It's a real film, and a fun one, made with gonzo good humor and plenty of action from the opening brutal battle over which the sound of The Wu-Tang Clan's 1993 single "Shame on a N***a" roars.

It's all sufficiently well done and amusing enough to satisfy the appetites of fans who mainline this sort of thing, but it also sports a concocted, second-hand feel common to this sort of throwback homage.

A wildly whirling martial arts spectacle with an endless array of exotic knives, a penchant for Zen philosophizing and an unquenchable thirst for blood. It may just be one of the best bad movies ever.

Makes sense as a picture focused on spectacle. The story almost seems secondary to the flights of fancy.

As erratically enjoyable as it is consistently ridiculous, the martial arts pastiche The Man With the Iron Fists is the latest evidence that the vogue for neo-exploitation cinema shows no sign of flagging.

As endearing as it is exhausting, The Man With the Iron Fists bears strong resemblance to a hyperactive puppy: sloppy, scatterbrained, manic and migraine-inducing, but possessing an earnest sense of excitement.

The movie plays things relatively straight, acknowledging clichés without the winking irony in which modern homages usually indulge. As such, it's giddy fun - a well-made genre picture that sends up its influences even as it clearly reveres them.

The chop-socky wire-fu scenes are beautifully choreographed, but pretty crudely edited; despite its gourmet neo-grindhouse trappings, the film won't bring the heat like you've never seen before.

RZA's directorial debut is heavy on bloody kung fu action...and light on just about everything else.

At 96 minutes it is exactly 93 1/2 minutes too long. If they're going to put this artifact in theaters, they'd better charge 1973 grindhouse prices: a dollar a ticket.