The Disciple: A Wu-Tang Fable, a new Netflix documentary, retraces the long saga of the single-copy Wu-Tang Clan album Once Upon a Time in Shaolin and its controversial producer, but the film assumes a baseline fluency in the arcane events and offers little for casual viewers. Directed by Joanna Natasegara, who won the best documentary short Oscar in 2016 for The White Helmets, and executive produced by de facto Wu-Tang leader RZA, the film goes much farther back than the covert recording sessions of the late 2000s.
A Subjective Look at Cilvaringz
The Disciple is less a rehashing of the album's infamy than a subjective, meandering examination of its producer, Tarik Azzougarh, the Dutch Moroccan rapper and Wu-Tang associate also known as Cilvaringz. Azzougarh, who narrates much of the film built around his personal archive, can be a compelling lead: an unnervingly even-keeled presence, at once well-connected and under-the-radar, who came to the Clan via unrelenting ambition, having connected to their music with fellow immigrant friends as outsiders in largely white Holland.
But centering the bulk of a 105-minute film around one somewhat reticent lead can prove repetitive and dead-ending, extraneous digressions on the Clan's Hong Kong film references or tours around Staten Island notwithstanding. Natasegara draws out Azzougarh's fervent yet vaguely described obsession with Wu-Tang, particularly RZA, his eventual infiltration of their scene by phone and by simply showing up, his later entrenchment in RZA's inner circle.
Minimal Input from Other Members
With minimal input from other Wu-Tang members beyond vague recollections and niceties, there's little grist in what amounts to a slightly complicated and one-sided love letter to a genuinely formative, culture-shifting group. Though blessed by RZA, the leader only appears in archival footage or in ponderous grayscale interludes before a chess board, as if the relationship between mentor and subject were tricky and adversarial, not largely symbiotic.
Things pick up once the secret project gets going, bringing up artistic questions – why is a Warhol painting valued in the millions but not music? Why do people feel entitled to music for free? – and the practical matter of making one's money back. Azzougarh's idea to release but one CD, as the Mona Lisa of albums, was radical, but a multidimensional chess game this was not.
Shkreli's Late Entry and Limited Interest
Martin Shkreli, the "pharma bro" who purchased the album for $2m in 2015, doesn't enter the story until the final third – the "poorest" of the potential buyers, one subject recalls, with a reported net worth of just $200m. There's probably some intriguing nugget here for those locked into the story – that Shkreli planned to film a video threatening Wu-Tang members with mock guns, for one – but The Disciple is not trying to generate clickbait or conflict.
It does not, however, generate much interest, either. The film gestures at many potentially fruitful deep dives – on the passage of time and the curdling of one's ambition, on the relationship between artist and fan, or just more simply the disputes over how to handle a true rogue like Shkreli – but largely does not wander, keeping viewers instead on the glossy surface or stranded in long-winded stories about parties.
It's unclear where Azzougarh and RZA stand now, though one can probably assume that both endorse the exhibitions now being held by PleasrDao, an NFT collective, who bought the album for $4.75m in 2021. For true fans – the ones who'd fly to Tasmania to hear the album or be thrilled by a 30-second snippet in a documentary – there's plenty here to keep one's attention. For everyone else, it remains a crazy headline. The Disciple is out now in select US and UK cinemas and is streaming on Netflix.
