Let’s Talk About The First Marvel’s Iron Fist Trailer

Netflix is bringing its final Defender to the small screen this March and they dropped a trailer for him this week. Iron Fist tells the story of Danny Rand (Finn Jones), a rich kid who gets marooned in the Himalayas after a plane crash and learns martial arts in the mystical city of K’un Lun before returning to New York to reclaim what’s rightfully his. If this sounds familiar that’s because it is. Iron Fist has a very similar origin story to Ollie on Arrow and even Bruce Wayne in Batman Begins. Hopefully Marvel will put their own spin on it and that it will blend nicely into the Netflix universe we’ve already gotten with Daredevil, Jessica Jones, and Luke Cage.

Other things of note for Danny Rand are what he can do. Not only is he one of the best martial artists in the Marvel Universe (I’d go as far as to say he’s probably the best in the whole of the MCU), he also has the power of the iron fist. He is able to concentrate his own chi into his hand, causing it to glow. The chi energy is so concentrated, that he can strike with superhuman force, while his hand stays impervious to pain or injury. In the comics Danny is also best friends with Luke Cage and they have a Heroes for Hire business. It’ll be interesting to see if this interconnects with Luke Cage, seeing as Luke was a main fixture in Jessica Jones but Jessica wasn’t in Luke Cage. At any rate they’ll all be coming together with Daredevil and almost every side character for The Defenders at the end of the year. But enough about all that, let’s talk about the first Marvel’s Iron Fist trailer:  

  • We open with some Eminem sounding beats and a shoeless man walking through New York.
  • The apparent vagabond stops outside a tall glass tower.
  • Surprise! (Said no one). It’s Danny Rand, heir to the company who hasn’t been seen in 15+ years. Security, rightly so, does not believe his story.
  • Danny uses surprise martial arts skills to beat up the security of his own company. This is probably not good for company morale. 
  • He quickly escapes into an elevator. Which isn’t really an escape but whatever.
  • We get a quick death montage of his parents in their plane crash. But Danny survives and lands somewhere in the Himalayas.
  • Back in present day New York, Danny gives a press conference to tell everyone that he is Iron Man. Wait… that’s not right. To tell everyone he’s back.
  • Harold Meachum (David Wenham) asking the right questions of why did Danny wait this long to show up and how the hell did he learn martial arts.
  • Colleen Wing (Jessica Henwick) asks where Danny trained. He tells her K’un Lun, like that’s just a normal thing to say.
  • We get some quick flashes of what a K’un Lun is and who trains there.
  • Somehow Danny’s father instilled a love and respect for Rand Industries to a 10 year old that didn’t fade over the 15+ years he was gone.
  • WAIT! The partner that’s been running the company all these years and is the father of one of your love interests is the bad guy!?!?!?!
  • Hip hop plays to tease us that’s what will connect Danny to Luke Cage, I guess because otherwise I’m not seeing any connection between the two.
  • Joy Meachum (Jessica Stroup) asks Danny what happened to him and why he’s back.
  • The trailer takes a turn in to Daredevil territory and I’m ok with it. We are teased with hatchets. Hatchets!
  • Some dead bodies pile up and we get a very brief glimpse of what looks to be Madame Gao, head of the Hand in the MCU.
  • Colleen is shown doing her best Stormshadow cosplay in an underground cage fight. Bonus scene of the cage fight here:

  • Netflix’s throughline, Claire Temple (Rosario Dawson) shows up because she’s the fifth Defender.
  • Yup that’s Madame Gao. She watches over something from somewhere. You guys know how much I love vagueness.
  • We get our first shot of Danny’s fist ironing up. It actually looks pretty cool.
  • Title cards telling us that the final Defender has arrived, intercut with hero shots of Danny and mercenary/ninjas getting beat down.
  • Another brief montage of fighting and sparks flying while Danny poses.
  • Colleen tells Danny she’s going with him. I start hoping that she’s more his partner than love interest. Save that for Joy.
  • We see what hopefully is part of this show’s hallway fight (every one of these Netflix shows has one). Let me just say that it looks to involve the hatchet guy and I’m stoked. Hopefully it will be as good as the one in the first Daredevil, or maybe the Hammer Girl fight scene in The Raid 2, or the 25 on 1 fight scene in Old Boy, or hell even the Hatchet fight scene in Kung Fu Hustle. Look, I just want it to be awesome.
  • Colleen shows off her skills after telling Danny that he needs her. She’s probably not wrong.
  • We get yet another montage of Danny fighting a group of people, getting steamy with Colleen, but then fighting her in the rain. Which is it Danny?
  • Danny uses his glowing fist to punch through a wall. This is a good use for said fist.
  • Claire doesn’t know what being the Iron Fist means, because she’s as close to a normal person as we get in these shows.
  • Danny uses the Iron Fist to punch the floor and, much like an Anime character, the shock wave takes out the enemies surrounding him.

Well, let’s hope this continues the track record that Netflix has with these Marvel shows. Luke Cage was great for the first half but took a dive in the backend. That’s a rare misstep for Netflix and hopefully they’ve learned from that and make this the best that it can be. The other hope I have for it is that the Batman Begins/Arrow stuff is kept to the minimum. Like, the first episode or so. I really want to see this be more of an Enter The Dragon type story set in the MCU. Is that too much to ask?

Netflix will have all episodes streaming of Marvel’s Iron Fist on March 17th.

From Hollywood,
-Loren

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