[yasr_overall_rating]
After the death of his clan master, Wu-Lin leaves the village for the City of Stone-cold to protect the daughter of the richest family in the city, Fei-Fei. When the city’s most dangerous gang attempts to kidnap Fei-Fei, Wu-Lin is forced to fight them alone and discovers an even more sinister power is taking over the city.
“Iron Protector” is a Kung-Fu and Superhero film mixed together. Yue Song directs and stars as Wu-Lin, a protagonist who chooses the dark path to seek revenge, and takes the law into his own hands. Wu-Lin is not just a regular man from the rural village, he is also the prodigy of an ancient, once powerful Chinese clan. After the death of the clan master, Wu-Lin leaves the village and comes to the city to search for his fellow apprentice Jiang Li. He later becomes the bodyguard of Fei-Fei, the daughter of Jia-Shan Li, the richest family in the city. Wu-Lin soon discovers that a group of mobsters led by Jiang Li, attempt to kidnap Fei-Fei. To protect her, Wu-Lin is forced to fight them alone. After being defeated, Wu-Lin manages to survive.He then decides to face the group of mobsters once more, and he then realizes someone else, besides Jiang Li, is behind the evil plot.
This film is exactly what it sold itself to be. It is a fun, fast-paced, rollercoaster ride. A lot of the plot does not make sense, and a lot of the decisions made by Song are not smart, but in the end, it delivers on the action. The flashbacks and training montages were very interesting and I wish I could’ve seen more from that period of time. To the film’s detriment, it is much too fast-paced. I never had time to breathe throughout the movie, so the characters or scenes never really settled with me like they should have. The fighting is really fun and innovative and really does keep your eyes glued to the screen anytime there is an action sequence.
They try to make a love story between Wu-Lin and Fei-Fei and it completely blunders. The characters are not relatable whatsoever and in the end, you don’t care about any of them. The editing throughout was very weird and not in a good way. A lot of the slow-motion shots and scenes seemed out of place and took me out of the film. But the movie makes up for a lot of its mistakes when Wu-Lin has to fight 100 bodyguards and he kicks some major ass. The last act of the film was very fun and campy, which is exactly what I was expecting the whole film to be.
This movie was definitely not made for awards or anything like that. It was made to be a gut-wrenching, action-packed thrill ride, and it was for the most part. Some of the martial art scenes were really awesome to watch, but everything else was pretty much a mess. This movie is a fun film to shut your mind off and watch for action and some neat visuals, but definitely not for a story or an arsenal of deep characters. I got what I was looking for when I started watching “Iron Protector,” an exciting, fresh, campy Kung-Fu movie.
Now available on Blu-ray & DVD
