Man with the Iron Fists trailer punches through the wall

Universal Pictures has released a new trailer for its upcoming martial arts fantasy film.

The Man with the Iron Fists is directed by RZA, who also plays a supporting role. The movie tells the story of a small village caught in the midst of a battle among several warring factions. Ultimately, this prompts the local blacksmith to forge a series of bizarre weapons to help the villagers defend themselves.

As the writer, the director, and one of the actors (playing the titular village blacksmith), this is very much RZA’s project, and his attempt to emerge as a prominent filmmaker under Quentin Tarantino’s guidance.

Before The Man with the Iron Fists, RZA had appeared in a few films, and penned plenty of music – both for films and Wu-Tang Clan, but this is his first venture into actual script writing or directing, so it’s difficult to know what to expect. However, we do know that it has Tarantino’s stamp of approval.

The movie will likely be very bloody and quite sexual. How gratuitous it will actually get is difficult to discern from the trailer, since it’s the green-band cut – thought the red band cut we got about a month ago wasn’t all that different.

Otherwise, all we know is that we’ll have the talented Russell Crowe and Lucy Liu near the top of the cast list, and those two are both usually capable of bringing something interesting to the screen, though Crowe usually requires that the film be well written – as opposed to Liu who can be magical in any role.

The Man with the Iron Fists punches into theaters November 2nd, 2012.