Kicking off September 23 and running through October 6, 2026, this year’s Beyond Fest, presented by Mubi, includes one of the more intriguing double features from the RZA of the legendary Wu-Tang Clan. Playing before the classic Master of the Flying Guillotine will be the latest film that RZA has written and directed, and while his previous work, like One Spoon of Chocolate or The Man With the Iron Fists, may feel a bit closer to home, Beyond Fest is getting Born Invincible, a tale that Erika Alexander called “unique.”
One of the least shocking career moves was RZA adding filmmaker to his growing list of titles. Growing up listening to the Wu-Tang Clan, especially that first run of solo albums after their debut group album, Enter the Wu: 36 Chambers. The beauty of having RZA producing your album is that, although undeniably a Wu-Tang Joint, RZA make sure that each record felt unique, and many of them felt like the movies you’d throw on while listening to said album. Raekwon’s Only Built 4 Cuban Linx is as much Scarface or Goodfellas as Ghostface Killah’s Ironman is The Usual Suspects or The Education of Sonny Carson. Some of that is due to snippets of dialogue from said movies, but RZA albums felt like movies on wax.
Ahead of the Saturday Afternoon Kung-Fu Theatre event at Beyond Fest on October 1 (which includes a Q&A), RZA broke down his process as a writer-director, creating Born Invincible, and much more.
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This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Seeing “Written and Directed by the RZA” on the screen is amazing. When do you realize, “all right, this idea is something that I want to write” or “I want to write and direct this project”?
Wow, good question. My first film, The Man with the Iron Fist, was written and directed by me. I did have a partner, Eli Roth, on that one, because that was my first professional screenplay. But I was given the advice. Tarantino told me, "Yo, write it. Direct it." He's a writer-director, so he advised me to do that. Not an easy thing to do. So my second film, you'll notice, I didn't write it and directed it. I directed it, but Nicole wrote it. And then my third film as well, Cut Throat City, Paul wrote it. But both of those films were great experiences for me.
As a director, you do get a chance to do some rewrites and do some changing. But the purity of the voice of what I was trying to do - otherwise, not tell somebody else's story, but tell the stories that [were] evolving for me, like how an MC would write his own lyrics, you know what I mean? That hit me again on One Spoon. And so I was like, you know what? I think I wrote best. I could do both, but I think there's something special when I write it and direct it because I just think that there's not a misinterpretation. You know what I mean?
It’s direct, straight from the source. Because I’ve seen One Spoon of Chocolate., which is one kind of project, I have to wonder: where does a film like Born Invincible come from?
Hey, I am Gravediggaz, too, ain't I? [laughs]
You know what? I played myself. The RZArector, of course. But you’ve mentioned that there's a lot of you in One Spoon. Where's the RZA in Born Invincible?
Well, in One Spoon, I think that's almost like a heightened reality, social commentary, trying to bring some revelations through art to the world, sort of like a song like “Impossible” or “The Night the Earth Cried.” Something that's like, “OK, this is introspective. This is not just entertainment. It's edutainment in its own way.”
But then there's just the bars when you just want to have fun and play with the comic book knowledge you grew up admiring, the kung fu movies you absorbed. Born Invincible is part of the Saturday afternoon Kung Fu Theatre series. And we shot more than one, so I'm glad we get to share this one, but we shot a few episodes.
In New York, 42nd Street, they had three films playing or double feature playing, whatever. You go in, you pay $1.50, you might get two movies, but you could walk in the theater at any given time. It wasn't like you had to wait for the three o'clock showing; you just go to the theater, get your seat, and whatever's on the screen is on the screen. So you may be going to see Bruce Lee Enter the Dragon for his third run, but it also has Master of the Flying Guillotine attached. But when you get in the theater, you don't know what the hell's going on. You in the middle of something and you just watch it, then you just fall into that world.
The first time I saw Shaolin and Wu-Tang, which became where I pulled the name of the crew from, the first time I saw it was that situation. We was going to see another film, me and ODB, and this was just the double feature. When it played, we walked in at the last 20 minutes of it. The last 20 minutes when you're seeing all that ill... And so we was like, “yo, we got to stay through the film and watch it over.” And when we watched it over, it stuck with me for years. So, Born Invincible, we're going to play it at Beyond Fest attached to Flying Guillotine. The audience, they may know what they're getting with Flying Guillotine. They do not know what the hell they're getting with Born Invincible.
Were you having to exercise different parts of your creativity to figure out how to get this thing together, especially if we're talking about multiple episodes?
Our preparation for this and the different ways we thought about doing it, I mean, it went in so many different directions, bro, from, “is it digital? Do we go physical?” We didn't know what to do. And then we talked about keeping it physical for a long time.
I'll just give you a quick backdrop: some of this idea has been around since Man with the Iron Fist. There was a part of me that was going to put Dave Bautista in a suit.
What? That's crazy.
When you think about the '80s kung fu movies or even the horror movies of those days, it was something physical. It was something that you thought you may run into one day.
It felt like real life.
So that was our gag right there, and [it’s] not an easy job. We definitely had great help, pulling in different body parts to make that one body.
Now I don't want to jump around too crazy, but I saw you are part of the upcoming V/H/S/: Mixtape film as well. When people talk about making horror, some speak of there being a freedom there. Do you feel like it's different attacking a horror film compared to something like One Spoon?
Yeah, I think there's definitely freedom and fun. You make the rules of the world, and you don't even got to be bound by gravity. Even in a kung fu movie, you don't got to be bound by gravity. Crouching Tiger, they're walking on the leaves, so that's part of the fun.
Sci-fi, comic culture, kung fu, martial arts, horror—these particular genres allow the imagination and creativity to be even freer because there's nothing that has to bound you [to] the ground. I got one episode we got in the can. It just says it takes place “on the planet Z,” but it just looks like it's 400 years ago, but I'm acting like it's 900 years in the future. The imagination can really be fun, and I'm happy that Beyond Fest is like, “yo, let's show this to the audience and have some fun with the RZA.”
Now, when I saw Erika Alexander pop up in Born Invincible, I said, "Oh, all right. We’re here now,” because you know what time it is when you see her on screen. What was that process like, getting her to be attached to this? What was her reaction to the script?
I was fortunate to work with Erika on American Saga. We kept in tune with each other, and we actually, we are friends. She's a beautiful, beautiful woman, beautiful spirit. I wrote the part for her. When I sent it to her, I was like, "I know you're busy,” because she's definitely killing it right now, always killing it for years. She gave us her schedule, she read it. She said, "Wow, this is unique. OK, RZA, this is not like American Saga." She said, "this is very unique, but I really like it. It's very interesting to me." And she came and rocked out. What I love about it for her in this role is [that] she has the ability to be dramatic and comedic at any given time.
Yes.
She's in another episode throughout the series where she's actually more comedic. Same character, but that particular episode lends itself to showing us her comedic side. But getting her was a blessing for us. She made the schedule work. We got it in six, seven days, and bong.
Did you shoot Born Invincible on its own, or did you shoot all of these episodes together?
Yeah, I shot block shooting; we basically shot the whole month of February into March. We did about 20-plus days of shooting. After doing One Spoon myself, writing, directing, and producing, we got a technique now, so we're able to, I think, I won't [say] churn out, because we're not churning out like that, but we definitely have a formula that works for us, and we understand exactly how to get our crew motivated and take care of the business and get it done. One Spoon was my last training. [laughs] We had a lot of glitches in that matrix.
Do you have any plans for when we may see the next installment of this?
Look, the business is crazy right now, as we all know. We're fortunate to be blessed to be able to create art and have so many avenues, but it's very, what do they call it? It's unknowable, in all reality. But that doesn't mean that you stop making the art and stop exposing it and having fun because that's what we do, right?
Exactly.
And so we'll show it at Beyond Fest. We are talking to different outlets for it, and we'll let the dominoes fall as they may, but no matter what, we're going to keep creating the art. We're actually writing another one right now. We are in the middle of it. It's called The Gold Statuette.
One final question: You’ve worn a lot of hats in your lifetime. I'm wondering, right now, as a director, filmmaker, if you could compare it to any era of your work as a producer, rapper, with the Wu, what would you compare what you're doing right now to?
Bro, I'm in my “solo albums” now, bro. And what I mean [is] as a producer, right after 36 Chambers.
Does that make Born Invincible the Tical?
There's an episode called New Shoes that I think is Tical. I think Born Invincible is the Gravediggaz album.
