Always bring a gun to a knife fight.

The Man With The Iron Fists
RZA 2013 USA
Starring: RZA, Russell Crowe, Lucy Liu, Dave Bautista, Jamie Chung, Rick Yune, Byron Mann, Pam Greer

I've seen some ridiculous films in my time - Anonymous Rex, Rubber, most of M. Night Shyamalan's career - but I think this may well make the top five. RZA from the Wu Tang Clan directing and starring in a blood-soaked, ultra-stylised martial arts epic, written with Eli Roth and featuring a hip-hop soundtrack. Not preposterous enough for you? Try that the film is set in 19th century feudal China yet almost everyone speaks English with an American accent, there are villains called Silver, Bronze and Crazy Hippo and a group of killers who wear pantomime wolf costumes, and other stars include the wrestler Dave Bautista portraying a tattooed mercenary made of brass (exactly how does one tattoo brass?) and Russell Crowe, both playing an opium-addicted, sexually voracious gentleman called Jack Knife and adding English to the list of accents he can't do. It really is that bad, and not even 'so bad it's good'. In fact I think just watching it has made me stupider. There are even times when you think they must be playing it for laughs which would be fine if it was actually funny but it's not, it's just dumb. Of course there are copious action sequences imitating those synonymous with the genre, except RZA misses the point completely and exchanges artfulness for excess and blood spewing from wounds as if a horse is pissing through a drainpipe. Although, somewhat strangely, when Lucy Liu beheads several men in the space of about 14 seconds her full-length white and gold outfit remains noticeably spotless. And then there's the anti-slavery subplot which again would be fine if it wasn't for the fact that the rest of the film is often a bit racist. Really it says it all when the best moment is a brief Tarantino-esque conversation about braised ribs. Banal.

RAPPERS IN FILM