Director Hanelle Culpepper on Filming Fights & Making History in “Kung Fu”
Directing a series pilot has a huge impact on the viability of the show, putting tremendous pressure on the director. It’s pressure Hanelle Culpepper can handle, exemplified by the ratings and stellar reviews of her award-winning work on last year’s Star Trek: Picard. On The CW’s Kung Fu, she was chosen by showrunner Christina M. Kim to direct the first two episodes of a series making history as the first hour-long drama featuring a predominantly Asian-American cast.
36 Chambers of Cult: RZA Nails It With Roth and Tarantino-Presents Film, The Man With The Iron Fists
There is, arguably, no other group more defining of the 1990s counter-culture hip-hop wave that took America by storm than the Wu-Tang Clan. (For admittedly paltry proof, I can personally attest to wearing at least 3 copies of 36 Chambers bare in my stickered Discman.) But unlike other hip hop groups that settled their sights on fast money, easy women, and gang lore, the Wu-Tang Clan had a much more dynamic infatuation: kung-fu.
