The Art of Action - Loren Avedon - Episode 6

lauren avedon how the devil are you i'm the devil indeed thank you if i was any better i'd be illegal you know i mean they seem to do that with things that are super so i know i'm quite well thanks for asking scott and it's such a pleasure to talk to you and to be a part of this uh series that you're creating i mean it's just um it's just a dream for me really i know a lot of people are enjoying watching these shows i've got some good feedback but the truth is i'm doing it for me i love this stuff [Music] now i've never we've never actually physically met we've exchanged a few messages off and on but um just to declare this for the audience i am a huge lauren avadon fan uh when i was growing up when i was a teenager i watched no treat no surrender to uh no two nice trainer three uh king of the kickboxers so from that eighties through to the nineties period even the man of the martial arts scene i mean you know van damme was doing his thing but then you were the guy coming up behind his nipping at his heels and i love those movies lauren i absolutely still to this day i absolutely adore those films and i'm so thankful that you're on the show with me to talk about them absolutely my pleasure and you know um you know van damme or vd as i like to call him he is what he is right i mean you know you have a physique you have all of these other traits that are movie star qualities you know i just happen to be in the right place at the right time to substitute for kurt mckinney and then matthias hughes for van damme because van damme you know got the crap beat out of him as did kurt mckinney in no retreat one and i happened to be at the karate studio on a friday night who calls the karate studio at 9 30 p.m on a friday night but roy iran hong kong he's the guy from the snaking eagle shadow right but what happened was is um the guy answered the phone he was cleaning the school and all that and that beating the crap out of the bag because i haven't been able to train for like eight weeks and he says lauren can you talk to this person i can't understand them pick up the phone hello chung taekwondo can i help you uh this is roy haran a producer from hong kong and you know i'm looking for a guy above six feet and you've probably heard this uh they can do martial isn't it from roy herrera oh you did i had dinner with him the one night well i was doing triple threat with his daughter and um he told me some stories but please continue well you know so what happened was is uh by the way love love triple threat just wanted to say i was waiting the whole bloody film for you to fight man i was like what is he gonna fight what is he gonna find um save the best till last so uh basically he said yeah you know i said you're talking to him and uh i can come and see you tomorrow so roy horan is desperate to find someone to fill in the spot that kurt mckinney has left open for whatever reason van damme and carter mckinney not coming back for notre dame no surrender to even though they made it sound like probably they were and this seems like a last minute thing and you got this lucky phone call at the dojo was it taekwondo or karate taekwondo taekwondo and hot hopkido that's uh master jin chung master philip ree and master simon reed oh yeah all through all through high school i had wanted to train but i didn't have any money i you know i i was the poor kid in a rich community i went to beverly hills high school and graduated from there so right some of us some of my mates have gone is that what the tv show was made about yeah i guess the thing is this wasn't a tv show man this is a real deal uh so the the thing is is that um he called me the next day and he said oh i can't see you at this time and i'm like that's the only time i can make it because i just knew i just knew in my bones that i had to show up there so i show up at this house in altadena with my bag and my black belt and my stuff or whatever because i don't know if he's gonna want me to fight with him or what you know i don't know if he's gotta i don't know what's gonna happen he opens up the door he's got the beard the whole thing he looks me up and down he's like okay come in i'm like oh [ __ ] here we go and he says okay change into your stuff because the first thing with the chinese is can you do reactions you can you let's see your chops as a martial artist the acting not so important so did that he was impressed he's gonna see about 70 other guys and he does he calls i'm chewing my nails for a week and he calls me and he says okay you got you should show up they found matthias too to replace vendette okay you go up in century city and you sign this contract or you don't don't give me any [ __ ] just show up sign the contract i did that he wasn't messing about then roy no never did mess about mate he would absolutely uh put you in you know on the spot and he didn't want to lose face with uh like i didn't have the job even when i got there i mean in in mid at midnight i think in bangkok in the ambassador hotel i'm doing some reactions for you and quite you know just to show what roy had [Music] [Music] so found long between signing the contract and getting on the plane was it i don't know i think about five days oh wow so one minute you've got not really many aspirations to do this and the next thing you know you're in bangkok making a movie zero to hero had you seen the first one no i hadn't watched it before you got on the plane no i hadn't i was just like i was just just kind of in this whole you know like oh my god what's going on and then i'm like [ __ ] i gotta start training again you know so just to rewind then what is your martial arts background my martial arts background is taekwondo and hopkino but with june i was with uh them for 11 years they incorporated boxing and a lot of other i was i was part of the demo team i always had master ree de la bree would use me to do the hopkido kane uh demonstrations you know they have a phenomenal technique he put a hogue on me and he'd throw me around and you know he could just he knew he could just beat the crap out of me and i wasn't gonna say anything and brush myself off get up bow and you know go for it again [Music] so going into that uh no truth no surrender two so you're working with corey young who's you know part of the jackie chan stunt team used to be and you know very well-known action director in his own right went on to do the x-men and many other things did you have any preconceived ideas of what screen fighting was and what what surprised you when you started to screen fight for the first time well i was lucky enough that huang jung li was there at the hotel and part of the you know he's going to do that that gaffe with cynthia rothrock and play character so huang would take me into the gym at the ambassador hotel and work with me a little bit but again i had already this demo team kind of experience i had stunted a little bit because what would they what they did in the in the 80s and whatnot i was a pepsi slice black belt that's how i got my screen actors guild card right again call the studio so i had some idea and from watching films i knew what you know i had the sense of of what was expected and but i didn't know who you and koi was i didn't know who any of these people were really which kind of worked to my benefit because i wasn't like intimidated or struck by this or that and i was so willing and hungry that i was just i wanted to do everything i was like ready to go let's go let's go let's go was it a shock how difficult it was or were you lying okay that's what i expected um uh you know it it was something that i was able to to sort of absorb but yeah i mean i lost weight and i was in pain like you can't believe i know i know you know this yeah uh but the the whole thing is is i was i would teach martial arts and do private lessons for eight hours a day at uh jujung and you know so i was just used to the physical marathon of making a martial arts movie because you're training for long hours anyway that's what i try to do when i get ready for a martial arts film is i try to train you know more training more often just to get the body used to the abuse because it's an endurance isn't it making a martial arts film absolutely absolutely it's like fighting four you know grand championship tournaments in one day every day so on their retreat no surrender two um how long was the shoot i was about three and a half months and uh that's a long time man god i'm envious of that i wish it was like that these days and what so the longest fight in that movie i don't know what it would be um it was it was most likely the the fight with metis how many days for that yeah um wow that's 30 40 years ago let's see i think it was probably about three weeks that we did that and that was yeah that was including that was including all the other stuff the explosions the entire army coming in you know using that look at location up but this is a low-budget movie as well or is it i believe it was but they put a lot into it i mean the sets were already built everything was there i think shows with the fights the quality of the action is really great and i guess you know it's all about the time isn't it have you got the time to get the different shots the different pieces of the mosaic the jigsaw puzzle to put the whole thing together and the thing about it is this young way is not gonna i do you know do you know the word chun-bong no chin bong means fake so they would they would do these shots with us over and over and over and over and i'd hear if one was a cop chun bong let's go again yeah you're going to hear that but you're going to hear that man because you know there's no monitors there's no this there's no that but they're standing there and they know what's working and what's uh not working so you know you just as you know i do a lot of films with isaac florentine who's the director known for his martial arts movies yes and i always know when we've got the shot because i'll hear cut cut cut and then when it's a good one you're here [Music] talk me through a bit of this anything that comes to your mind as you watch it well the thing about matthias is is that uh he is a kind of he was a pentathlete he was a an athlete not really a martial artist so my bony little arms when he's blocking and doing these things he would they would cut the camera and his arms are just swollen almost twice the size they'd spray this stuff on his on his he probably wasn't used to it he's not using conditioning because he's a bodybuilder right right exactly i mean look at all that muscle but still i mean this guy had so much guts it was just amazing and he was so willing to do everything because who can double a six foot six german guy and thailand well so you know we're we're doing that and all of the stuff that we're doing except you know this bit was a stunt man that guy that going around that bit going uh going through there that's me uh doing the job doing this and that and this is matthias's idea to kick through the wall because how what's he gonna do wait and go around the you know the thing and come out well just to say i mean my experience of working in hong kong and you may as well be because it's a hong kong director i suppose maybe he's got a hong kong crew with them i'm not sure but anyway they don't mind getting doubles in you know it's about speed so if he if the director thinks i need a double to get this shot then then that's what's going to be done isn't it there's no there's no arguing about it and bring the gymnast in or whatever there's no there isn't but but but a jungkook wants the main person if possible uh to do as much as possible if they'll do it and so you know sliding down the thing into the guard tower we did that a bunch of times i was tied to a nissan truck you know to go down this thing and pull me back up now i'm standing up above the uh the deal there there was a a little stuntman named rocky i gave him my clothes and this is this is how low budget it was and this is rocky boom oh that's hard yeah so because they don't want me to break my arm because if i break my arm the film's over yes but most of this is me and they this stuntman came to me at a certain point to say laura laura you take a rest you know if you do everything we know work and i just was telling them hey that's a very good point isn't it what can you say to that except okay well i did say okay i said but you know can we make a deal that let me let me do what i can do because i need to learn and they respected that and you know that's something that you know i do as much as i can in this film but at a certain point they're not going to let me you know they're they're just going to say okay you take a rest and you know we're going to do this bit but it's the same for me i i really do want to do as much as i can absolutely do and you know i toyed with being a stuntman at one point because i had to make that decision am i going to be you know leading actor or shall we go the stunt route obviously we know what i decided but i'll try and do as much as i can because i enjoy to do it but i yeah yes if you injure yourself that is it the film is well you're going to have to continue injured and that really sucks you don't want to do that true true and i mean we get injured anyway you know so we're always looking at our wounds but uh you know that's something that's absolutely true so the thing the thing is is that that's something i admire about you and and being boycott all that is you know there's no you're not you don't have any pads here you're there you know bare chested you know knees everything's exposed and you're doing all these really incredibly acrobatic trickster trickster kicking you know that i wish i'd been able to learn and do in those days but it just didn't exist no it's the new generation i mean i look at the kids now and i can't even believe what's going on it's you know we're all standing on the shoulders of giants aren't we we you the kids start off where we finished you know it's true it's true and the idea is is that it just seems like there's a next generation of athletes and you're a part of that generation so that's that's just phenomenal but you know did the best we could with what we were told to do and expected to do and adaptation and athleticism you're a tremendously gifted athlete i did pretty well so you know i mean that's what kept me going and always great lauren your legs are amazing you i mean you're a tall guy aren't you you're not short and you've got long legs but you're very flexible and you can whip them around at speed absolutely i mean i i would always just look as a fighter in the dog or wherever else in tournaments whatever everybody uh thought they were out of range you're not out of range but you know there it is you know where am i oh your nose is over here you'll be fine but uh winner [Music] originally was it going to be a continuation of van damme's character and kirk in his character or because you know you've got the russian guy and the american guy i wondered if that was going to be their story and somehow they've gone to thailand but no it wasn't no no longer than seven weeks to shoot that movie was it three three three and a half months so that's about 14 15 weeks it's like making a james bond film i wish that's what the day isn't i'm envious of that you know how many weeks i get to make a movie i would imagine probably three on average about three weeks yeah wow lucky if we get four you're gonna move fast you've got to be rehearsed so young way coming from hong kong was he choreographing the fights on the spot showing you or did you have some rehearsal time we have uh you know typically on that kind of film a five-man stunt team and he had this guy named king chu uh that was the head coordinator and then they have five other guys that can double anybody of any size shape you know double cynthia rothrock double whoever needs to be doubled uh they just slap a wig on them and you know yank them about and that's that but even quay is the master so he we had an american crew for about six weeks on north retreat too they wouldn't do stuff that the chinese uh uh you know dp and and crew would do you know they would refuse to get in that clone water they were worried about some you know thing crawling up there you know eureka yes we've heard about that one right so that's that and so they fired them and then from that time on it was all you know the chinese crew yes vegeta knows 302 was it i mean it was a big success right was it always destined to go straight to video did it have a theatrical release or because certainly for me it was like a video thing and it was it was big in the video shop in the united states it was released in 2500 theaters oh wow yeah i have full page adverts in the la times with me and max thayer and all that stuff in that poster i sat at the pacific theater on hollywood boulevard sweating bullets watching my own film i still have the little ticket stub somewhere and uh it did a better per screen average than red scorpion at the time all right okay with dolph lundgren and it had a very good run and so i'm down with the reviews now i'm gonna guess because you know it's a martial arts film and the fight is probably more important than the story and the acting and more time is spent on the the fights than the acting with the you know you know so as your first released film and opening yourself up to the public and the critics how was that did you have a thick enough skin to cope with uh any negativity was there any negativity there's always negativity i mean come on now these guys these critics they are called critics for a reason because they can't make movies we know that you know so so but here's a very nice thing like variety called me the blonde-haired blue-eyed bruce lee and i thought that was kind of i mean i get a little chicken skin right now thinking about that but you know uh after that was released and then sg you know put it on video and it was all around the world now these these movies were going to go all around the world that's the brilliance of uh ng is he decided to make western um english movies with uh you know kind of tongue-in-cheek stories right yeah uh but uh for a western audience it seemed like a winning formula i mean people were lapping up these movies i lapped it up big time as a kid i thought they're absolutely fantastic and you know there's some bits i'll be honest with you there's somebody that you're watching and you think ah maybe i'm laughing at that moment when i'm not supposed to be so true there is a charm to that there is such a charm to that and i actually want to make a movie like this because i want to give that experience to the audience but i'm still not i'm still trying to figure out how to do it like whether to how how much to being on the joking house but but there's such a chance of these movies i absolutely adore them for all these reasons we're talking about and you know that's the whole idea that i would convince myself of is this is entertainment you know if the people are entertained you know because when i'm reading these lines or doing playing this character i'm going really you know but it's a movie you seem to be playing up to it you do go big at times and and seeing you can see that you're having fun with it and you're in on the joke absolutely yeah did you know that with the with the no treat no surrender to or did you think after that okay going into three and then king of the kickboxers i'll play more into what's going on there or or were you in on it from the beginning you know you just got to kind of roll with it because if you you know you're not given the time to prepare for the acting you can do you can spend all day gaffing the fight and there's no previz there's none of this there's none of that everything's on the spot and you shoot it it's in the can and you don't want to hear chinbong and you know you're moving on to the next set of 8 to 20 moves but when it came to the acting uh they don't care and they are the direction from them you and quay didn't speak english so you know all you'd hear from everyone so well is jesus he doesn't know what you're saying when you're saying the lines no either you're on your own man he doesn't hear it and the thing i mean you know so the thing is is but anyone there checking that you're sticking to the scripts or like maybe a producer or well yeah or roy was there we did have you know continuity we did have this and that but you know the fact of the matter is it's a thai gal doing the uh script uh supervisor or a chinese a cantonese gal from hong kong or something like that doing the script super supervision doing continuity and then you are the character so you know as long as it works hey man i'm a statue [Music] look the overacting i would try to do things you know subtly with discipline no no no no no lauren lauren more more bigger bigger more yeah yeah yeah no i've been there i've done hong kong movies and especially when you're you know the white bad guy the guy low yeah wow well you want to make that you want to make the director happy because he's directing the damn thing after all keith broke his arm three days before we were supposed to start shooting vitaly uh we got together three days before and we had a new stunt team we had tony liam shin hong who was the green dragon master in the first ibm i don't know if you know that or not and then we had dd we had all of the rest of these yes phenomenal um and then the the rest of the team so they want to test us they want to see how we move they want to see what we're doing so we go to this little karate studio that has no padding it's just like uh some glued carpet on concrete and i want to show these guys what i can do on the bag like some of these you know double kicks or triple kicks or you know flying psychic backache whatever it is right that i've been practicing because i did two a days for six months before we shot this i would be training because i knew what i was getting myself into and keith tried to do something said okay keith your turn and the stuntman walked away from holding the bag because i had him hold the bag for these for these double triple kicks whatever it was and um i'm like okay i don't think that's a good idea but i'm not going to tell keith vitale what should be done and i'm not going to you know override you know what i mean i'm this is this is i'm staying in my in my lane and he tried to do this double kick and he just went straight down broke his arm in three places so everything had to be changed a good way to start the film yeah and then g came to me and said lauren do you know somebody who can play your brother and i was like no first you've screwed me out of money now you're gonna screw him uh he's gonna throw him under the bus so i was like no because keith italian was like a big hero of mine um going through the martial arts every mexico you know i mean uh so it wasn't gonna happen they just rewrote things and like that bar fight uh that we do and those guys that are there you know that was a 36-hour day you can call it a day which scene was this sorry this is the bar fight when i come in in no retreat three yeah and i got the comb and i do my thing and i walk across the barstool when i push the guy out of the way and i sit down the bar stool and the guy comes up with the thing and i do the butterfly knife and hold it under his cojones and say sit down or say goodbye to your balls but like i do that split kick in the beginning okay well there's no room for that you know you you gotta take a couple of steps right to do that no there's no room there's a there's a ceiling fan going like this where my head's going to be and so i had them pile up some sandbags on the floor i take one step punch off go wang like that i had the wardrobe guys a gal make me some you know before they this was popular the little triangle that you can put in to the the jeans or you can have so yes so so that you don't you know squish your thumb out three times right i know you have there's nothing worse than a slow motion shot that also includes camel toe and that was so keith could recover uh and have a shorter cast because he had a cast from here and then well you wrote it into the film that's what saves you at the end of the movie right you'd be dead if not for that cast yes exactly and you know me with the soccer kick [Music] none of these americans could do those soccer kicks so well was upset that he's like with stranberry he's like why does it take two of us to fight this guy but so this is didi doing that little thing that's keith doing that and who was this guy you're fighting because i never saw him again but he's pretty cool well he was amazing he was just a great athlete his name is ryan hunter he's a hopi indian shaman he is just a tremendous athlete was just so so fantastic to work with now all of these gaffes now that's obviously a devil that's obviously a double for him just get the silva wig yeah get the silver wig put it on this guy and you know put it on anywhere [Music] [Applause] [Music] here it comes and that's real sweat that's not like they came and sprayed that on us this in florida you shoot in this yes this is tampa florida where i now live i live in clear waters so i fell in love with [Music] [Applause] i clearwater like heights okay anything do anything to me but just don't make me have to be that high off the ground well you get over you can't chalk your your hands up you can't do anything like that you just gotta get ready and do it so by the third day when i'm up on these unsecured wood planks you know where we're getting up to that i just after the second day i was it was no problem you know because fear is is what you make it or you know right you give power to what you give power to once you've accepted it or you're up there and you're like i don't care then you know it's it's it's all good [Music] the only time i got hurt on that whole thing was when the cameraman's looking down at me and keith is underneath me and a focused pulling deal falls off and it hits me right in the solar plexus that's the only time oh wow yeah this is it like i find when i'm doing like a big stunt or a big movement you're very concentrated and you're really zoned in and you you'll get through it okay for the most part because you're very very concentrated and then when you're not thinking and it's something simple you end up rolling over on your ankle or pulling a hamstring or something you know absolutely and you do exactly what you're supposed to do with these things is the harder you throw yourself into it the less you get hurt it's it's it's almost counter-intuitive but that's the way it goes i want to talk about king of the kickboxers now how long between notre dame surrender three and king of kickboxes was it uh let's see three was uh 89 and king of the cake boxers was 90. so i guess strandberg had already penned uh the next of this of the series or was you know that was that was already probably on ng's desk and it was just a matter of lucas lowe who directed no retreat three he came back and he did uh king the kickboxers although my unique did come in for keith cook's uh establishment of prangs uh you know incredible abilities so all right so that was young yes yes that particular gaffe was the thing about working with uh the chinese is as they often did that like young bio came in in no retreat two when you in kuwait they had to go back to hong kong to do some reshoots i don't know who young was right my ignorance kind of played to my advantage because i wasn't like oh my god it's too new you know you know what i'm saying so absolute legend right now this is so over the top oh it's that's me it's gotta be man it's gotta be because yeah who does this who walks in and decides actually tell my backup that they're not needed because i'm gonna tell these guys on my own even though i've got pretty much which never made sense to me i've always i would always say how could these guys got guns how come they don't just shoot me well you know movie over not bad boys and uh jerry was a little bit upset with the fact that he wasn't the star of the movie and being the golden boy uh you know anytime you work with kickboxers or mma guys i know you've experienced this yeah you have much control so you're gonna get smacked really you're gonna get smacked which is expected in these chinese movies anyway i mean we're all you know martial artists and we all know how to fight but then as you said you were spending some time doing the demonstration so you you're there with your partners you know you're not trying to kill each other you're demonstrating the techniques for an audience so you you know how to pull your punches these professional fighters or mma guys they spend so much time hiding the punches and you know trying to hit with full force that it's hard for them to get out of that mindset isn't it you're absolutely right and also you're trained not to not to show any any feeling or reaction which is completely opposite in film [Music] king of the kickboxers another top three and a half months again uh of fun and uh you know the thing is is that it was a really really cool idea snuff movies it's crazy yeah i mean yeah the thing about it is is what makes it work is billy and billy wasn't really you know a trained actor or anything like that and he just decided to kind of do this jamaican accent we got together beforehand um you know keith cook and he and i were trained in the hallways of you know whatever hotel we're in and the thing is about billy is he's so humble and he's such he was it still is an amazing athlete at my age to be doing taboo classes and teaching five in the morning to whatever but this guy is so fast scott 230 pounds he could pick the buttons off your shirt he'd say hold your hand up i'm going to jab your hand twice before you can move it i don't care who you are you know you can jump as well that move you did with the two legs yeah i've got got to get some heart yeah that's him that's there's no wire pulling him up there's nobody there's that's him and i think that they had to actually put uh michael de pasquale up on a little mound of sand to to get him in the shot properly to show because i shot that low obviously to show jumping center on those flying kicks yes and and and let me tell you getting kicked by the seven time world karate champion 14 hours a day for weeks after weeks and weeks was a little you know tough oh this chinese guy showed me how to throw a punch so close and then pull it back an inch and then push it back forward again so it really looks like you're really slamming them and of course the beer mug hooks those are the best because you know you you you see that full arc and you want to use that full arc and but jeremy nice to have the meaty part to block as well and this is the you know here's the thing the interesting part about the blocking is if you notice with a lot of other martial arts movies now is there blocking out here the chinese wouldn't allow that they wanted you to be like you know you know like it's just a last-minute thing that they absolutely insisted that you're not gonna block the punch out here you're gonna block the punch here or there you know this is great for you because you know doing the no twitter no surrender films and having these hong kong guys directing it and choreographing all the action you were learning from the very best in the business and that's what was lucky for me because the first film i ever did was a hong kong movie and i did a few and you know i learned from the very best people and i took that into my time in hollywood and all the movies i've done since you know i learned and it was ingrained into me beating into me on these films proper ways to do it you know right sometimes i take it into films in england or america and they're like what are you doing yeah you know it shouldn't be this hard you shouldn't you shouldn't hit someone that hard or whatever but that was the way i was taught and to be honest that's the way it looks best so if you're going to kick someone in the body you need you want to see a bit of impact if you're doing it with the flat of the foot right yeah it should be fine and or the power powder and or you know the sweat flying off or the little bit of water in the mouth that's coming out or whatever you know the whole the yeah [Applause] can i just ask you about this yeah [Applause] wait i needed that i love that man that's the charm of these movies uh and that's kind of him you know that's kind of jake is that uh he really like in gets off on you know because i guess with with any kind of character that you've lost your brother or you know you're you're a warrior and you've lost so many people that you love or whatever is that you kind of want to die too like you feel guilty that you're still here and like how can i go but not really you know do it to myself well i'm gonna i'm gonna have somebody else do it no no shot [Applause] which one the kid the place you was youngster they found just some some young man who you know spoke english and uh you know they just picked him up off the street i love it i love everything about it don't get me wrong i think it's brilliant i've been there for 10 years they couldn't under crank the film we're so fast he and i and they would shoot you know if they thought they needed to they would you know uh see they couldn't turn that down to 19 or 22 frames a second they had to shoot it at 24. did they shoot most of it at 22. sometimes they would but stuff like this they can't because there's uh there's an organic uh bit of this action uh that that has to go that has to match that bit where he's doing this and that it can't be and then stop slower you know whatever and then him doing that that gives me a chance to recover and overplay the owl and he's done one of those you know this is uh he that's the thing about working with billy he's not on his legs or your legs oh i had i i had some on my knees i mean that's why i kept my for first of all why am i gonna take my shirt off it'd be like me taking my shirt off with you you know i mean they're gonna look at me and go okay well bean pole super adonis guy okay no no no not gonna work so uh of course i kept whatever i could on uh there's the water the water in the mouth no and then you know i mean that's billy's foot but he's he's on a ladder and he's just going like that and that they did shoot at something like 22. so how many days are we shooting this fight scene for this was about two and a half weeks and the the fans of hell and then them burning uh that's uh them burning this smoke powder and these sort of rocks or whatever that just made you cough and gag because if you see this this smoky you know atmosphere and then i had to ask them to please change the real punji sticks that they had in the water these sharpened bamboo poles to rubber uh because i said listen guys you know i i don't know about you but you guys could slip off these platforms and fall in the water and impale yourselves never mind me it looks like you get kicked quite hard here oh heck yeah and on this particular shot with billy i knew that i had to stick him a little bit with that last front kick and so i did because how are you how is he going to organically go back and react like that well the only way i'm going to be able to do that is to stick him a little bit in in the gut see that jump i mean there's no there's no mini [ __ ] there's nothing i got some real jump on him it's crazy oh my god and he's a big dude as well to be jumping that high absolutely right and when you see him the first time you see him in the movie is when bruce fontaine you know gets the the hook and the and the deal he says they are waiting for me and you can see that good accent you can see how huge he is really uh and but through the course of the of the shooting he lost about 25 pounds who would you say is the best fighter that you've thought on on screen well there's there have been i mean obviously i think the top is billy really because of his precision was just it's just absolutely impeccable precision and and the lines and the beauty of his technique you just see his life right isn't it be beautiful when you see technique executed so beautifully and so i would have to say billy and then uh working with keith vitale just as a as a tag team again the uh just a line of the technique is just so beautiful to watch and he has some long legs too for uh uh because of the true martial arts that he is and that's why you're so great is because you have this martial arts background i don't know what you your background is well there you go so so you have this footwork and you have this understanding of line and of of the best line to make it really hard to see thing out of all the fight scenes you've done which was the hardest one to do i think you're going to say think of the kickboxers but let's see i'd have to say um yeah i mean it's kind of a tie it's just all of these end fights and grueling grueling but i'd have to probably say just because i was so green that uh the fight with matthias was probably the hardest just absolutely grueling i i mean i even at 25 years old it would take me 15 minutes to get out of bed uh day three and then and then you kind of get in the groover thing but uh day three is the one oh my god well there it is iv with donny and um you know you've got your stunt double that will um organize whatever the next bit of choreography is because they're making it up on the day i remember walking in day three in the morning and my body was absolutely killing me because you know i'm in my 40s at this point and i the first thing i see is my stunt double on the mats doing all these crazy kicks and i just remember thinking not today oh god not today and that's when you give yourself a gym and you start slapping the back of your neck and going yeah come on give me the skipping rope [Laughter] talk through what you love about this film okay so part of the thing that makes this uh you know koichi sakamoto is this and steve i think wang is if you notice mark is always pretty much in the center of the shop you know and they are definitely speeding up the camera they're definitely running 22 on a lot of this but what makes it so great is is is the lines is is these these when you when you do all of these you see all these flailing moves and then these these hits they are really hits see mark is just so to watch him move is just so beautiful because he is absolutely an amazing athlete and i would say you know of the time kind of the bruce lee uh for for his time here this is a guy the kick off the wall right it's a guy or gate one of your kicks bang bang off the wall uh which you know i love uh really and you know of course he's way out of ammo all the time he's shooting with this whatever weapon and poor bit brittany murphy he rests her soul you know she uh she's gone too soon now these guys are obviously swinging you know some foamy you know things but what's great look look at how they add a little flash sort of uh i don't know why these these flashlights the camera is in it works so well with the action the camera is always moving with the action it's never it's not too wide but it's never too tight you don't see what's going on right but he's always in the center and then when they pick the angles to to shoot this it's all about the hits it's all about where the cell is i mean i was told that they would sleep on the set alpha stunts um oh hell yeah hell yeah uh and everything is organic i love that he slides down you know it's just beautiful how it's all put together and um you know i hope that was a it's got to have been a fake uh a beer keg but maybe not you know they probably wired that thing and threw it right in that guy's face and you know that's what i'm saying i love that i love the idea that you you you know somebody's getting hurt here you know it's just like oh yeah oh that's very attractive when you when you actually see the physical pain or see somebody get hit hard i i love it i love to see tony jar kick someone in the head i just love it i know it's hard you nailed it that thing where and this is why i love working in asia honestly true is that you can get away with so much more than you could in everyone else when i went obviously i've done a few films in thailand as well and yeah they're stuntmen they're so gay and there was one thing that i did in a hard target too and i had to um back kick this guy um but there's a bit of choreography going into it and i knew that if i did that and i stuck the back kick then we were we had a green light to go for the rest of the gag which is he was going to move back and i need to do a jumping knee and he's going to smash through all this wood and go into the ground and it was a gnarly stunt to do because that whole thing is where we're running the whole gag and i knew if i stuck him hard with the back kick um that we were good to go and i remember i hit him quite hard but he didn't have a problem with it at all he was ready [Applause] there you go you basically pinned the shoulders together from the impact you know what i mean but that's that's what i uh and we were we were expected to do you know and that's what they want because that sells i mean itself well it's beautiful it's beautiful to watch it is no so it's it's something that i uh i miss you know really about uh doing anything is is you know people would ask me oh aren't you afraid you know what i was more afraid not to to take that and to do that and to know that i could do that and probably you the same have that same mindset of when you're concentrating your focus that you are just ready you know you're ready for that and you know i went back into stunting so that i could be a single dad so that i could take care of my mom so that you know i could do all of these things and have the time to pick my daughter up from school and so you know that's just the beauty of it is that we have this sort of i don't know i guess fire in us where we want that we want to feel it we want to give it we want to take it and you know kind of go later on yeah i did that right yes well for me it's just um having the opportunity to do what i love to do and when i'm doing it i just put 100 into it and and if it means that i've got to get kicked to make it look good then then i'm happy to do it and you know we're all working together with a common goal we're we're trying to keep as safe as possible but sometimes you know it's nice for one of the guys one of the stunt guys to step up and say no i'll take a good hit for this because it's going to look great and obviously we love those guys and we've done it ourselves and that's what it's all about that's the business we're in we are immortalized that way so don't you want to be immortalized as you know looking as badass as you possibly can of course pain is temporary film or video or whatever it is now digital is forever turns out the pain lasts a bit longer exactly it's my body's constantly going you remember when you did that well let me remind you i told you you shouldn't have done take four [Laughter] [Applause] put your body on the line uh to entertain me when i was younger growing up watching your movies you were part of the reason why i do what i do today so i want to say thank you to you and um all those bumps and bruises that you still feel to this very day let me tell you it was all worth it because you have entertained me and many others and we thank you for that well scott it's my pleasure you know all i can tell you is is that i wouldn't have it any other way it wouldn't change a thing and uh it's just you know i'm about to i'm getting a little teary-eyed hearing that you're you're one of my really you are i am such a huge fan of of yours do you remember actually just remembering that time you're at the aston villa leisure center in birmingham in the uk you got it man i don't remember me because we spoke about this but yeah i ran up and i got your autograph i was like thanks a lot lauren and you said you got it man so yeah thanks absolutely scott it's a pleasure and i i hope we get to uh team up because you know i think we could be still got some moves yeah we got some moves well you got some moves but uh you know let's just say i hope we get to play sometime as well because it would be an absolute dream for me oh that's good thanks lauren cheers [Music] you

Channel: Scott Adkins

Views: 160,248

Rating: 4.9708509 out of 5

Keywords: loren avedon, king of the kickboxers, no retreat no surrender, martial arts film, billy blanks, jerry trimble, scott adkins, boyka

Id: 90dQDWVdwN8

Length: 53min 47sec (3227 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 25 2020

Reddit Comments

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[removed]

[u/ktoad]

Oh damn, this rules. Thanks!

[u/[deleted]]

Which one was your fav? Loved the one with Gary Daniels