Quentin Tarantino’s favorite, Kill Bill’s Lucy Liu, came aboard as Madam Blossom. In Universal Pictures ‘The
Man With Iron Fists’ owner of the local brothel and de facto queen of
Jungle Village. Liu explains her
interest in joining the venture: “For
some time, Bobby and I have been in each other’s lives without
intersecting. He wrote Oren Ishii’s
theme song for Kill Bill. But when he
sent me Iron Fists and I read it, I saw how connected it was to so many of my
favorite old Chinese movies. Bobby
formulated his own ideas and compiled them into this completely entertaining
amalgam, which I thought was fantastic.
This was a gigantic project for him to take on, and I’m thoroughly
impressed and proud of him.”
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| Photo courtesy of UIP. |
The actress found her director a
welcome partner in fleshing out one of the film’s leads. In earlier drafts of the script, Madam
Blossom is killed by one of Jungle Village’s street urchins. Liu requested that her key fight scene be
much more elevated and therefore more fun for the audience as well. She recalls: “As Bobby and I spoke more about the role, I said, ‘If I’m going to
participate in this and we’re going to make it what I think this movie’s going
to be, then we need to have her fight...and I’m talking a full-on fight. If she’s running this brothel and managing
these women, then we should emphasize Madam Blossom’s strength, especially
against the backdrop of all these men from different animal clans. He was really open and excited about it, and
when I got to the set in China, the fight director choreographed this elaborate
fight sequence with Cung Le to help feature her power.”
RZA appreciated the give-and-take with
his lead actress. He says: “When I talked about the character with
Lucy, she was adamant about representing the power of female energy. I told her she could be assured that female
energy would be represented in this film.
If you notice, we have the big statue of the Buddha, but then we also
have the big statue of the Guan, which is the female representation. We know that it takes yin and yang to come
together, so the Black Widows are that yin and yang energy; they’re not here to
play. They are as pretty and innocent as
you want them to be, until it’s time to protect their own.”
What is it like
working with Russell Crowe, who plays Jack Knife, in THE MAN WITH THE IRON
FISTS?
Russell is really
committed to everything he does. Whether it’s a small or big part, fictional or
not, he is 100% there. And I think that he really went underwater for this
character. He kind of developed the character as he was there and I think the
fluidity of the script helped him. He’s somebody that is incredibly fluid.The
script allowed him to morph into the
character and understand more as he wenton and just got deeper into it.
We talked about the
actual idea of the Black Widow and what the Black Widow represents. How she is
actually quite loyal and that there are so many things behind the actual idea
that it’s based on. So we took the personality of the spider itself and
incorporated it into the background of the character. Originally, the character
of Madame Blossom didn’t have much depth to her. One of the orphans kills her
and she didn’t have a fight scene. She was kind of a cold blooded character.
And I think it was understandable because it’s such a male driven movie, with
male driven energy. Then RZA and I had a conversation about the idea to change
Madame Blossom’s character a little bit and he agreed with me. Having a
backdrop of her starting up as one of the urchin orphans and then working her
way to becoming the Madame Blossom/Black Widow was her way of coming back and
having revenge on all these men that mistreated her when she was younger. So my
character changed completely and it’s funny because her placement in the movie
didn’t change, but her action and dialogue completely changed. She became a
very powerful person through that back history we gave her.
It doesn’t matter
what you’re doing. You could be working a fictional or non-fictional character.
It could be campy or not campy, who knows what, but it helps to have a history
so there is some believability when you play that character. It just makes it a
lot more secure, even for the audience. If they feel like they have that,
there’s a base. Even if it’s completely off the ground, there needs to be
something to give foundation to that character. It helps you when you know why
you’re saying or doing something, even if the audience doesn’t know what it is.
It just gives you something to work off of.
Were you able to
cast all the actors that you wanted in THE MAN WITH THE IRON FISTS ?
I was just saying to
some people how it was Bobby’s (RZA) project, but he made it “our” project. I
think everyone that participated in it, including Russell, knows that RZA made
it an “our” thing. He never made it as “this is what I’m thinking, this is what
I want and you have to do it.” He allowed us to bring what he thought we were
going to bring, which was something different and special and unique to the
characters. In between takes, a lot of directors come in and nitpick, and Bobby
(RZA) didn’t do that. He let you do your thing. If there was something that he
wanted you to highlight, he would say, “Can we highlight this point because it
has something to do with the plot.” From an artist’s perspective, he’s
communicating what he thinks you need, but he doesn’t give you different
greens. He’s like this is your palette can you make sure you use it any way you
want. Normally, I think that directors feel the need to come up and tweak you
every time, which can sometimes be an annoyance. And first time directors
generally do that because they’re so concerned about not getting it right. RZA
didn’t do that.
Originally, Russell
and I never had a scene together. It was such a shame. Then that changed.We did
have a scene together. It was brief but it was potent.
“The Man With The Iron Fists” is released and distributed by
United
International Pictures through Solar
Entertainment Corp.
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