Iron Fist (Marvel/Netflix)

[kirk55555]

Sorry, not really seeing a problem. But I'm no expert in Martial Arts or film editing. I did read some where the short time between casting Finn and the start of production didn't allow him a lot of time to do in training in the style being used.

Yeah, he didn't have much time to train. But many people think, and it makes sense, that if he'd had a mask, even a simple bandana thing like the comic version or Daredevil Season 1, it wouldn't be such an issue, because a stunt double could take his place much easier then they could as it was. That's how shows like daredevil and Arrow can have much better fights, the actual actors are generally nowhere near the scene and stuntmen are doing to cool fights.

Anyway, that's just my brief experience with it. Its enough to keep me far away from Iron Fist, personally, even after coming around to DD Season 2. I'll be interested in seeing if The Defenders handles Iron Fist better.

 

[Gaith]

Here's a radical, shocking idea: if your protagonist is a martial arts expert, maybe cast someone who knows some martial arts. Ours is a big-ass country; I don't believe for a moment there's no martial artist of the appropriate age who can also act, even if he doesn't have extensive acting experience.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Here's a radical, shocking idea: if your protagonist is a martial arts expert, maybe cast someone who knows some martial arts. Ours is a big-ass country; I don't believe for a moment there's no martial artist of the appropriate age who can also act, even if he doesn't have extensive acting experience.

Finn Jones isn't even American.
It's acting. He doesn't need to know martial arts any more than Benedict Cumberbatch needs to know the medical arts to play a surgeon.

 

[Venardhi]

They bring in "stunt hands" for people playing instruments or doing detailed surgical work. That kind of editing doesn't work as well for action scenes though. It is immediately apparent with an actor is faking it in the case of martial arts. You wouldn't hire someone who had never surfed before to play your world champion surfer, or someone who had never danced before play your prima ballerina assoluta, not without giving them months to train so they can convincingly fake it.

Verisimilitude my dude.

 

[Nerys Myk]

They bring in "stunt hands" for people playing instruments or doing detailed surgical work. That kind of editing doesn't work as well for action scenes though. It is immediately apparent with an actor is faking it in the case of martial arts. You wouldn't hire someone who had never surfed before to play your world champion surfer, or someone who had never danced before play your prima ballerina assoluta, not without giving them months to train so they can convincingly fake it.

Verisimilitude my dude.

That's my point, you give them the training they need to fake it. No previous experience required. Jones did train

"Every day for the last month, I start my day with about two and a half hours of martial arts – which is kung fu and wushu mixed with a bit of tai chi, and other stuff as well," Jones said. "In the afternoon I’ll do weight training with a trainer to bulk me up and get my physically right for the part. And in evenings I’ve been doing meditation classes and learning Buddhist philosophies."

The problem, as I understand it, is the time between the start of the training and the start of filming was very tight.

I've a feeling many a fictional ballerina and surfer have been played by actors with little or no background in those skills. I wonder how much boxing Stallone and DeNiro did before playing Rocky or LaMotta?

 

[Jedi_Master]

I am no expert in the arts martial, so I didn't really notice anything "off" about the fight scenes. They weren't as brutal as Season 2 of Daredevil, but that's about it. It's a fictional show, you have to just roll with the punches.

 

[Venardhi]

Plenty of bad ones. Stallone wrote Rocky himself and worked his ass off to be allowed to star rather than them going after Redford or another established leading man, so training was part of that. DeNiro was a notorious method actor so I imagine he did his fair share as well.

 

[Skipper]

I watched The Black Swan with a dance teacher. She complained the whole time how it was obvious that Natalie Portman didn't know how to dance and she couldn't understand how the public could accept that she could play the role of a professional dancer.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Plenty of bad ones. Stallone wrote Rocky himself and worked his ass off to be allowed to star rather than them going after Redford or another established leading man, so training was part of that. DeNiro was a notorious method actor so I imagine he did his fair share as well.

I'm talking about before they wrote, heard of or were offered the roles. Obviously, once they had the part they would have to train for it. Just as Finn Jones did.

I watched The Black Swan with a dance teacher. She complained the whole time how it was obvious that Natalie Portman didn't know how to dance and she couldn't understand how the public could accept that she could play the role of a professional dancer.

I was about to mention Black Swan when you posted.
Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis both trained to "fake it" and used body doubles for the "hard stuff". Neither had great experience in ballet, beyond stuff they did as children.
Obviously it wasn't enough to fool an expert.

 

[Skipper]

Here's a radical, shocking idea: if your protagonist is a martial arts expert, maybe cast someone who knows some martial arts. Ours is a big-ass country; I don't believe for a moment there's no martial artist of the appropriate age who can also act, even if he doesn't have extensive acting experience.

Martial Arts movies are my guilty pleasure, and if a similar specimen exists in the Western World, he failed to appear in any film I watched.

 

[Gaith]

Jones did train

once they had the part they would have to train for it. Just as Finn Jones did.

You can keep repeating that all you like, but no matter how hard one tries or how naturally adept one is, one month of martial arts training does not an expert make. (The stars of The Matrix trained for four months, and that was for one two-hour movie with the action scenes split up by character, not a 13-hour season revolving around one particular master.) If you're satisfied with Jones' reportedly mediocre-at-best prowess, I'm happy for you. But I'm not going to invest 13 hours in a martial arts show with piddling fight choreography on top of lukewarm to terrible writing and acting reviews.

Martial Arts movies are my guilty pleasure, and if a similar specimen exists in the Western World, he failed to appear in any film I watched.

Maybe, but casting directors aren't solely paid to sit on their ass, watch Game of Thrones, and call various agents to see which recognizable actors are available. Sometimes they're required to do the hard work of going to outside communities, like, say, martial arts practitioners, and enticing a whole lot of talented athletes with dubious acting ability to show up for a casting call and read a few lines in hopes of finding that undiscovered gem who can do the moves and act. But that takes effort, time, and professionalism.

 

[Skipper]

Sometimes they're required to do the hard work of going to outside communities, like, say, martial arts practitioners, and enticing a whole lot of talented athletes with dubious acting ability to show up for a casting call and read a few lines in hopes of finding that undiscovered gem who can do the moves and act. But that takes effort, time, and professionalism.

Take the word of an amateur actor: acting is hard. None is remembering Chuck Norris or Bruce Lee for their thespian ability. Sure, in an one-note action movie a martial practitioner can say (more or less convincingly) "I will avenge the death of my brother!!!" and then beat out the crap of everybody. But in a tv show you have to act with professionals and the audience will note the difference. And they can't take infinite re-shots to make it right. Why casting directors would have to waste their time searching this hypothetical martial artist that have some acting talent that none even noticed, when probably in Hollywood every waiter and waitress is graduated from some professional drama school?

 

[Gaith]

Why casting directors would have to waste their time searching this hypothetical martial artist that have some acting talent that none even noticed

It's a risk, yes, but risks can yield great dividends. See: Barkhad Abdi, a then-unknown who starred in Captain Phillips opposite Tom Hanks, and was nominated for an Oscar. All because some casting director bothered to look beyond the immediate pool of young black male actors who wouldn't much look the part and could be hurriedly (and possibly poorly) taught a Somalian accent. Again, that's their job. Can't find a qualified martial artist? Expand the pool to dancers, who at least have experience with choreography and athletic movement.

Of course, the job of a producer is to prepare for setbacks, such as casting directors not lucking out with finding unknown gems, and thus to plan ahead. An Iron Fist Netflix series was announced in late 2013, and began filming in April 2016. That's eighteen months of prep time, so, why the hell did their lead only begin training one month before production? Either fight quality wasn't a big concern, they got horribly unlucky despite solid effort in finding someone qualified to act and move, or the Marvel/Netflix production team just sucks. Considering this is the same overall team that approved the narrative train wrecks of DD S2 and the second half of Luke Cage S1, I have my suspicions, but I'll keep them to myself.

 

[Nerys Myk]

ou can keep repeating that all you like, but no matter how hard one tries or how naturally adept one is, one month of martial arts training does not an expert make. (The stars of The Matrix trained for four months, and that was for one two-hour movie with the action scenes split up by character, not a 13-hour season revolving around one particular master.) If you're satisfied with Jones' reportedly mediocre-at-best prowess, I'm happy for you. But I'm not going to invest 13 hours in a martial arts show with piddling fight choreography on top of lukewarm to terrible writing and acting reviews.

Neither does four months. In a TV show or film, unless someone comes to the role an expert, no one cast will become an expert during preproduction or filming. Their adeptness will mostly be created by "movie trickery". And no one, including myself ,is saying otherwise. In fact I think I may have mentioned the short training time might be a factor in the problems people found. Maybe the trickery involved was less than convincing to some people for me it worked.

I think it's a show with characters who use martial arts. But it's not a martial arts show. The focus is on the characters not the martial arts.

So you're saying you didn't see the show? All this ranting is based on reviews, trailers and comments on the internet??? I love internet outrage.

 

[The Old Mixer]

Iron Fist, episode 5
"Under Leaf Pluck Lotus"

OK, Ward's getting a teensy bit more interesting with the drug thing.

Being enough episodes in to be sure that I've seen the scene(s) in question, I'm definitely not getting the complaints of Whitesplaining. Danny and Colleen each have their own areas of expertise, and they established that she doesn't happen to know much about kung fu specifically. The scenes in which they compare notes have a lot of give-and-take and bonding between them, they're not about Danny being a know-it-all. The worse crime would be perpetuating the stereotype that because she's Asian, Colleen would automatically know more about any Asian martial art than somebody who trained for years under monks learning a specific art.

 

[theenglish]

Maybe, but casting directors aren't solely paid to sit on their ass, watch Game of Thrones, and call various agents to see which recognizable actors are available. Sometimes they're required to do the hard work of going to outside communities, like, say, martial arts practitioners, and enticing a whole lot of talented athletes with dubious acting ability to show up for a casting call and read a few lines in hopes of finding that undiscovered gem who can do the moves and act. But that takes effort, time, and professionalism.

I find this post to be insulting toward the craft of acting. Training to be a good actor takes years of study and practice. Good directors, and budgets, can often go a long way to making amateur actors look better than they are--but for your lead in a show you need to choose somebody who can act first.

 

[Skipper]

I find this post to be insulting toward the craft of acting. Training to be a good actor takes years of study and practice. Good directors, and budgets, can often go a long way to making amateur actors look better than they are--but for your lead in a show you need to choose somebody who can act first.

Thank you, I was about to say the same thing (you said it undoubtedly better)

Even incredibly gifted actors had to do some kind of school/academy and paid their dues, but according to @Gaith a guy that never acted in his life can be the protagonist of a tv show.

Really. I don't know why people even bother to study acting, when they can go from a dojo to an important production set. If it don't happen more often, it is only the fault of lazy casting directors...

 

[Venardhi]

All of your arguments would hold a lot more weight if Finn Jones was a good actor.

 

[Gaith]

I find this post to be insulting toward the craft of acting. Training to be a good actor takes years of study and practice. Good directors, and budgets, can often go a long way to making amateur actors look better than they are--but for your lead in a show you need to choose somebody who can act first.

I consider myself an actor at heart, and spent years studying and practicing theater, and the simple truth is that certain people are naturally far more talented than others at "the craft"; otherwise, there would be no such thing as great performances by child actors without prior experience. Moreover, I bet any experienced theater director (and I know one who does) is able to cite instances of performers without prior formal training sweeping competitors for certain particular roles, even leading ones, right off the stage. Granted, naturally talented/charismatic untrained thespians might not have the biggest dramatic ranges straight out the gate, but portraying roles in one's natural wheelhouse simply doesn't require the same time and work investment as martial arts, dancing, or musical instrument-playing in the vast majority of individuals. In this case, the task of playing a callow, ignorant twenty-something man is far from beyond the reach of many males of the appropriate age. We're not talking Shakespearean stage, Broadway musical, or improv acting here. Acting talent, like Life Itself, is complex and sometimes terribly unfair.

I'm not saying the series shouldn't have chosen an experienced actor over a martial artist. But the critical consensus is that, given the choice they made, Jones didn't have nearly enough training prep, athletic talent, or both, to produce satisfying results.

Neither does four months. In a TV show or film, unless someone comes to the role an expert, no one cast will become an expert during preproduction or filming.

Sure, but just about zero martial arts laymen viewers or professional reviewers of The Matrix complained about the stars' fight choreography - much the opposite, in fact. The proof is in the pudding, etc.

And now I've said all I have to say on the matter.

I love internet outrage.

Then I trust you've enjoyed the alarm and indignation, especially from yourself, my modest thoughts have provoked. In any case, I aim to please.

 

[theenglish]

All of your arguments would hold a lot more weight if Finn Jones was a good actor.

Finn Jones IS a decent actor. I think what a lot of people don't seem to like is the portrayal of Danny Rand--which is different than a criticism of his acting abilities. What's more the character of Danny Rand in the series has as much to do with directorial decisions as it has to do with the actor's choices. Often there is an interaction between the two. It is not how I envisioned the character either, but I find that in a lot of super-hero television and movies, and I roll with it.