Despite there being a few new movies at the cinema worth watching, I’ve been at home a bit, saving cash because of the August holidays. As a result, I’ve learnt to appreciate the value of free movies on Netflix.
So this week’s Orange Thursday duo are a couple of Netflix Originals:
Point Blank (2019): Frank Grillo and Anthony Mackie reunite for an action movie remake, but maybe not of the Point Blank you were expecting
The Red Sea Diving Resort (2019): Chris Evans and a motley bunch of fellow Israeli spies accidentally set up a hotel in Africa to liberate Ethiopian refugees, in a movie based on a very odd true story
The observant will notice that all three of those men starred in Captain America: Winter Soldier. I don’t know if that was a deliberate choice by Netflix, but it’s probably quite hard now to find an actor who hasn’t been in a Marvel Cinematic Universe movie.
It’s “What have you been watching?”, your chance to recommend to fellow TMINE readers anything you’ve been watching this week
As we’re on the reduced August TMINE schedule still, last week’s previous WHYBW was mainly a chance for you all to recommend shows you’ve been watching and for me to catch up with the regulars in the viewing queue. I’ve done that now, so expect plenty of Boxsets and reviews in the next week or so.
But today, I’m going to focus on looking at the final episodes of all the shows that were in the regulars list before I went on holiday: Departure, Legion, Perpetual Grace LTD and Swamp Thing.
However, a few previous regulars returned to the airwaves/broadband connections in the past month, so I’ll also be looking at the new seasons of both False Flag and Glitch.
France 3 green lights: murder-mystery TV movie Les Mystères de Brouage (The Mysteries of Brouage), with Isabelle Vitari, Alexandre Varga, Marie Buenl et al
Viu (Asia) green lights: adaptation of Freeform (US)’s Pretty Little Liars, with Anya Geraldine, Eyka Farhana, Valerie Thomas, Shindy Huang and Yuki Kato
Netflix is in a bit of bind these days. It’s not getting as many new subscribers as it used to, it’s got a bucket-load of debt and this year, it’s failed to come up with any top-notch new TV shows, with Russian Doll the only one seeing any real break-out success.
This wouldn’t be as big a problem were it not for the arrival of new streaming services from Disney and Warner Bros, which are stripping Netflix of its existing content and halting previous production deals. The most notable results of this so far are the cancellations of various Marvel superhero shows: Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, Iron Fist and The Punisher. These were among Netflix’s biggest initial draws and in their own ways, solidified Netflix’s ‘quality’ branding in the same vein as House of Cards and Orange is the New Black.
So what’s Netflix to do to produce new content, stave off the competition and bring in new subscribers? Well, in the case of filling the hole left by Iron Fist, at least, it’s to come up with its own version: Wu Assassins.
Byron Mann and Iko Uwais in Wu Assassins
Woke Iron Fist
Now, Iron Fist faced a lot of criticism – mainly from delusional haters, oh yes – on various grounds: its lead character was a billionaire white boy who went around lecturing Asians on the martial arts; its fight scenes weren’t very good; and its plot wasn’t very inspiring.
So Wu Assassins feels like Netflix learning its lessons from Iron Fist’s mistakes in wokeness. For starters, it stars one of the world’s best martial arts stars: The Raid’s Iko Uwais, who plays a half-Chinese, half-Indonesian immigrant to the US, whose father died on the journey over to San Francisco. Adopted by gangster ‘Uncle Six’ (Byron Mann), Uwais grows up to become… a lowly cook. Just like Steven Seagal. Because he’s got inexplicably good Indonesian fight moves for a cook.
All the same, his life seems perfectly normal until he’s chosen by spirit girl Celia Au (Lodge 49) to receive a magically endowed dragon’s chi tortoise shell to become the latest – and last – in a long line of immortal Iron Fists ‘Wu Assassins’. They’re pledged to protect the world from the Handfive Wu – evil elementals each with their own powers and followers, who could throw the Dao out of alignment and destroy the world.
To help him do this, she endows him with the powers and abilities of the Iron Fist1,000 monks, who gave their lives to stop the Wu. And only he can defeat this underground conspiracy… while dealing with all the issues brought about by his pseudo-father Harold Meachum Uncle Six and childhood friends Ward and Joy Meachum Jenny, Tommy and Lu Xin – with a bit of help from Colleen Wing Christine “CG” Gavin (Vikings‘ Katheryn Winnick), a woman who may not be what she seems
Will Uwais embrace the way of the Wu Assassin and stop the Wu? How many of his family and friends will be killed along the way? And will he prefer looking like himself of Mark Dacascos more?
