The Man with the Iron Fists

[GeneChing]

China has had trade with Africa since the 1st century CE via the Silk Road so it's possible for a black blacksmith to have existed in feudal China. But it's a kung fu movie. Since when does kung fu movies worry that much about historical accuracy?

[doug maverick]

China has had trade with Africa since the 1st century CE via the Silk Road so it's possible for a black blacksmith to have existed in feudal China. But it's a kung fu movie. Since when does kung fu movies worry that much about historical accuracy?

agreed...this movie seems to be in the same fantasy world as kill bill....crowes addition definitely brings weight to the project, and means that it will get a nice wide release. now that he has his obligatory white guy, lol. i cant wait to see who he cast in the rest of the roles hopefully we get alot of cool kung fu legend up in there.

[ghostexorcist]

China has had trade with Africa since the 1st century CE via the Silk Road so it's possible for a black blacksmith to have existed in feudal China. But it's a kung fu movie. Since when does kung fu movies worry that much about historical accuracy?

The African trade was was presided over by middlemen. I have never read anything about black merchants from this time traveling to China. As far as I know, China's first direct contact with Africa was via the journey of the eunuch Zheng He during the Ming. The descriptions of Africa and its people from Chinese records prior to this were derived from hearsay from foreign merchants.

African slaves were first brought to China during the Tang Dynasty by Arab slave traders. Only the rich had direct contact with them, so the common folk developed fanciful tales about them being supernatural beings with inhuman strength and magical abilities (there is even a small literary genre dedicated to them). During the Song Dynasty, however, commoners had more contact with the slaves and saw them for what they were: scared people in a foreign land. They were known as Kunlun (崑崙) and "devil slaves." (I actually sent the RZA an email about this material and the journal paper I found it in several years ago on Myspace. Whether he read the email is unclear to me. He probably has an assistant who screens his emails. They may not have been a history buff, so they might have just assumed I pulled the info out of my ass and deleted the email. Either way, I like to think--in my own deranged view of the world--that I influenced this movie in some small way.)

My knowledge on the subject seems to contradict my questioning of a black man in Feudal China. But the reason I questioned his position as a village blacksmith is because African slaves were traditionally treated as work mules. It seems like a blacksmith would be an important social position (then again, I might just be thinking about their counterparts in the American frontier). I think an African slave serving in such a position is a stretch considering their social status in ancient China. However, I realize this is a movie and doesn't have to be accurate. Like I stated above, Afro Samurai is set in a land where race doesn't matter.

We all know that Crowe is capable of kicking someone's ass, so I doubt this movie will be a stretch for him. I look forward to watching it.

[doug maverick]

i think youll have to suspend your disbelief for this film...ya dig?

[ghostexorcist]

i think youll have to suspend your disbelief for this film...ya dig?

However, I realize this is a movie and doesn't have to be accurate. Like I stated above, Afro Samurai is set in a land where race doesn't matter.

I'm hip daddio.

[GeneChing]

Topel gets some great answers out of RZA on this.

Exclusive: RZA on 'The Man with the Iron Fist'
The Wu-Tang producer and director on his new film, 'The Man with the Iron Fist'.
by Fred Topel
Sep 30, 2010

The RZA presented Yuen Woo-Ping with a lifetime achievement award at Fantastic Fest for his legendary career directing and choreographing martial arts movies. On stage, Master Woo-Ping asked RZA to come to the set of his next film. True Legend is the latest Woo-Ping film to enter RZA’s martial arts vocabulary. While it was screening, he sat with us to talk about his upcoming martial arts film The Man with the Iron Fist starring Russell Crowe.

Crave Online: What are your favorite Yuen Woo Ping movies?

RZA: Man, there’s too many to say my favorite but I love a lot of them. You’ve got Dance of the Drunken Mantis. Of course Drunken Master and Dance of the Drunken Mantis. You’ve got to check out films like The Buddist Fist. That’s a great one. Of course, Legend of a Fighter. That film right there, the fights in that film, I’ll watch that film like over 20 times. My whole family loves that film. We’ve got so many classics that we watch. Then when you start moving up to the ‘90s with Jet Li movies with the Once Upon A Time in China, then he kept going on and came out here and did The Matrix and Kill Bill for us and a few other great ones. He hasn’t stopped rocking the world with his style.

Crave Online: Will you ask him to choreograph The Man with the Iron Fist?

RZA: Man, if I could get something like that to happen, I’m going to ask. I know he’s a very busy man. He’s in high demand and this movie here, True Legend, I’ve got it on DVD of course. You know New Yorkers, they bootleg everything. I wish I could see it in 3D because you know it was in 3D in Asia. Anyway, this film is another great, great, great add on his collection. It’s the first film he directed in 13 years. Actually watching that film gave me more knowledge of what to do nowadays because his style has changed and progressed over the years. I just hope I do a good job. If I get him to help me, man, I’m already hitting a home run if I get him to help me.

Crave Online: Will you accept Master Woo-Ping’s offer to come work with him?

RZA: Yeah, yeah. If I can just drop in and watch him work and pick up some knowledge, if my time permits, I’m there.

Crave Online: The writer Vern has observed that we have less martial artists making movies now and more actors training just for the choreography of a given film. Do you think we’re losing the authentic trained martial artists in film?

RZA: I guess in some ways you could say that because it’s an act. Even myself, when you see me do martial arts in a film, I’m acting. One thing I think is whether you’re acting or not, when you even go through the training, you learn a discipline, you learn something. I watched Uma when she was doing Kill Bill. She picked up some knowledge whether she wanted to or not. She whipped herself into shape because she did it right after she had a baby. Whether you call her a black belt or a brown belt or whatever you want to call her, she had to pick up some knowledge to make the film look authentic. Now what I’m doing for my film, if I can talk about myself, what I am doing is I’m hiring real martial artists along with actors. So I think it should always be a blend. You should definitely always mix a few real guys in with some of the acting guys so that you can give the appreciation back to the real martial art world, but you’re also making a movie.

Crave Online: Russell Crowe is known for his extensive training. How into martial arts is he getting?

RZA: Well, we’re going to see. He’s a very intensive guy. He’s a unique individual, very smart dude. I don’t like talking about him too much because he shared a lot of personal things with me and we spent a lot of personal time together. I spent some weeks with him out on his farm in Australia, right? Some mornings he’ll wake me up, “Hey Bobby, come on, let’s go do some yoga.” I don't know what to say about that but we sit there, we do it and we get a good workout, we get a good sweat. He did some moves I was like, “****, Russell,” he had to show me how to do this ****. So he’s a serious man. He’s a master of his craft and he gets really involved with what he does so I’m sure he’s going to get really involved in this and he’s going to deliver something to us that’s going to please us.

Crave Online: Will you still have an opportunity to do fantasy wirework?

RZA: You’ve got to include that of course but you look at Crouching Tiger sometimes, one thing about wirework, my opinion, is that years later it looks like wirework. On the first few watches it’s like yeah, cool, cool but five years later, it starts looking like Peter Pan and sh*t. So how can you do it and make it last the test of time. I haven’t figured that out yet but I’m looking to try to figure that out as well as a director.

Crave Online: Are you thinking period or modern day?

RZA: I think mine is based in a unique time period and unique place. My movie is fiction. I will just say that. It is fiction so I got a chance to play around.

Crave Online: Would it incorporate the theme of avenging a master and training?

RZA: Well, we always see those in the kung fu flicks but I think one edge I have, one additive I’ve got I think is the quest for freedom. What about that quest of man? Sometimes you watch a movie like 36th Chamber which is one of my favorite kung fu films, you’ll see that his quest for revenge, he actually found himself on a quest of enlightenment. He didn’t plan on the enlightenment. He planned on learning how to fight for revenge and the enlightenment was a blessing that actually helped him change the rest of the world. His lust for revenge caused us to be enlightened. That’s more unique than just fighting somebody, killing him and he’s dead. Somebody’s going to come kill you next, right?

Crave Online: You must have thought of a 37th and 38th chamber though.

RZA: I’ve got a couple of ideas. There is actually a training sequence in my film. Being it’s fiction, I get to play with it and I think I’ll play with it in a way that we appreciate. When we go and see The Matrix and the idea is he put a chip in his mind and he went to this virtual world and in one day he knew kung fu. But we believed it. We believed that if you put a chip in your head, a computer chip, connected to your neurosystem, you’ll be able to learn something instantly like a computer does. A computer makes music for us and it doesn’t f***ing have fingers. There’s something about Chi energy that I have a theory about Chi energy that all martial artists say. They say Chi energy should be able to extend from your body to your weapon. And if you are a master, that means this weapon is more like an extension of your arm. That particular theory I’m working on. It has to become an extension of your own body and how you do that mentally. How does Bruce Lee deliver 700 or 1000 lbs. or force in a one inch punch? What is he really hitting you with? Is he hitting you with his fist or something else? That’s the myth about martial arts anyway, when you see these guys breaking rocks or you see young kids laying on nails. What’s really protecting them? I tap into that in my film.

Crave Online: Will you do the score?

RZA: I don't know. I don't think so. I’ll say this, I’d rather say this now. I’ve asked, I’ve tried to hire somebody to handle the music for me and his name is Quentin Tarantino. So he said if his time permits, he’d handle the music. I did the music for him, and I was like, “Yo, do the music for me. You have to help me out with the music so I at least know that it’s in good hands.”

Crave Online: What’s your perspective on the Tony Jaa situation?

RZA: Tony’s amazing, man. I had a chance to meet him personally, hang out with him. I hear a lot of rumors about his situation and things like that. All I know is that he’s a pure talent, a unique talent for the world. One day, I told Tony, I met him about five years ago, I said, “Between five and 10 years, we’re going to do something together” and I’m still pushing for that.

Crave Online: You did on the American release of The Protector.

RZA: I mean, I think we’re going to get on the screen together. When they did The Protector, I was supposed to have gone over and done a cameo appearance. I was so busy and Thailand is such a long flight and I didn’t do it and I regretted it.

Crave Online: But do you think he’ll come back?

RZA: Yeah, I think Tony’ll come back. I think Tony loves what he does. He might not love who he does it for.

[mickey]

Greetings,

It has already been proven via dna testing that there was a sudden appearance of Africans in China around 12 thousand years ago.

RZA tends to drop knowledge in very strange ways. He is always on point.

mickey

[GeneChing]

According to IMDB, Cung Le and Dave Batista are now attached to this project.

[GeneChing]

Didn't know the RZA had a cameo in this...

The RZA, now in auteur flavor
November 23, 2010 | 7:00 am

Rza

His movie may not have exactly attracted a huge audience this weekend. But the RZA, the Wu-Tang pioneer who co-stars with Russell Crowe in "The Next Three Days," took another step toward crossover fame with his turn as a violence-embracing drug dealer in the Paul Haggis film.

It's a bit of a different turn than the hip-hop star's other roles -- say, as a member of the police force in another Russell Crowe movie, "American Gangster."

"It was a cool thing to do, a chance to bring out some toughness and a chance to be the aggressor," the RZA says of his new part.

The Staten Island, N.Y., Grammy winner says that the movie, set in a tough part of Pittsburgh not far from where he spent a part of his childhood, hit a little close to home. "Some of the scenes we shot were in a place called the Hill, and as we're walking through, we're seeing a lot of people living in poverty. And I thought, 'I lived in that kind of poverty.' I ran into a guy I knew who did time in jail."

The music star is now putting himself on a different kind of hot seat -- that of director -- as he prepares to shoot "The Man With the Iron Fist," a martial-arts film he wrote with Eli Roth that will be set and shot in China, and that Crowe will star in. "It's 10 times the focus, 10 times the pressure of putting out an album," the RZA says. "Also 10 times the blame.'

The singer-turned-director says that it's the attention to detail that's been keeping him up nights. "There are so many meticulous things you have to pay attention to. I'm loving it. But I see why some directors do it every two or three years. It's not for the meek."

But those hoping to see a return to the screen for the hip-hop artist may be in for a disappointment:; RZA says that, at the moment, he doesn't plan on starring in the kung-fu film. "I'm Captain Kirk," he said. "If I can find Mr. Spock, I can beam down. But for now I gotta stay in the bridge."

-- Steven Zeitchik

[doug maverick]

figured it was more then a cameo, since they use his name in the trailer, right after russel and banks.

[doug maverick]

most interesting thing we got from that article is this...RZA is not starring in the film.

[GeneChing]

I almost posted this on the Chollywood Rising thread given the source.

Iron Fists shoot underway in China
By Patrick Frater
Tue, 11 January 2011, 10:34 AM (HKT)
Production News

Production is now underway in China on The Man With The Iron Fists, a period martial arts thriller being directed by RZA, the US hip hop musician-turned-actor and co-founder of The Wu-Tang Clan.

The cast includes Russell Crowe and RZA as the title character, a blacksmith who forges weapons for the inhabitants of a village in feudal China. They are forced to defend themselves. Corey Yuen (Transporter) is directing the action sequences.

The $20 million film to be distributed by Universal Pictures also features a large Asian-American contingent including Lucy Liu, Daniel Wu, Byron Mann (Streetfighter, The Corruptor, pictured), Osric Chau (What Women Want) and Darren Scott (aka Darren Choo, Romeo Must Die). Crowe is expected to arrive in China at the end of the months and stay on set through February.

The Man With The Iron Fists’s screenplay is written by RZA and Eli Roth (Hostel).

Production is by RZA, Roth and Marc Abraham through Strike Entertainment. Filming has begun at the Hengdian World Studios and will continue until the end of February with a shift of location to Shanghai.

Production services in China are provided through Champion Star, a company associated with Bill Kong (江志強). As distributor of Universal’s studio titles in Hong Kong and China, Kong has previously assisted other Universal productions in the region including The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor.

[GeneChing]

We were corresponding over the article I did with him in the upcoming March April 2011 issue. I usually don't share emails publicly, but I think Cung is okay with stuff that's buzzworthy.

I am still in China filming with Wong Kar Wai and Rza The Man with the Iron Fist. Russell Crowe and a really great cast. I am killing it out here.

I suppose this could go on the Grandmaster thread too...

[GeneChing]

Just got a call from Cung in China. I sent him the article via email and he caught a mistake. RZA is directing this obviously. I wrote Eli Roth was directing. Totally my bad. How embarrassing.

[doug maverick]

lucky he caught that...you almost sent everything into a uproar. everyone's positivity would have turned if roth was directing.