Iron Fist review: A show you will never get tired of slapping

In the ever-expanding Marvel Universe, few names come with a heavier clunk than Iron Fist (Netflix, now streaming). The surprising thing about this guy – last but by all means least of the comic book stable’s street-level heroes – is just how gentle he appears. Played by Finn Ross, with cherubic blonde curls and a backpacker’s beard, Danny Rand enters his own show beaming and barefoot, leaning on a hotdog seller for a dollop exposition.

That’s his skyscraper, says the young man, long presumed dead when the family jet went down over the Himalayas 15 years ago. As he seeks an audience with his uncle and cousins, now in control of the family company, nobody is sure what to make of him. (Unfailingly hostile, they rough him up and throw him out, later depositing him in a psychiatric hospital.)

The glaring problem for Iron Fist, though, is that no one else knows what to make of him either; not even the programme makers. What chance do we have?

Based on a mid-1970s Kung Fu comic, Iron Fist imagines another billionaire orphan crime fighter, raised by magical martial arts monks and steeled in dragon slaying, high kicking his way through corrupt industry and low-level hoodlums.

In a gesture to early-aughts nostalgists, Danny’s only steadfast companion is a first generation iPod, and Ross’s bright-eyed performance suggests a naive soul frozen in time. But Iron Fist, with its whiter-than-white protagonist somersaulting over taxi cabs, dispensing Buddhist koans and summoning up his chi (sometimes to the sound of breathy oriental flutes) has revived older concerns over orientalism, cultural appropriation and a serious lack of cop on.

I’ll confess that I found none of this quite as offensive as its sheer tedium. The lumbering dialogue contains barely a flicker of wit, so bewilderingly repetitive or explanatory (“You’re the security guard from earlier”) that the people most likely to get hit over the head here are the viewers. With Defenders, Marvel’s multi-pack hero series, scheduled for the summer, it thickens the suspicion that Iron Fist is just killing time.

Even the show knows this could have all been avoided. Early on, a kindly homeless man asks Danny about his purpose. “To protect K’un-L’un from all oppression and honour the sacrifice of Shou-Lao the Undying,” he says, solemnly. “Ok, then,” replies his pal. “Just remember to have fun along the way.” That, however, is something that Iron Fist just can’t grasp.