RZA will live rescore The 36th Chamber of Shaolin, a pivotal movie for martial arts film and the culture surrounding Wu.
RZA will re-score the entire film “from opening sequence to closing credit with an emphasis on 20 years of Wu-Tang’s catalogue. According to the festival, the “new score features a vast array of over 40 instrumental tracks, beats and vocals individually crafted and placed to amplify the narrative and electrifying action.”
A dubbed version of the film that RZA saw first saw The 36th Chambero Shaolin on television when he was 12 years old and again 2 years later on the big screen of a seedy 42nd Street theater with his cousin, Unique (who went on to become Ol’ Dirty Bastard). Dazzled by Kar-leung’s rich kung-fu tapestry, RZA (then Robert Diggs) was most profoundly affected by something that ran much deeper: the struggle between oppressed Chinese villagers and the repressive Manchu authority. “Beyond the kung-fu, it was the reality of the situation that hit me. Growing up as a black kid in America, I didn’t know that that kind of story had existed anywhere else,” said RZA.
No comments