Iron Fist: So far, not so good…

Netflix continued its Marvel Comics love-fest with the release of Iron Fist this week. If you’re not familiar with the comic book – and by all accounts, not many people are – then it tells the story of one Daniel Rand who was lost in the Himalayas following a plane crash. He’s raised by warrior monks and returns to New York some fifteen years later to reclaim his legacy. Yes, he’s a secret billionaire … with no shoes.

It’s a story as old as time, but with a nice modern twist, or so we thought. The early showings have been mercilessly panned by critics who reckon it’s nowhere near as good as Netflix’s other Marvel collaborations: Daredevil (brilliant), Jessica Jones (not so superhero-y, but still brilliant), and Luke Cage (gritty and brilliant). There have also been lots of complaints of ‘white-washing’: why is a Kung-Fu master being played by a white guy? What, you couldn’t you find a Chinese actor who knows his way around the martial arts? This particular complaint you can pretty much ignore. Iron Fist has been around since the seventies. He started off white; he’s always been white. If he wasn’t white I’m not sure how they make the whole thing work. No, the real complaints are about the show itself.

Now, I’ve only watched the first two episodes, and I usually like to give it at least another one before I decide whether or not it’s a dud. I haven’t done that in this case because its predecessors were pretty damn good from day one, so I kinda expected the same from Iron Fist. Unfortunately, from what I’ve seen so far, it’s not in the same league. Continue reading “Iron Fist: So far, not so good…”

Another Netflix gem: Knights of Sidonia

Another evening of random Manga trawling (I really should read a book or something) turned up this little beauty. It’s been running on Netflix for a few years so, as usual, I’m a little late to the party, but it’s got a four-and-a-half stars so it has to be worth a look.

Knights_of_Sidonia.jpg

Travelling through space some six hundred years in the future, Sidonia – a massive chunk of rock with an equally massive engine attached –  is all that’s left of planet Earth. It’s home to half a million people, the descendents of the survivors of an attack that destroyed our Solar System.  While searching space for a new home, the population live in fear and readiness for an attack from the Guana – the race of gigantic, near-indestructible, space-faring aliens that destroyed the Earth six centuries earlier.

That’s the upshot; three episodes in and I’m hooked. It’s very similar to Attack On Titan: we have a single hero (always male) who has to carry the responsibility for saving a civilisation on his narrow shoulders. He’s aided by a supporting cast (mostly female, mostly wet and simpering) and a some ingenious tech in the form of giant space fighters/samurai robots which are deployed against an immortal enemy.

Now I think about it, this is exactly the same as Attack On Titan, except the survivors of the decimation are in space, not on Earth.

Okay, so the story is nothing new, but that doesn’t stop it from being told brilliantly with excellent animation. Aside from the story, what I like about Knights of Sidonia is the attention to detail. Someone has thought about the problems that a large community isolated on huge flying boulder would likely encounter: how many people would die if something went wrong with the gravity; what genetic would need to be taken to prevent half a million people from starving to death. And I can’t remember ever seeing the word ‘catheter’ mentioned in a cartoon before.

The enemy is mysterious and frightening, and the pilots of the flying samurai know it, which leads to some real edge-of-your-seat battle scenes.

It’s great, so if you fancy a late evening Manga binge then give it a go. You won’t be disappointed.