‘The Disciple’ Review: Amusing Tale of How a Hip-Hop Protege Led the Wu Tang Clan Into a Deal With the Devil for the World’s Rarest Album

The story of "Once Upon a Time in Shaolin," the Wu-Tang Clan album pressed as a single, unreproducible copy and sold for $2 million in 2015, stands as one of music history's most peculiar collector's tales. The plot, already rich, deepened when the buyer was revealed to be hedge fund manager Martin Shkreli—a figure who would soon become nationally infamous for pharmaceutical price gouging. Following Shkreli's imprisonment, the U.S. Justice Department seized the extravagant box set, adding another layer to an already convoluted saga. This remarkable narrative forms the core of "The Disciple," a new documentary from Oscar-winning producer Joanna Natasegara premiering at the Sundance Film Festival.

While the film uses the "Shaolin" saga as its hook, it is ostensibly a portrait of Tarik Azzougarh, the Dutch-Moroccan rapper and producer known as Cilvaringz. A devoted fan, Cilvaringz orchestrated his own entry into the Wu-Tang universe through sheer persistence, eventually becoming a trusted associate of the group's leader, RZA. His ultimate project was the six-year labor of love that became "Once Upon a Time in Shaolin," which he conceived not just as an album but as a unique art object. As one industry expert in the film notes, "Cilvaringz understood the cultural capital of scarcity in the digital age long before NFTs became mainstream." The documentary's second half, which delves into the album's controversial creation and sale, proves more gripping than the first, leaving viewers to decide whether Cilvaringz deserves credit for a visionary stunt or blame for an elitist folly.

Notably, the film features no new interviews with the core nine members of the Wu-Tang Clan, relying instead on archival footage—a significant omission that director Natasegara has described as a creative choice. This gap is filled by Cilvaringz himself, a charismatic and compelling narrator, and members of the Wu-Tang Killa Bees, the collective's extended affiliate network. Through their recollections, we learn of Cilvaringz's journey from a bullied Muslim youth in the Netherlands, finding solace first in pop-rap and then in the mythos of the Wu-Tang Clan—a group whose aesthetic was heavily influenced by martial arts cinema like "Enter the Dragon."

The documentary gains a classic antagonist in Martin Shkreli, whose smirking public persona made him a perfect villain. Cilvaringz and his associates recount desperate, almost farcical schemes to mitigate the bad press from selling their art-piece album to such a controversial figure, including proposing a fake Twitter feud to "steal" it back. These plans were abandoned when Shkreli responded with real threats. The album's journey, likened by Cilvaringz to the warehouse finale of "Raiders of the Lost Ark," took another strange turn when it was later purchased from the government by an NFT company, its current purpose unclear. This outcome highlights a potential consequence of treating music as a speculative asset: it can disappear from public discourse entirely, locked away in a vault of pure investment.

Natasegara, whose producing credits include the Oscar-winning short "The White Helmets" about Syrian rescue workers, seems drawn to Cilvaringz as a figure of cultural mobility. However, "The Disciple" ultimately hinges on the audience's appetite for the absurd later chapters of this story. The film concludes somewhat abruptly, offering little clarity on Cilvaringz's current standing with the Clan, save for a last-second cameo from RZA that confirms his role as an executive producer. While the lack of present-day resolution is puzzling, the documentary succeeds in its core mission: presenting a fascinating, insider-look at one of hip-hop's strangest episodes, proving that sometimes the most illuminating stories are told not by the icons, but by their most devoted disciples.