Réalisation:
Serge OuRésumés(1)
Filling a long overdue gap with a thoroughly examined, endlessly entertaining, and utterly wonderful documentary looking at the width and breadth of the history of kung fu movies, Iron Fists and Kung Fu Kicks is a blazing roundhouse of a film that splits at the seams with interviews, anecdotes, and utterly outrageous memories. Starting in the early ‘60s with the establishment of the Shaw Brothers studio, and traveling all the way to the current stars of the genre, director Serge Ou chooses the best of the best to demonstrate how kung fu movies became a global phenomenon. Interviewing everyone from experts like Grady Hendrix, to stars Cheng Pei-Pei and Cynthia Rothrock, as well as choreographer/directors like Yuen Woo-Ping and many, many more, Iron Fists and Kung Fu Kicks is paced to match the martial arts films that are its subject, and breathlessly takes the audience on a journey from Hong Kong to New York to Australia and more. A brilliant historical artifact, a terrific anecdotal piece, and an incredible excuse to rediscover the gems of kung fu cinema that may not have been visited in a while, Iron Fists and Kung Fu Kicks is a breath of fresh air. Delivering long overdue respect at the door of a genre that has and continues to inspire countless artists working within the industry. (Fantastic Fest)
(plus)Critiques (1)
An overview of a single genre everything that revolves around it. It looks like an nearly two-hour trailer for a ten-episode series. And the series would have been excellent, because every single topic (and there are many of them) that is broached is stimulating and clearly calls for further elaboration. But that never happens. Something completely different comes up every ten minutes. And the previous one is left forever without anything other than unspoken general information (it can digress in the middle of the topic and they start talking about the impact of kung fu movies on breakdancing and parkour culture, but that never takes more than a minute, so what’s the point?). And damn, that's not enough. It's a good idea, but the form suffers. The talking head is replaced by a shot from the movie, followed by a graphic divider, and the person who speaks appears for just one second and then you find out what was being discussed. It all takes about twenty seconds and then the same song is played over and over again. And thanks to this, it is fast paced, it has energy and you make a mental note of "wow, I need to get this movie and yay, this is interesting, I have to find out more about it". But that's the problem, it just teases without going anywhere. It is not even clear who the target audience is. Definitely not fans of the genre. They know everything already and this is too general, too shallow. And it's definitely not for viewers who are not familiar with the subject, because it's so brief with no details at all about specific aspects aimed at fans, as something completely different is happening before the can grasp the topic that came before.
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Photos (9)
Photo © Yangtze Productions
