Talk about a guy with a ton of creative accomplishments. We’d be here all day if I broke downeverythingThe RZAhas achieved over the course of his career, but with the release of his new film,Cut Throat City, we did get the chance to dig into his love of film and his journey through Hollywood pretty extensively on a new episode ofCollider Connected.
The RZA went big with his feature directorial debut,The Man with the Iron Fists, an ambitiousmartial arts film featuring a stellar ensemble and a slew of complicated set pieces. After that, he switched gears a bit and took on the music drama,Love Beats Rhymes, and now we’re getting his third directorial effort,Cut Throat City, a gritty heist movie that shows undeniable growth and more confidence behind the lens than ever.
The movie starsShameik Moore,Demetrius Shipp Jr.,Keean JohnsonandDenzel Whitakeras a group of friends living in New Orleans’ Lower Ninth Ward, struggling to put their lives back together after the area is decimated by Hurricane Katrina. Desperate for an opportunity to make some money, they agree to work for a local gangster and attempt to pull off a casino heist.
Not only did The RZA share loads about his experience making all three films, but he also went back to the very beginning, detailing how he knew he had a next-level appreciation for cinema and also revisiting the opportunities that contributed to shaping his approach to making his own films. The RZA learned from anumber of very well-known names includingJim Jarmusch,Ridley Scott, and also essentially getting a film school-like experience observingQuentin Tarantinoon the set ofKill Bill: Volume 1. Here’s how he put it:
“I just saw in him an artist expressing something that I wanted to express and felt I could express but didn’t know how. And I humbly asked him, would he mentor me? And he’s also a music lover. We all know that; you can tell in his films. He’s actually a music producer who doesn’t know how to use the equipment. And I was a director who didn’t know the craft. And the goal was to exchange this knowledge with each other. And we watched movies together, we built a friendship and when he was doingKill Bill, he said I’m welcome to come out. I did have a small privilege of having economic freedom to fly to China and set myself up and bring a few buddies, so that’s a blessing. But, I look at it like this; I look at it like some of us get the economics to go to college, and that’s where you go and you learn. I missed college. I dropped out of high school and pursued the street life and had to get a GED and all these things. So I didn’t get a chance to go to college and study. And I think, ironically, that the economics that I would have put into college, I ended up putting into these trips with Quentin, you know what I mean? And that became my school.”
That right there is just one of many incredible stories The RZA shared about his growth as a filmmaker and his deep love and respect of the craft. Check out the full conversation at the top of this article to hear more about the video store he owned, which actor challenged him most on set, the discoveries he made in the edit room onCut Throat Cityand so much more!
Cut Throat Cityhits theaters on Friday, August 21st.
