diversity in their decision as they both stated simply ā€œNick Fury is supposed to be a bad ass, so we made him into the baddest bad ass we both knewā€¦Samuel L.ā€

As for other comments on the race of Ironfistā€¦he is white, Danny Rand was white in the comics, rebooting him to anything else would need to be done for the right fit. Example: Wolverine. Hugh Jackman is physically the antithesis of Wolverine. However, he proved to be the right fit as an actor. Same can be said for Ironfist. My issues are more around the fact that Finn Jones kind of sucks. He looks like IF sureā€¦but he just doesnā€™t embody the character.

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I still think the Keaton/Nicholson movie was the best Batman. It had a perfect mix of fantasy and realism, gritty and colorful, camp and drama. I rewatched that and Batman Returns a year or so ago, and was surprised at just how well they held up.

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ā€œThe Last Samuraiā€, eh?*

*Not actually magic, itā€™s guns. Lots of Guns.

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B:TAS. That is all.

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My take on IF after watching through S1E7

The action - I actually like it more than DD, but it isnā€™t very "martial artsy"
I enjoy the Meachumā€™s and their stupid relationships.
The whole thing feels more acceptibly cartoony to me, so it sets totally different expectations than DD and JJ.
Danny is a dopey kid who hasnā€™t spent a lot of time thinking for himself. I think it is portrayed decently but isnā€™t that compelling.

So I donā€™t feel I have as many strong issues to not like it or worry about it not living up to the rest of the MCU.

Iā€™ve been a fan of Dahlā€™s since Red Rock West, The Last Seduction, and Rounders. Since then he just seems to have settled into a lot of more commercial director for hire stuff.

Wil be itneresting to see how Danny works through his daddy issues if this is going where I think it is going.

The Hand - big enough to necessitate the formation of the Defenders, thatā€™s their function.

Good to watch while I fold clothes or eat a snack on the couch.

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Yeah, there were a few episodes, early on, where I thought I might actually like a whole show about the Meachums. Harold Meachum in particular - if you have to tell the story of a fantastically rich businessman, the story of a brilliant and ruthless man who sold his soul to save his life and is now trying to get out from under the thumb of magic ninjas seems like it could actually be kind of interesting. Spoiler: itā€™s not

Also, it suffers horribly from, I donā€™t know what youā€™d call it - pacing issues? About two thirds of the way through the series, someone basically says ā€œthereā€™s a story of a man who was brought back to life by the Hand, and then he went murder-crazyā€. Then, in the same episode, a few minutes later, we get a scene that goes:
Harold: "hey lackey, hereā€™s an opportunity to upset me"
Lackey: "Iā€™m dumb, so Iā€™m going to upset my violent and unstable boss now"
Harold: murder-crazy!!!

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The first two episodes just felt utterly pointless and only seemed to be there in order to justify padding out the 13 episode series. It picks up a bit after that but drops off again (going straight over a cliff in the final episode) and overall it is incredibly underwhelming. But not terrible!

I wouldnā€™t say the fight scenes were awful but not close to the standard weā€™ve expected, though some clearly showed lack of preparation. I read somewhere that finn jones only had 30 minutes prep before shooting some of them? No wonder then. Though they do improve - the one he has with zhou cheng in ā€œchinaā€ (the drunken martial arts fight) being a standout but mostly because the guy playing him obviously has some skill. Funny enough, lewis tan almost got the lead role and i now want to see that version. Then again, the version of iron fist we see here is pretty ineffectual as this so called legendary fighter living weapon so if an asian actor was playing him i can imagine people being none too happy about that either.

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