RZA Talks Man With The Iron Fist, Plus Potential Remake Of Bullet In The Head
The RZA’s career in the movies reportedly started with a call from Harvey Weinstein. Here’s how he tells it, in an impersonation of the big man. The phone went, he picked it up, there was a raspy voice and it said:
Such a smooth talker, the big man.
That movie wasDerailed, Mikael Halfstrom’s thriller with Jennifer Aniston and Clive Owen. Since then, a series of supporting roles and scoring gigs have seen RZA keep his side careers spinning nicely but all of his notable achievements were still on wax, courtesy of the music made through his membership of the Wu Tang Clan. However, thatmaybe about to change with his next step up the cinematic ladder and the advent of his debut as a writer-director. Fingers crossed thatThe Man With the Iron Fistis a movie as good as his hip hop.
Producer Eli Roth has toldThe LA Timeshow confident he is that film will be a winner:
RZA is such a creative fountain. The script is great, he’s got characters, jokes. What he does with lyrics, he does with dialogue and he’s done such a great mix: spaghetti western, kung fu, modern fighting infused with hip-hop and multiculture. He has this whole comic book universe figured out. I know he’s going to make a brilliant film.
The man himself says that the film will offer:
Kung fu but not grindhouse. Something that’s modern, like Blade
Sounds a bit…Kill Bill? Maybe.
I can’t help but be optimistic. This man certainly knows his martial arts and Chinese action films. He’s also formed a close relationship with John Woo, one of the greatest directors the genre has ever known.
For many years, I was getting my lessons from John. His movieBullet in the Head, he said I can make it over. He said, “You will get no resistance from me.”
I thinkBulletis my number-one favourite of Woo’s pictures and I could be sensitive about a remake, but actually, I’m curious to see what somebody like RZA, coming from such a different culture, would do with it. First of all, I’m assuming he’d change the period and location, have another war at the centre of the narrative… but beyond that…? Of course, I’m only assuming there was some incentive to them discussing the principle of a remake, that RZA somehow showed interest in the notion.
We’ve beenwaiting some timefor RZA’s debut movie as director, and it sounds like we’ll have a while to wait yet. Personally speaking, it feels that the wait is getting harder and harder. Roll on thatIron Fist.
