Wiz Khalifa, Ghostface Killah, and Boy Jones “I Go Hard”

RZA Breaks Down "The Man with the Iron Fists" Soundtrack

Producer: RZA

RZA: “Wiz’s music is in the film. He came in to editing, and I showed him where I wanted his music to be. Then, I gave him the music cue, which was already kind of a drum beat [that you could flow to], and he threw a verse on it, and he caught the spirit of what was happening inside the movie. When you see the scene, you’ll see how it fits.

“Then I was like, ‘Let’s make this a full song.’ So I think we took a Ghost verse from somewhere else and threw it on there. And then Boy Jones, that’s Ol’ Dirty Bastard’s son, put his verse to the track and he got on it as well.

[The movie opens with a remix of ‘Shame On A N****’ also.] Ol’ Dirty couldn’t be here to see it with me, but he’s here.”

Mable John “Your Good Thing (Is About To Come To An End)”

RZA Breaks Down "The Man with the Iron Fists" Soundtrack

Producers: Isaac Hayes and David Porter

RZA: “That’s one of those famous Stax songs that I was given to me to use for the movie, from the old days. It’s a classic that they gave me. It’s on the soundtrack, and it’s in the movie as well.”

Wu-Tang Clan “Six Directions of Boxing”

RZA Breaks Down "The Man with the Iron Fists" Soundtrack

Producer: Frank Dukes

RZA: “U-God set it off. At one point, we didn’t have Deck on it. I was like, ‘Hold on, we need Deck on here.’ He usually starts off, but he’s at the end. I’m proud of this song because, this is one of the first songs [in a while] that has this many members of Wu rapping back-to-back. And I called it ‘Six Directions of Boxing’ because every direction is covered.

“Those brothers ripped it. And for me, it’s a privilege, because it completes having the entire Wu-Tang Clan on the soundtrack. So we got the whole Wu-Tang Clan on the soundtrack, and the son of ODB [who raps on the final song on the soundtrack].”

Francis Yip “Green Is The Mountain”

RZA Breaks Down "The Man with the Iron Fists" Soundtrack

RZA: “She’s incredible. This song is in the movie as well. This is a big, important song to the movie. You can feel the Asian flavor.”

Corinne Bailey Rae “Chains”

RZA Breaks Down "The Man with the Iron Fists" Soundtrack

Produced by: Steven James Brown and Corinne Bailey Rae

RZA: “That’s an original track. She’s one of the few people who had seen seventy percent of the movie at this point. We were in California working on a few songs together. And I kept having to leave the studio and go back to editing. And she kept being like, ‘What are you working on?’ So I said, ‘Come and see.’ So I invited her and her sister. And they were the first women to see the film. And they loved it.

“It was good to have a female perspective, because we didn’t think that women were going to love it like that, and women love this film, yo. And she had called me up, and said that there was a part in the film that really moved her. She said she went home and kept thinking about it, and that she wanted to write something about this particular part. So I said, ‘Go for it.’

“I sent her a music cue from where the scene starts off, and I said, ‘Just put [your song] in the same key as this cue, and it will flow.’ So she wrote it, and sent it to me, and I said we could use it because it felt great.

“And one other thing she did that was special on this particular song is she recorded it on two inch tape. And we had to mix it that way. That was a requirement. To give it that old, soul sound.”

Pusha T, Raekwon, Joell Ortiz, and Danny Brown “Tick, Tock”

RZA Breaks Down "The Man with the Iron Fists" Soundtrack 

Producers: Frank Dukes and S-1

RZA: “Crazy [lineup]. Pusha T was one of the last artists to get on the soundtrack. We were almost out of budget, and we had reached out to Push, and he said he would do it, but time was ticking, and the budget was ticking. And then there was like three days to go, and down to the crumbs. So we sent Push the track, and he aired it out.

“Joell Ortiz actually had a solo song on the soundtrack, but I didn’t want it to be where it was overkill. So we pulled it, but we didn’t want to let Joell Ortiz not be on the album. He killed the other one, too. We should make it a bonus track because with his lyrics, the kid is on fire. And Raekwon is on fire too. This dude is on fire.

“I wasn’t aware of Danny Brown, other than that he was big on the Internet, and that he was from Detroit. But he was brought to the table, and fortunately, I dug it. I heard his voice, and I said I wanted to use him on the hook, because he had an ill voice. But they were like, ‘He got a verse he recorded, too.’ So I heard it, and I was like, ‘Yo, I like the kid.’

“I think a few people in the studio weren’t understanding where [Danny Brown] was coming from. They were talking this, and talking that. But I pushed for him to be on here.”

RZA and Flatbush Zombies “Just Blowin’ In The Wind”

RZA Breaks Down "The Man with the Iron Fists" Soundtrack

Producer: RZA

RZA: “That’s another cue from inside the movie that we took, and put it in song format. The Flatbush Zombies remind me of The Gravediggaz, so I thought it would be cool to pair with them. They were brought to my attention, and I was like, ‘Yeah, I do like these guys. Let’s put them with me.’

“I recorded my verses in California, and sent it to them, and they recorded their verses in Brooklyn. But we’ve hooked up since then.

“People say that I have an inimitable flow. But I think they kind of caught the flow on that one. So, bong bong. I like the song. It’s real good. I like the energy on it.”

Killa Sin “The Archer”

RZA Breaks Down "The Man with the Iron Fists" Soundtrack

Producer: Frank Dukes

RZA: “He killed a verse on one of the Chamber Music album cuts called ‘Drunken Tongue.’ He ripped that. Originally, I think Bob wanted Killa Sin to do ‘Drunken Tongue 2.’ But instead, we had a character in the film that’s hired to kill named Brass Body, and basically, we let Killa Sin be that voice. His idea is to come in, and just rip that shit. And he rips it from first bar to last bar, yo.”

Method Man, Freddie Gibbs, and Streetlife “Built For This”

RZA Breaks Down "The Man with the Iron Fists" Soundtrack

Producer: Frank Dukes

RZA: “This is one of the first songs that was released from the soundtrack. And the idea for that is they are talking more about the character the Blacksmith, and he built weapons. So on ‘Built For This,’ they’re talking about how they are the weapons that are built to rap. So it starts off, ‘When you forge your weapon.’ And then these are the weapons. The MCs are the weapons.

“Bob Perry reached out to Freddie, and asked him if he would like to do a song for the RZA soundtrack. And he was like, ‘Yeah, I’d love to.’ I met him, and he looks up to me as a legend. So he said, ‘Give me a blessing,’ because he wanted to be a part of it. And we allowed him.

“When we reached out to some MCs and artists, we realized that we wanted to make a soundtrack that combines old with new. So we did that a few times on the soundtrack. And that’s the idea, to show that hip-hop is that broad. There’s a cross-section. And it’s good, because it lets the new show their respect to the old, and the old show their respect to the new. And the fans can realize that hip-hop is really one community.

“Meth is great. He just doesn’t come outside a lot. [Laughs.]"

Wu-Tang Clan f/ Kool G Rap “Rivers of Blood”

RZA Breaks Down "The Man with the Iron Fists" Soundtrack

Producers: Frank Dukes and BadBadNotGood

RZA: “U-God came in last on the hook. I was on the hook at first, and my hook was terrible. [Laughs.] I wasn’t really focused enough to do the hook [because I was in film mode]. So I needed a strong voice. And U-God recorded his verse on ‘Six Directions of Boxing’ first. So I said, ‘Let’s bring him back in for the hook on this one.’

“And once again, we combined some of the score with the music. BadBadNotGood laid down the music for it, that band is hot. And then Raekwon, Ghost, and G Rap went in and did their thing.

‘And Frank Dukes, [who worked on a bunch of songs on the soundtrack], is a soul producer, and a good musician. And to me, he is someone that understands the Wu sound. He just gets it. And the minute he brings live instruments to it, it’s saving me a lot of trouble with the samples. He gets the vibe of the music, and then flips it. Real smart kid.”

Idle Warship (Talib Kweli & Res) “Get Your Way”

RZA Breaks Down "The Man with the Iron Fists" Soundtrack

Producers: Frank Dukes and BadBadNotGood

RZA: “That song was inspired by the movie, by Lucy Liu’s character. As you notice, the song starts off with her, and she says, ‘Power is a fickle mistress.’ It’s basically [about] the power of sex. And we reached out to Talib maybe right after the movie was kind of finished. And we wanted to have more of a female voice, and something that addressed the sex. So we sent him the trailer, and the trailer inspired him, and he came back with this.”

The Revelations f/ Tre Williams “I Forgot To Be Your Lover”

RZA Breaks Down "The Man with the Iron Fists" Soundtrack

Producer: Bob Perry

RZA: “The song ‘I Forgot To Be Your Lover’ is a famous track from Stax Records of course. William Bell did it, and The Mad Lads did it. So The Revelations redid it, and changed it around. For the movie, I was given some cues from Stax Records. And they let me do whatever I wanted with them. So I reorchestrated them, changed them around, and did all that. ‘I Forgot To Be Your Lover’ was one of the songs I chose to reorchestrated.

“That’s why in this particular song, it breaks into the movie cue. That’s the version done by The Mad Lads. But the version they re-cut, is a mixture of The Mad Lads version and the one by William Bell. They were both on Stax Records, done about five years apart.

“Then Tre Williams, being the great soul singer he is, and one of the few soul singers that the Stax team respects, he went in and, bong. I’m definitely a fan of Tre, and I love The Revelations. He did a song for me on the Wu-Tang Chamber Music compilation, the Al Green cut with Ghostface. This dude is good. I think he has a future, when soul music gets back out there like that.”

Kanye West “White Dress”

RZA Breaks Down "The Man with the Iron Fists" Soundtrack

Producers: Kanye West and RZA

RZA: “The Kanye track was actually written for the film. I invited Kanye into the editing room, and I showed him the scene [where Lucy Liu’s character comes around the corner wearing a gown], and it already had the music underneath the scene. And I wanted him to write a song for it. He came in to see the scene, and he loved it. And he was like, ‘Yo, I’m gonna bless it. Trust me.’

“So I took the track, which was more score [at first], and not as elaborate as what we ended up with, it was more just the soul Stax sound that we had. [I gave him the track], and I sent him away. We would communicate every few months, because it took about eight months to get all this music together.

“And about six months in, I was inside what’s called the sound stage. See, some of these songs are in the movie itself. Some are not. This is in the movie. But the only way to get it in the movie is to have it in by a certain day, because the movie closes [production]. And about one week before the movie closed, Kanye sent the song.

“We were happy, because we already had a version of the scene without it. But I emailed him one more time, because he had told me the verse maybe a month earlier, and said he didn’t finish it, but was like, ‘I’m goin’ in, I’m goin’ in.’ And then, when he finished it and sent it to me, I was like, ‘Oh yeah, he went in.’ I think he [rapped] great on that song.

“If my time allows me, I’m gonna try to slip down there to Hawaii to hook up with him.”

Ghostface Killah, M.O.P., and Pharoahe Monch “Black Out”

RZA Breaks Down "The Man with the Iron Fists" Soundtrack

Producer: Fizzy Womack

RZA: “Interesting combo. Now keep in mind, on this soundtrack, I had people working with me on the team, [supervising the music and helping to A&R specific songs]. For this song, we took one of the music cues from the movie that is kind of the underlying theme of the Blacksmith. And we had Fame [of M.O.P.] chop up my music cue into a loop. Actually, a lot of the case of this movie is us taking the score and turning it into song. And ‘Black Out’ was that.

“At first, we had Styles P on it. My version had him, but I don’t think we had enough time for the clearance. And so, we asked Pharoahe Monch to come in and bless it. And he [did]. And I told Pharoahe I’m grateful for him blessing it.”

The Black Keys and RZA “The Baddest Man Alive”

RZA Breaks Down "The Man with the Iron Fists" Soundtrack

Producers: The Black Keys and RZA

RZA: “That song was actually made right before I went to China to make the movie, as far as recording the song. I was in the spirit of the movie, and before I went to go make the movie, I wanted to do some music, to get it out of my system. So me, Dan, and Pat, agreed to spend some time in the studio together, about ten days. And we did. We recorded about ten songs, and this was one of them.

“I was really proud of this particular song because I wrote it for me to sing it. But I can’t sing. Soon, but not yet. So Dan blessed it, and I did a rap verse on it of course. And when I was in editing of the film, my music supervisor came across the song, and was like, ‘Yo, let’s put this one in the movie.’ And this was the last song I wrote before I started the movie.

“So we had a scene where we thought it would fit perfectly. And we found the scene, and put it in there. And it worked so perfectly, so we had Dan and Pat kind of rework it to bring it up to date and make it sound good. And they did. And bong bong, it made it on the soundtrack. First song.”

An Early Look At RZA's "The Man With The Iron Fist" (A Fun Martial Arts/Western Hybrid To Be Proud Of)

Long-time S&A reader Tony, attended an early audience test-screening in LA of RZA's directorial debut, The Man With The Iron Fists (one of S&A's most anticipated film's of the year); and Tony sent me the below write-up with his thoughts on the film that he saw.

In a nutshell, despite a few hiccups, he really dug it!

Take it away Tony (WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD):

This was a picture I had been waiting to see. There hadn't been many on-set photographs, trailers or posters for the film prior to the screening, but there I sat with the first audience to set eyes upon a work I had nervously anticipated - the directorial debut of The Rza, The Man with the Iron Fists.

Having been a huge fan of Grindhouse, the double feature exploitation fests from Quentin Tarantino & Robert Rodriguez, I was excited for what I thought would be like a the follow up to those films. Tarantino was to take a break after Kill Bill to do a smaller feature out the states, completely in Mandarin, but nothing became of it. Later Tarantino would branch off to make Grindhouse which featured Eli Roth in Quentin’s half, entitled Death Proof.

The RZA, who scored Tarantino's first volume of Kill Bill, ran into the director during a screening of a Kung Fu film and exchanged their love for the art, which gave QT the idea to have The RZA score Kill Bill.

Some expectations going into Man With The Iron Fists were that the look and feel would be similar to the Pei Mei sequences of Kill Bill Volume 2, with a gritty 16mm vibe. Although Grindhouse, a box office failure, did appear to have a lasting impression like films such as Black Dynamite and Casa De Mi Padre. But, despite the influence of Roth and Tarantino, the grindy, scratched film look is not present in Man With The Iron Fists.

The film opens with a clan inside of what appears to be a small dojo. Slammed across with yellow lettering is "Quentin Tarantino Presents," and above his name is the same in Chinese lettering. Blaring from the speakers are the thumping sounds of a RZA-produced track, while Ol’ Dirty Bastard is rapping over the track. Two fighters battle it out with freeze frames in between, to halt the action for the credits. The first thing you notice is the wonderful fight choreography. Not since The Matrix have the fighting scenes appear so beautiful orchestrated. The punches and kicks are well-planned out to make it seem fresh and new.

The RZA plays the narrator of the story, who reveals the plot to the audience; there is a transport of gold and nearly everyone wants it; but it’s up to the Lion Clan to protect their Emperor's possessions.

The Golden Lion is the head, but not for long, as he is extinguished by his cohorts, The Silver and Bronze Lions. Just as this double-cross happens, Golden Lion's son, Zen Yi (Rick Yune) is to be married to his soul mate; but once word reaches him, the wedding is on hold until he can exact his father’s revenge.

With a large sum of gold up for grabs comes an array of characters who want a piece of it, including in a pudgy European gunslinger who goes by “Knife, but you can call him Jack” (played by Russell Crowe). Once Crowe appears, he wholeheartedly steals the film. He has constructed such a character of calm skill that nearly mirrors Val Kilmer’s Doc Holiday in their sly crawl/shuffle just before unleashing all holy hell. Crowe not only shines but appears to be having the time of his life; he delivers a line, “I had one of the best times of my life” and you believe it.

As he strolls in he encounters Madame Blossom (Lucy Liu), the Mistress of the brothel in town. Lucy Liu still appears so young and vibrant, but never seeming as much of a bad ass as she does here. With the click of her wrists, she has control of her girls who are there to ease the pain and tensions of the mean, battered and bruised.

Our narrator, which almost felt like a tie in to Django Unchained (as RZA is listed as a cast member in that film as well), is an escaped slave given his freedom from his master as witnessed by his mother, Pam Grier. Sadly we only catch Pam Grier for a mere few seconds until the end credits (test shots of her chopping at the camera as her name appears). The newly freed slave is cornered while putting on shoes on the hooves of a horse; two whites threatens RZA’s character as they discard his freedom papers. After a light scuffle, which causes one of the men to hit his head on the corner edge of the weld, RZA escapes to the shore and leaves on a ship that crashes on the sands of feudal China. Here he meets Lady Silk (Jamie Chung) and earns his living as a Blacksmith.

The fight erupts over gold as the story unfolds, and an unlikely band of misfits comes together similar to The Good The Bad and The Ugly, with The Blacksmith, Jack Knife & Zen Yi teaming up to oppose the foes of the town. The Blacksmith builds the weapons for the Lions and the Wolf Clan, but as battle wages on, his weapons serve no purpose, as characters develop some unique abilities.

The two baddies that stand out are Dave Bautista who was a wrestler for WWE as Batista and Byron Mann. Bautista plays Brass Body, his already chiseled body can morph into Brass, deflecting blades and breaking his opponents bones on impact. Byron Mann plays the charismatic Silver Lion - he looks a hybrid between David Bowie’s The Goblin King, Prince circa the 80’s and flares of Michael Jackson, with be a fluffed out pompadour, permed out mane. This flamboyant bad ass elicited much laughter from the audience thanks to his hair as well as his mannerisms.

This was a bad ass Kung Fu picture that didn’t take itself too seriously, which threw me off a bit, as I wasn't expecting that.

The action scenes were jaw-dropping and void of the Paul Greengrass school of handheld nausea. This was a beautifully shot motion picture that felt like a Zhang Yimou flick with the lush costumes and set design. There are definitely uproarious moments of laughter, and some slightly campy vibes that are for the film buffs to note (tongue in cheek references). This was an overall great time of pure fun, action and Russell Crowe as a bad ass. Not to mention finally seeing Lucy Liu featured in an action sequence that blows you away. Liu’s Kill Bill felt rushed, but here she is remarkable.

The RZA directs a fun movie, but his acting seemed a bit wooden or so it might appear. His character is a calm, serene Zen type, who spends time mastering his Chi. But his performance was just not as convincing. The climactic battle was wonderful. Jack Knife & Zen Yi battling their respective foes had an insane build up that didn’t quite pull off the desired effect. It felt slightly rushed. Given all the fight staging we'd seen before the finale, these two sequences were a letdown and a waste of some creative gadgets in the ball park of Desperado. Not seeing Zen Yi return to his true love, for their wedding, was slightly cheated.

During the discussion that followed the screening, there were grumbles over the music choices. This put me at odds, as a man literally was offended that The RZA disrespected the culture by not using Asianic music. Think the recent resurgence of martial arts films in the states with Romeo Must Die, Cradle 2 The Grave & War, and the bass infused hip-hop intros to their fight sequences. Aside from that, RZA did use David Bowie’s song “Cat People,” which is not of that time period, but managed to ring in the feeling and emotion of the character.

Fast punches, high kicks, along with mean thug baddies, why not use a pulse heavy hip-hop track. After all the director is a rapper.

I, for one, overly enjoyed the film, and I'm anticipating seeing the film again, and I hope the poster will be similar to the Mondo styles that have be shared across the net lately. A fun thrill ride that is a chop suey mix of fists, laughs, & big hair that crosses martial arts and western beautifully, in a pulp style that Tarantino, Roth & The RZA should be damn proud of.

Given that test screenings are underway, with a fall premiere expected, we should finally get a first look at this flick, via a trailer/teaser, shortly.

Source by Tambay