Iron Fist and how to make the Netflix Show Work

As there seems to be some issues and concerns about bringing Iron fist to life, I`ve had some thoughts on the matter.

First off I don`t really understand why they would be having an issue of figuring out how to incorporate the mythology of Iron Fist into the MCU. They have already established the premise of other realms with Asgard and a similar explanation can and should be used for K’un Lun and the other “Seven Capitals”, except with them being more closely connected to Earth. Secret groups and cities have also been established with the inhumans in SHIELD, so, again not exactly untested ground. Also, considering Doctor Strange is in the works, and clearly is building the mystical side of things, than surly it makes sense that they have some ideas in mind for the mystical side of the MCU, which can be incorporated here as well.

Other than that I don’t think they would need to stray too far from the source material to make Iron fist work.

Here are my thoughts:

First: Stick with the story of Wendall Rand finding K’un-Lun and saving the kings life. I think keeping the rivalry with Yu-Ti works but here is where I would make some changes.
Have Shakari be the king’s daughter and when Randall marries her, that is what heightens issues, as he now is not only favoured of the king but has a somewhat legitimate claim to the throne.

Now here is the biggest difference I think they should make to the story and probably will be the most controversial one for you comic fans who hate alterations to beloved characters:

Have Shakari be Danny Rand’s mother!

Hear me out. This does a couple of things. One, it simplifies the story and makes it more direct as to why Danny has a chance to claim the Iron fist title (without having to go into Wendall’s story too much) and in simplifying it this way it gives reasons for why they would both and return to K’un Lun, as now Danny would also have claim to the kingdom.

The other thing this leads to, and I know a lot of people have issue with this, is the opportunity to add a level of diversity to the MCU. Does Danny Rand, really need to be white and blonde? I know many of you will say, yes of course, but hopefully you can see that I’m not just saying make him half Asian for the sake of it, but rather because I think it makes the story work better. The fact that it adds to the diversity of the MCU hero roster is just an added benefit, I think anyway.

To help justify my idea, it comes down to the guy I think should play Danny Rand. I think the Iron Fist show deserves some solid martial arts skill and some great fight scenes and although many of the actors whose names are thrown around on this site have the look I don’t know if they’d have the chops.

That’s why I think Iron Fist should be played by Jon Foo.

He is a martial arts expert with a bunch of martial arts films to his name and is currently starring in the TV version of Rush Hour, in the Jackie Chan role. So he has the fighting chops. As well as this though, he is actually half Irish, half Chinese and grew up in London, so he fits the bill of a mixed race character and I’m sure he could pull off an American accent as he didn’t grow up in Asia (I mean all the superheroes are really English these days anyway) So I think he would be awesome.

Here he is fighting Tony Jaa: 
https://www.youtube.com/embed/Z6GWWBo0iQQ

And here he is doing an american accent and kicking ass:
https://www.youtube.com/embed/ULkzOl70pIQ

Finally here's an action packed showreel:
https://www.youtube.com/embed/eo8HVJ5vNJI


Anyway to get back to the story; the rivalry for the throne and fearing for their child could be the reason the Rands’ leave K’un-Lun and also the reason they return later when Danny is older. It could be that now that he is older and Shakari has been away from home for so long, she wants to return so that he can embrace his heritage. This is how you can have Danny be connected to both worlds. He’s an American kid who grew up the son of a wealthy businessman and that’s all the life he knows, but underneath it all he has a connection to this mystical kingdom.

Then you just follow the origin story of Wendall becoming successful and bringing Meachum, his business partner with him when they are returning to K’un Lun. Meachum betrays Wendall and lets him die after he falls and leaves Shakari and Danny to die on the mountain and Shakari dies to save Danny who makes it to K’un Lun. Here he is raised and trained to be the living weapon and passes the challenge becoming the Iron fist, etc. etc…

Now that he is Iron Fist he is tasked with returning to Earth to investigate the activities of Mother Crane (Madam Gao) and the other capitals, who are apparently are going against the rules of remaining isolated from the earth. Tie in the mythology of the Hand and the Chaste and the forthcoming war that Stick was going on about in Daredevil to the Seven capitals mythology and things all start to connect together.

Have Danny use this opportunity as a way to seek revenge on Meachum and reclaim his father’s business, but like the comic have him decide not to kill Meachum but still end up being framed for his murder (which ties the hand back into the story, which can ultimatly bring a connection to Daredevil). Then tie in Jessica Jones and Luke Cage by having them be the ones that help clear his name (after an initial conflict of course). Again this deviates from the comic but It would work to stay close to the source material while connecting it to the characters developed for the MCU on Netflix.

Anyway that’s my thoughts. If you read them all, thanks for sticking with it. Let me know what you think?
(I really wanted to include images and embed videos but couldnt get it to work. The image uploaded kept giving an error message and the embedding code for youtube wasn't working so I just took it out. I know I used to be able to do this. Why does this seem harder than before? Anyway if you actually read an article with no images I appreciate it and if you know whats going wrong for me any insight would be appreciated (http Error 302  when I upload images)