Wu-Wednesday: Exclusive First Look At Lucy Liu As Madam Blossom

Exclusive: The RZA Says He Had To Drop Out Of 'Django Unchained'

They're dropping like flies: add another excised name to the impressive cast left out of this winter's "Django Unchained." Following Kevin Costner, Sacha Baron Cohen, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Anthony LaPaglia out the door, the runaway Quentin Tarantino production also has shed frequent QT collaborator The RZA.
In an exclusive interview with The Playlist, the rapper/actor/director told us he had to regrettably drop out of the picture earlier this year. "I'm not in 'Django Unchained,' " he told us. "I gave my role up to a buddy. Can you believe that?" When asked who will fill in for the role of Thaddeus in Tarantino's Spaghetti Western slave epic, the Wu-Tang'er turned filmmaker wouldn't disclose the name, though he downplayed it considerably, claiming it was, "Just another buddy that trained with me." You'd have to be a bigtime player in Hollywood to simply give up a role in the hottest film of the holiday season, but The RZA had completely reasonable obligations. "It's my fault," he says, crediting time spent on post-production for his long-in-the-works martial arts epic "The Man With The Iron Fists" that opens later this fall. "I got stuck in editing. I couldn't do it." In other words, don't look for any drama here, folks.

Meanwhile, The RZA will have you know that the entire cast of "The Man With The Iron Firsts" will... if you can believe it... fuck you up. See below for further evidence. "Django Unchained" opens on December 25th, while "The Man With The Iron Fists" punches into theaters November 2nd. More from this interview soon.

Power Friday: RZA Launches New Label Soul Temple Records; Reveals “The Man With the Iron Fists” Soundtrack

Wu-Tang Clan member/producer RZA has announced the formation of a new label, Soul Temple Records.

According to RZA, Soul Temple Records will release independent minded artists from a variety of genres, from the creative community.

The first release on Soul Temple Records will be “The Man With the Iron Fists” soundtrack, which will feature a number of top name artists.

Artists like Kanye West, Pusha-T, Ghostface Killah, M.O.P., Freddie Gibbs, Kool G. Rap, Flatbush Zombies, Corrine Bailey Rae, Method Man, Raekwon, Talib Kweli, Res, The Black Keys and others check in on the 16-track release.

RZA lined up distribution Stax Records/RED Distribution to help market, promote and distribute “The Man With the Iron Fists.”

“We went and got some of The Wu-Tang original songs…we took out a lot of stuff that was in it, and we re-orchestrated it,” RZA said. “Stax also came on board to help us out, and they gave me about 10 of their famous Stax cues, songs from William Bell, from Isaac Hayes, from Mable John. So you’re going to have a great time listening to this movie as a soundtrack.”
“The Man With the Iron Fists” soundtrack hit the Internet October 23.

“Quentin Tarantino presents The Man With The Iron Fists” stars RZA, Russell Crowe and Lucy Liu.  The movie is due in theaters on November 2.”


1. The Black Keys / RZA “The Baddest Man Alive”
2. Ghostface Killah / M.O.P / Pharoahe Monch “Black Out”
3. Kanye West “White Dress”
4. The Revelations feat. Tre Williams “I Forgot To Be Your Lover”
5. Talib Kweli / RES “Get Your Way (Sex as a Weapon)”
6. Raekwon / Ghostface Killah / Kool G. Rap “Rivers of Blood”
7. Method Man / Freddie Gibbs / StreetLife “Built for This”
8. 24 Carat Black “Poverty’s Paradise”
9. Killa Sin “The Archer”
10. RZA / Flatbush Zombies “Just Blowin’ In The Wind”
12. Corrine Bailey Rae “Chains”
13. Pusha T / Raekwon “Tick Tock”
14. Frances Yip “Green is the Mountain”
15. The Wu-Tang Clan “Six Directions of Boxing”
16. Mabel John “Your Good Thing Is About To End”

The Man With The Iron Fist Official Sites

Yo, November 2 is closer than we know. I am excited and its the anticipation I feel when Wu Tang Clan dropped Enter The Wu-Tang...ya'll ready?
Stay tuned.
- The RZA


Official Site: http://www.ironfists.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ironfistsmovie
Tumblr: http://www.rzaironfists.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/ironfists

Power Friday: Universal Pictures Sets November Release For RZA’s “The Man With The Iron Fists”

Universal Pictures has set a November 2nd release date for RZA’s directorial debut The Man With the Iron Fists.

The film, which was written by and also stars RZA, finds the Wu-Tang co-founder cast as a blacksmith who is tasked with defending his village in feudal China. The film also stars Russell Crowe, Lucy Liu, Pam Grier, Cung Le, Byron Mann, Rick Yune, David Batista, and Jamie Chung.
The film’s official synopsis is below:
Quentin Tarantino presents The Man With the Iron Fists, an action-adventure inspired by kung-fu classics as interpreted by his longtime collaborators RZA and Eli Roth. Making his debut as a big-screen director and leading man, RZA—alongside a stellar international cast led by Russell Crowe and Lucy Liu—tells the epic story of warriors, assassins and a lone outsider hero in nineteenth-century China who must unite to destroy the clan traitor who would destroy them all.

Since his arrival in China’s Jungle Village, the town’s blacksmith (RZA) has been forced by radical tribal factions to create elaborate tools of destruction. When the clans’ brewing war boils over, the stranger channels an ancient energy to transform himself into a human weapon. As he fights alongside iconic heroes and against soulless villains, one man must harness this power to become savior of his adopted people.
Blending astonishing martial-arts sequences from some of the masters of this world with the signature vision he brings as the leader of the Wu-Tang Clan and as one of hip-hop’s most dominant figures of the past two decades, RZA embarks upon his most ambitious, stylized and thrilling project to date.

RZA Knows The Score (The Man With The Iron Fist)

When Wu-Tang Clan co-founder RZA talks about his score for the film "The Man With the Iron Fists" -- which he also co-wrote and directed -- he lights up. The Grammy-winning producer born Robert Fitzgerald Diggs says he hasn't been as energized about any project since his first album with Wu-Tang back in 1993, and apologizes for "geeking out" as he gushes about the multitude of synthesizers he used to meticulously mimic the sounds of an orchestra.

The film, co-written by RZA and Eli Roth and slated for a fall release with Universal, is set in feudal China and stars Russell Crowe and Lucy Liu. As it happens, RZA didn't originally intend to score the film, and had to be convinced by the film's producers and his buddy, director Quentin Tarantino.

"I finally said, 'OK, I guess I'll be scoring it,'" recalls RZA, who promptly called frequent collaborator Howard Drossin to help him out. "We have a great working relationship, and I said, 'Howard, here we go again. Let's do another film together.' … And so I went into musician mode and started writing different cues and different emotions for the film. I think actually it was a wise idea because really, at the end of the day, who would understand these characters more than me?"

RZA, whose scoring credits include Tarantino's two-volume "Kill Bill" and Jim Jarmusch's "Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai," took a very different approach to scoring "Fists." Instead of working with an orchestra as he had in the past, he and Drossin used electronics to create most of the orchestral parts.

"We took months and five or six different computers, about seven or eight keyboards, and we emulated an orchestra," RZA explains. "That to me is a special catch to this film: It sounds like we went and hired a big 80-piece orchestra, which we'd done in movies in the past. But we actually did this score electronically. We talked about this with the producers, (and said) 'This may change the game a little bit.' Because without a doubt the electronics reached the level of orchestra."

Listening to score samples, it's difficult to argue. On one cue, which could almost be mistaken for a Howard Shore theme, strings start out softly and swell to a dramatic crescendo, punctuated by horns and Asian instruments. Haunting female vocals and choirs backed by cinematic swells populate much of the rest, as well as complex character themes that Ennio Morricone might have written. ("It's Morricone meets RZA," he chuckles.) Most would never guess it was created by two guys twisting knobs and pushing buttons.

"It takes a lot of know-how," says RZA, who has honed his skills producing successful records for several of his Wu-Tang bandmates, as well as Cypress Hill and Kanye West. "For every one minute of music, it sometimes took two days. So it wasn't easy to do it like that, and there were a lot of crashes on the computers because there are so many different waves and layers on top of things to make it sound real and to give a real string articulation."

Other songs combine classical orchestration with hip-hop and Stax-style soul, as well as mash-ups with RZA's own Wu-Tang. It may seem an odd combo, but RZA pumps up the drums, strings and brass to create an energetic sound ripe for the insertion of raps and heavy beats. Appropriately, RZA says a soundtrack deal is in the works, which will not only include the score but also "some of these score cues revisited with some of today's popular artists."

What's more, RZA employs some clever cinematic tricks he's learned over the years. "If you'll notice, it didn't resolve," he notes after playing back one of the film's main cues. "Even though you have the big brass stabs early in the track, the cue itself doesn't resolve, which is something I learned as a composer after doing a few films. I didn't know that at first because as a musician, you always want to make a resolve -- that's what music does. But in composing, you don't have to have a resolve because the resolve is visual."

Ultimately, RZA hopes the score will add another dimension to the story he's bringing to life on film. He says directing is "the hardest yet most fulfilling" job he's ever done, and he couldn't be more excited for what's to come. "It's Universal's 100th anniversary when this film comes out -- that's gonna be a great reward for me and a great blessing to be a part of it. Also coming up next year in 2013 is the Wu-Tang 20th anniversary. So it feels like the stars lined up for me and I'm just trying my best to stay focused, stay healthy and to make great art for us."

Source:

RZA: The Man With the Iron Fists Red Band Trailer

RZA's directorial debut is a martial arts epic set in 19th century China and co-starring Russell Crowe and Lucy Liu.