Fu Fighter

Years ago, a kid named Bobby Diggs watched the movies of the legendary Bruce Lee and the badass African-American martial artist Jim Kelly and was thrilled by their fast and furious action. But it wasn't until he caught the 1978 cult classic Five Deadly Venoms that he was “taken to another esoteric level” and became addicted to everything about kung fu movies – not just the kicking and punching but their technical artistry and underlying philosophy.

“Sacrifice, loyalty, brotherhood – these things really resonated with me,” says Diggs, perhaps better known these days as RZA, one of the founding members of seminal hip hop outfit Wu-Tang Clan. Already a versatile individual, RZA has recently broadened his horizons even further by directing, co-writing and starring in his own homage to the martial arts cinema he loves, The Man With The Iron Fists.

The big screen actually isn't unfamiliar territory to RZA. He has a long list of acting credits, having worked with filmmakers as diverse as Ridley Scott, Jim Jarmusch and Judd Apatow, and he has also produced soundtracks and composed scores for the likes of Quentin Tarantino. It was actually Tarantino who first advised RZA to write screenplays, and RZA admits he apprenticed himself to Tarantino when the pair worked together on the two Kill Bill movies.

“When I met Quentin Tarantino I met my movie sifu – my master, you know what I mean?” says RZA. “I saw that in him and I asked him, 'Can I be a fly on your wall? Can I be your student?' And I took it seriously. Because I saw that he knew. Not too many people knew what I knew about kung fu movies, you know? Nobody could pull one out on me… but he pulled one out on me!”

With Tarantino providing guidance and motivation, RZA began working on the multi-layered, action-packed story of a village blacksmith – played by RZA himself – who finds himself embroiled in a violent conspiracy pitting warriors, mercenaries and noblemen against one another in a struggle for riches and power in feudal-era China. Along the way, RZA gained a new ally in Hostel writer-director Eli Roth, who co-wrote The Man With The Iron Fists' script with RZA. “He's super-smart,” he says of Roth. “He's known as a horror guy but he knows everything about films, and when I told him this story he was really enthused about it and wanted to help me out.”

Music had long been RZA's primary form of artistic expression but he was finding himself increasingly drawn to the screen. “There was this urge in me,” he says. And he admits he found making music and making movies shared attributes in many respects. “The mechanics and the logistics of it are totally different but the creative energy is very similar.”

The Man With The Iron Fists is full of tributes to the genre, whether it's a soundtrack cue from John Woo's The Killer (“That was my way of letting John know he was right there inspiring me,” he laughs) to the presence of Gordon Liu, the star of the iconic kung fu movie 36 Chambers Of Shaolin. It also has a wonderfully eclectic cast, with Russell Crowe (RZA's co-star in the 2010 thriller The Next Three Days) providing enjoyable bombast as a knife-wielding secret agent.

And even though RZA is playing the title role (you'll have to see the movie to see why), don't call him the star. “I don't consider myself the lead in this picture,” he smiles, reeling off a number of kung fu movies where the title character gets killed in the first ten minutes or doesn't even appear until the final 20. “That's how kung fu movies are done!”