Danny Rand returns with a punch in Netflix’s Iron Fist

The superhero series, in 13 episodes, will precede the much-anticipated teaming of Marvel title characters in The Defenders, out later this year.

Jessica Henwick (Colleen Wing), Finn Jones (Danny Rand) and Rosario Dawson (Claire Temple) in Marvel’s Iron Fist. Courtesy Cara Howe / Netflix.

If you're up for a live-action superhero series that packs a fiery mystical punch, be sure to check out Marvel's Iron Fist when it drops with 13 episodes on Netflix.

For Marvel universe fans, this is the fourth of four epic adventure series – preceded by Daredevil, Jessica Jones and Luke Cage – and the final set-piece leading up to the much-anticipated teaming of the title characters in Marvel's The Defenders mini-series, due out later this year.

One of the comic-book kingdom's most popular street-level superheroes, Iron Fist is the alter-ego of billionaire Danny Rand, who returns to New York City after being missing for years in the Himalayas, the sole survivor of a plane crash that killed his parents.

Rescued by a group of warrior monks, the 10-year-old was taken to the mysterious city of K’un-Lun, where he was trained to be a fierce warrior – yet he suffers psychologically from the loss of his family and the harsh and brutal conditions in which he grew up.

Now 25, he struggles to reconnect with his past and take his rightful place at Rand Enterprises – his father’s chemical and pharmaceutical conglomerate. He also battles criminal elements and corruption through his kung fu mastery and ability to summon the awesome power of the fiery Iron Fist.

"I like the fact that he's conflicted," says the series' 28-year-old star Finn Jones, best known for his turn as the knight Loras Tyrell in Game of Thrones, while describing what he finds most attractive about the role.

“He has these spiritual pursuits and yet he comes from a very corporate, westernised culture. He’s trying to attain these very eastern, spiritual philosophies. I loved the contradictions in both of those.”

As he seeks to reunite with his childhood friends – his father's former business partner Harold Meachum (David Wenham, 300), who now runs Rand Enterprises, and his children Ward (Tom Pelphrey, Banshee) and Joy (Jessica Stroup, The Following) – Danny is in for some painful shocks and surprises.

Solidly in his corner, however, are Colleen Wing (Jessica Henwick, Game of Thrones), the martial arts expert who runs her own dojo; and Claire Temple (Rosario Dawson, Sin City), the nurse with the niche skills who helps to save the lives of New York's gifted, and whose character appears across all of the Defenders-related series. Wing's martial arts style, in many ways, is the yang to Danny's yin, with their distinct fight styles.

“Wing’s background is Japanese in style,” says Henwick, “so it was about utilising aikido, judo, kenjutsu and karate. All of her movements are more linear and straightforward as she executes everything, whereas Danny has smaller movements and is a little fancier. The Chinese style is very beautiful in the sense of its movement, because it’s very big in movement. When you do wushu, it’s about big flower movements. The Japanese style is beautiful in its stillness before they execute, which is then done very fast”.

To make the concept of an explosive, orange-glowing Iron Fist believable to a modern audience, producers explain it as "the ability to concentrate your chi and focus it into your fist, which will give you super-strength in that one fist".

“Honestly, I don’t think there’s much in here that is fantasy,” says Jones.

“I believe that people have chi energy and I believe that there are different dimensions. This is one of the reasons why this project really spoke to me from the first time I read the script. We’re taking this stuff seriously. It’s not just some hokey-pokey fantasy land. We approach it from a place of ‘if this was real, how would it apply to the modern day?’”

Visually, in addition to unveiling the secret exotica of Chinatown and teasing flashbacks to K'un-Lun, Iron Fist also brings a lush moneyed look to the screen, with the Rand Enterprises' corporate environment and skyscraper apartments as glossy and glass-clad as anything to be found in the elegant Stark Enterprises' realm of Iron Man's Tony Stark.

Whether you've seen the previous three Defenders-related series or not, Iron Fist promises to hold its own, yet afford newcomers easy access to the bigger picture. "There's an expression in the publishing division where everyone's comic could be their first," says Jeph Loeb, Marvel's head of television.

"You have to tell a story in a way that, despite it being serialised genre, everyone must be able to find a gateway in. Iron Fist was no different than our other series in that it had to be able to stand alone, but also had to advance the macro story that would culminate in Marvel's The Defenders."

• Marvel’s Iron Fist debuts on Netflix this Friday.