The Art of Action - Tiger Chen - Episode 32

tiger chen how are you sir i'm good how are you my butter i'm okay i haven't seen you since thailand since we were shooting triple threats i was a while ago now three or four years oh my god i'm so fast pleasure to work with you on that movie thanks for having me because i know that the movie would not exist if it was not for you the the movie was your idea and uh you got it made so thanks for that because i had a great time in thailand fighting tony jar and eco away but i did not get to fight you uh yeah i saved for the next one save for the next one yeah not triple t threat two because i'm dead but maybe a different movie another one you didn't do another one i'd love to learn about how you got into martial arts or which martial arts you trained in and uh how that eventually led to getting into the film business yeah all right i started as when i was young was watching you know jabya you know sadly temple yeah and i love it i love the movie i love jelly i love you know chinese martial art and then yeah i just asked my mom i want to learn martial art i want to learn kung fu then my mom sent me to the school and i get it to you know and then year after one year i go to tournament like a non-national tournament like a state tournament and i win champion and i get the next year i go to international tournament like a champion and so wow so i'm professional i can become professional you know the chinese martial art is professional it's not like in us we have different assistants can you tell the audience uh what wushu is and how you know you've got the kung fu side of things but also the performance side of things with the competitions well basically i started like uh northeast and then try to you know taste all kind of different forms so and then later on i say oh i mean i'm a interested in taiji and i drop the north face then i go to the taiji especially for taiji style so and i love it so i become okay professional and tai chi styles like tai chi you know [Music] so when you were doing your performances your your your competitions it was all tai chi or was it more of the dynamic sort of what i could think of as wushu the the jumping up the 360 spins and the weapons and everything yeah it's all all kind of stuff we have uh like uh when you go compete you will need to do in six different forms so you need to do taiji you need to do like short weapon you have to do long weapon yeah you have a traditional form [Music] and you have to go to like uh what's that called fighting each other but it's you know okay oh so that's part of the competition is to do choreographed fights which of course is a perfect segue into the movie business yes yeah that's why there's a lot of wushu guy become like a you know much movie star yeah and you guys are doing like um routines that can last up to two minutes three minutes right and you're getting this close to each other with the punches and all the reactions it's it's difficult to do it live right yes fake like twist twist we learn a lot of moves from moving from the jackie change movie the earliest movie we have a lot of stunts so we're just watching the you know the movie and then we try to copy the mu and the tournament and we show in the tournaments yeah it's fantastic stuff so which was your favorite long weapon uh just uh uh steve the bow the staff yeah the staff yes yes any other favorite weapons to perform with uh nice section the what then the nice section oh the chain okay then you spin it under your bum and all that yeah yeah yeah yeah [Applause] how did you get involved with master yanwu ping and how did that all come about and uh so after a couple years like eight years ten years i like i forgot ten years training so i get tired so i just say okay i'm not going to do this anymore so i quit how old 19 okay and which part of um china are you from this is fine okay yeah okay i've got no idea where that is yeah okay of course so 19 you you're bored with the competing and you stop and then i have this opportunity to go to a a coach teaching a demonstration in us okay i go to u.s and i do a demonstration and then like a culture ex exchange so we just show kung fu chinese culture and teach you some taji some stuff and then go to tourman compete tournament and later on it's uh 1990 1997. so i get the call from wooping so you say we need one guy we need a young guy who's in the us who has experience to teach the why guy speak english speak okay english so then i say okay i can i can be the guy oh wow that's that's a life-changing moment right there you probably didn't know it yes that's yeah yeah definitely changed my life yeah it's in the philadelphia and then get the ticket from the you know my friend got a ticket they say oh ticket from hollywood take it from hollywood and basically they're giving you the opportunity to go and train keanu reeves carry on moss and lawrence fishburn for the matrix yes because it's not easy to when they bring the guy from you know mainland china to the u.s okay they have to find the guy already in us okay please continue how long did you train them for all right then i go to los angeles and i would say oh i have to show me your what you have what you got and it's like you know do what i can [Music] so so the actor you teach it's keanu reeves i said oh who's keanu reeves is it say like the speed that you see speak before i say yes i love that movie that guy is the guy from speed oh okay now i got it yeah and then we beginning to train counter-cons and have the necklace because he has a broken back don't like this stuff yeah yeah i'm killing yeah yeah ken and camu and there's a doctor next to him so tell him he can't do this can't do diane so it's very difficult for him so young pig must have been thinking ah what am i gonna do at that point i mean listen it all worked out brilliantly but uh maybe at the beginning he was like oh i don't know about this yeah but then when i when we were the whole the hong kong team arrived to in in los angeles so the wounded brother and the director the actors they all come they say okay you show us what you can do okay then we can say okay you go do your demonstration so i get i do the the whatever first form and do some uh next section the chain the chain and probably after i did it all right the director yeah come to ask a look and say okay can you make kian look like this in three months yes this guy is tai chi wushu champion and it will be okay try my best i'll try my best so keanu reeves i mean now he's john wick and all the rest of it but obviously he's got a very strong work ethic and was that apparent from from the get-go even with the neck he he was obviously a hard worker yeah he's he trained so hard he's hardest tractor i've ever seen so i mean not like us you know us we we are more like uh you know used to the physic stuff but he's like before 30 he didn't exercise that much and i first met him he's like uh you know can't even can't even touch his knee like very stick very thick can't move yeah you want to try you try so hard try very hard what what's what's the importance of of a previous tiger well this is the we just choreograph first and then we have to the director ask us to you know you have to shoot it and then show me then we shoot it to show a director uh the wachowskis they um very reliant on yonwu ping of course i mean they've hired him to do the job that he's done in many asian movies previously but how much of an impact did they have on on the on the fights i think uh you you start the movie uh the matrix first one i mean especially the first one yeah pretty much it's very much like 100 you know like whoopings style yeah yeah the choreographer the way the camera were put the camera it's pretty much 90 the first one yeah but would they sort of say well we like this from uh iron monkey or we love what you did in one spot of time in china or did they just let young woo ping just do whatever he wanted i mean you know they're obviously they've written this the script so uh we when uh when we there uh they already gave us the [Music] the ideas the ideas concepts what the move on the they love the physical legend the favorite movie for the two directors it's a legend so me too me too me too they already have the storybook done all the action move they already have the first track now for me it's interesting because the previous i don't think that is something that wooping would normally do normally in hong kong movies chinese movies you just get to the set of the day of the shooting and you'll have an idea and you'll just you'll make up the fights in and you'll film it as you go the previous thing seems to be something that was done specifically for the matrix would you say yes first time i think especially for the hong kong team then i use them yeah but i guess the directors wanted to see okay we want to we want to okay what you're about to do we want to know what you're going to do before you do it yes yes it's american style right now the hong kong style yeah hong kong style hong kong style always you know always make everything you know a set yeah let's do it tomorrow at the set yeah i mean i think it makes more sense to do the previous in the gym and then you know exactly what you're going to film on the day when you're spending more money and then do that but i understand there's more of an organic sort of it can create more ideas to be sort of doing things on on the spot i think at least we i think it doesn't matter an american style hong kong style at least you have some you know like some creative you know like 100 not 100 percent these you have a 70 percent what you want to do what move and you when you go to sand with that you you know you take a look you know the the set you know what you can use it what what's different then you can change a little bit right yeah yeah would be the perfect choice i think yeah that makes sense to have a plan but to be able to deviate from the plan if you get inspiration yes the last time i worked with young woo ping was it man four and we did two weeks of training and i was learning a fight that i thought i was going to do with with donnie anne but then when i got to set the whole thing the whole thing was different i think they were just getting me back into shape that's what they were doing getting me ready for hong kong style yeah the hong kong style is always like that like not even the hong kong like the china style is the same they they training you the one way and when you go they should it's totally different it's crazy it's crazy you know i was thinking the day before i started the the end fight i thought i'm gonna uh i'm just gonna relax i don't want to get any injuries going to look after myself and then they brought me in the day before we started the end fight with donnie yen and they had me doing this kick on a wire training it over and over and over again i'm not very good with the wires i'm not used to it and so i ended up pulling a muscle in my leg and then i came set the next day and we didn't even do that kick and i just had a torn muscle it's like yeah great yeah that's you know hong kong yeah so we we met um in paris uh filming unleashed and uh you were double and jet li and uh that was a long time for that fight that was a good fight scene that was we had about i remember having like two weeks to do that fight in that swimming pool and then also that movie is a good movie i like that it's a good film yeah it's one of gently's best american films yeah but when you know the chinese doesn't like it why because he's a dog yes oh okay he wasn't a dog because he was chinese he was a dog because of bob hoskins brought up a bad way can't show up in china so yeah oh right yeah it doesn't doesn't go to chinese movie dinner yeah not at all no oh wow oh okay yeah well it's a good film it's a great film this was back in the day when luke besson was using hong kong directors like yonkwei or yong ping to film the action uh for those movies and they'd have another french direct director louis leteria for that one but he was doing some some great action films and uh that was a fun experience for me in a nice padded swimming pool yes a lot of the fighter all the fighter is good and i think i think they have they got the best all the best fighter from europe right well and me i wasn't one of the best no just talk us through this how many days did they spend on on this fight scene two weeks wow two weeks yeah is all the floor padded here yes yeah yes is it a set it's all built on a set yes i'll build a set and then uh because you know the most difficult shot is the last shot like uh five different guys running together that thing takes a long time because we have to shoot it one by one they lock down the camera and then one guy go then the other guy go and they're going to find a guy and they didn't oh so it's all separate okay well look at reeves here he's just amazing he's brilliant choreography he's he's so on the money it's so stylish i love the music in this sequence i love the destruction the elements the weapons it's a great fight yes second one he's already you know amazing he's better than you know lots of stun guys yeah cause the second one he's been training uh twice so this time he's much better than the first one look at him yeah you can see john wick is being born no neo leo's mia is amazing man yeah and for me to see this in the cinema a movie like the first one in the cinema being a fan of kung fu films and seeing america embrace that style was just incredible at the time yeah this is david leech david leech yes is tiger tiger chan yeah oh oh jade stayed on though shades stayed on well done this is the shot you're talking about yes this is a locked off camera and each performer does the stunt setup because the wires would be tangled up yes otherwise wow that's good in fact you need good props don't you because if you're swinging around weapons that are going to constantly break or they look flimsy but they can't be too hard because then they're dangerous yes the weapons is still very heavy very heavy i mean you you can feel it harry did the real ones they're very hairy yeah oh wow because they want to make the rubber the rubber river they have to make they like safe look this is my favorite move this bit here it and then he he does like two blocks the same but there's something about it that's really cool that's very challenging yeah hey up he's free and he's got a long weapon oh heavy one now were you scared that he wasn't gonna duck how much trust did you have that he was gonna duck yeah because we've been training for so long so we're gonna cancel the third movie because tiger has has knocked out kit on the roofs yeah i think i want to download by one shot in one tick so that's why it got very deep i mean was there any occasions where somebody had smashed one of the walls and you've had to reset and do it again well lucky you know we all you know very lucky very professional nobody done anything wrong you know yeah it's all good that's a nice ending yeah [Music] it's brilliant stuff man must be so proud to be part of that are we allowed to say that you've been shooting the new one me yeah a little bit a little bit that's all we can say is that the new there is a new one it's been shooting and that you've had some involvement yeah same thing a little bit yeah okay very much looking forward to seeing that cannot wait yeah me too i would love to start with the movie and done it looks amazing in the set but you know i would love to move the wheel correct me if i'm wrong and i may be but as far as i know the man of tai chi was your first leading role in in a movie as a star is that am i right or wrong and she needed the second one okay so what was the first film you made as an actor then uh the first one called kung fu man how did you make the jump from doing stunts to being the uh the star of the movie uh you know after i've been doing like uh some for like 10 years i think i'm pretty much done with stunts yeah because the you know people give grow old so i know one day i'm gonna grow well too so unfortunately it happens to all of us unfortunately everybody's the same so including me so i was thinking you know you can't do this forever you know and then i say okay maybe but there's some a lot of guys directors actors that they just encouraged me they just want to say oh why didn't you just try to be an actor you know doing the fights on yourself in front of the camera i said okay okay let's try it then i just try it and then uh i have this uh producer dashing which is my friend and we try to write a script and then we have the script and then we go to i was go we go to piano we say we want to make this movie can you like just be uh in the movie for like 10 seconds or one meaning whatever you know yeah okay let me said let me read this script first and then you read this book and then you come back say the script it sucks the bass grip yeah you guys don't know how to write script right can you write that another one okay all right we got it then we go write this right again we hire the kind of different chinese american writers to rewrite it so many we give him like a at least five six strap by the end he's like pissed off he's like do you the guys know how to write script do you know guys know what is goose grip you know you can't you don't all right i write it it's okay perfect you ready let's hire the the writer okay who's the talent young okay we work together you me your producer and the writer four of us we can work together for this script then i okay and then we find a young like irish irish irish writer yeah mike connie and then we yeah then we go to keanu's house we have a meeting and then we come back friday and we go again meeting like back and forth back and forth after five six years finally he'd think the script it's okay now five years right with this man of tai chi yes this is mao taiji so how did he end up deciding to direct it then because he's so into the story he gave us so many his ideas in the story we all feel like three of us all feels there's nobody understand the story better than you so you should direct it or you should you know be a bad guy and then he think of it he said okay i think about it okay after like a couple days you write an email to everybody it says okay guys uh i decide to be this movie director and i play the villain it takes six years yeah six years but it couldn't have been a better outcome really then they create they try to they want me to shoot the small movie first which is kung fu man this big guy here he's uh he's a big dude it's very big he's a he's a [Music] like a national the second or third okay the wrestler oh wrestling okay so how long would it take to film a sequence like this this one i think uh this one let's take it two days so the storyline of this is you're protecting these kids from these baddies yes yeah you've got a superman cape on as well yes that's for the kids yeah so how old are you here tiger thirty 39 38 2009 2008 to the nine 38 39 so how was the reception for that movie then well because of this movie shooting finished before the map taiji right but you know the the they don't want to release first right they want to they try to release aftermath attention because they think that math taiji is a good big movie so yeah you can just follow and go to the movie dinner and make money easier you don't need to spend money before [Music] he's a phenomenal performer jeremy isn't he's so athletic yes he's so good he's like today i think he you know he's he can fly and he's like twist twists 660. he's the new breed of uh action fight performer it's just incredible and he's not afraid to throw himself around either well like like we all are all stunt man yeah and he's so good so who's devising the camera angles for this nope it's kian it's all right okay can i only desire the fight i mean choreographed to fight and all the camerawork is from keanu we have this uh story can all over you know you love steadycam it's a great looking set as well the idea to come up with this room that's very it's almost like an office yes for fighting it's great yeah also it's kiana's id yeah it's very smart i love the music in this movie as well it's it's different but very fitting yeah has a very different taste i mean very unique taste about music about visual do you spend two weeks on this fight yes this play is a long time did you do any reshoots for it or was it all just two weeks and then done two weeks stuff we didn't do any because this floor is very soft good yeah man that's what you need i find when i'm doing a fight i if if i start a film the first fight scene is so hard the next day to get up and go through it again and again because my body's not used to the you know all the pain but then you kind of like halfway through the movie you just get into the zone maybe you're continually in the zone but i stop aching at some point yeah i mean this movie is almost kill me i mean the first two months it's fighting every day every day 12 hours that's cool 12 hours a day man and then you got to get up the next day and do it again yes for two months i feel i'm almost dead almost dead any any bad injuries oh i just get the one punch from the one guy and i just punch my jawed yeah that's not good for eating lunch yeah very big oh wow what do you think's the secret to making good fight sequences on film first of all i think we needed to give fighter right yeah that's very important so if you have an actor that can't necessarily do what is needed it's going to be very difficult if you have to keep doubling him yes yeah you fire i could when i'm on you finding eco fighting tony yeah you know both of us face feels good so tony jeff is good i feel good eco feels good i feel good because you know we match so that's the first basic we needed and the second is choreograph and the story i mean if the cur the character and the audience doesn't care about the character it doesn't matter how good the fight it is it doesn't do anything to the audience yeah yes so very important point yes so that's why uh every time i think in the fights i will think about the carrot what's your character where are you now at the story so what's your move what are you thinking about then we make the fight what do you think is more important the choreography or the camera work uh i think the bose very important yeah it's i mean the the the choreographer is important but the camera the camera or [Music] i think that the camera was bad it was more important than the choreograph because i can't even see it if the camera were in the back it doesn't matter how good your choreography you can't see it yeah yeah i'd say you're probably better having bad choreography with good camera work than having great choreography with bad camera work because if you don't see it it's all for nothing right yes yeah i agree yes and that that is the thing that china hong kong from the beginning have always done the best making the camera part of the action and showing the choreography uh off to its full potential yeah especially the hong kong photographer the hong kong photographer they've been shooting the action for many years they can just watch one time you move up and down left and right and they remember exactly the operator yeah they they almost have a stuntman brain yes yeah for choreography yeah this is the difficulty i have in the west it's like you you meet you have an operator that you've never worked with before and you show the chorography it's like yeah then go down for legging and back up and he's like what i'm just gonna do this hold down slow down no we can't slow down mate because then it's not going to look very good we've got to go fast yeah very difficult but yeah i love the way in uh hong kong cinema that they have the zooms in the panning the following the action zooming in to accentuate a punch things like that they may not have good images they may not have the good lighting whatever but they have very good shooting actions yeah it's the best man the best you owe me a life didn't even have time to train he tried so hard before we start shooting he still have some time to come for training but after we start shooting i don't think that any director have time to training they don't have time to train yeah there's too many stuff going on how long did you spend it on this fight sequence this one takes a week okay he both uh he's like uh you know you look at his shoes and then the shoe killed his finger fingernail it broke his uh thumbnail yes both what how i guess the shoe his shoes he keeps hitting you with these thumbs so that doesn't help he's doing thumb technique i love this move here i love this move here i think that's just great yeah this is all you know whoopi's work yeah yeah i love fist of legend personally because for me when whooping uses less wires i i prefer when it's a bit more real obviously the matrix was all about it being not realistic in a way so it worked yeah i was like uh i was uh going to chicano's house and said yeah i mean i said if you need a bad guy and just call me okay i'll be the bad guy for you okay you kill me please kill me again but this section here like it's just one shot isn't it one one shot there it's great was it always planned as a one or did it just work out that it all worked as one did you just try and see well let's let's go as far as we can go yeah we try as far as we can yeah and it all worked yeah excellent i mean a lot of the john wick's style is um locking and throwing and judo isn't it but this bit where he rich hands you in the face bang oh yeah yeah it's cracking stuff man and the glass is not real right where it is there yeah it's big fake yeah how did they do this then is this a fake knife there yeah yeah it's a empty pan how do they keep it lined up in the right place yeah [Applause] yes like he broke and broke my cord he broken my uh the thumb no not the the nail oh yes what is it with the toenails and the fingernails you and kiana reads what's going on because he has his shoes on that i didn't have it is it good it's easy when you work with uh someone like eco or tony right the rhythm is just there and very good the five written eco is very good tony of course you know i haven't i may have a chance to will you know fighting with you but i believe it you guys the same you could have a very very good villain yeah it makes it a lot easier doesn't it it's always harder when you work with someone who doesn't really get it yeah you feel good when you're fighting to someone you know very good you feel good too you feel easy good strong you know can fight forever it doesn't feel tired and was it easy working with tim mann as the fight director yes tim is very good man he's like very flexible you know he's like always asking you know what do you you know you know what what is your suggestion you can change whatever you feel doesn't you know very good he had a good style to choreograph for you as well because he he's a wushu guy himself or has experience in that he has wireless me he has some wushu style for me because you know i'm okay with wires and i think i'm the only one having a little wire in this movie yeah well yeah you've a lot of experience on the wise and how's it working with a real mma champion michael bisping he's so strong this guy's very strong you don't want a wheel fire i mean he didn't have a lot of experience of film fighting at this point i don't think so yeah but he did good he said yeah he can control himself you know he can't show himself very good but he can feel the power even he controls himself very good you still can feel the power yeah it's different than the movie fighters the wheel fighter is a little different but he understands the choreography understands the rhythm of it and you know to keep it lightened um make it look real but not actually be real for the real fighter champion and a ufc champion he did a very good movie fun exactly because most of them haven't got a clue let's be honest they're so used to doing it for real that it's hard to change yes yeah it's different now this fight scene was there was a little bit of a re-shoot right there was a little bit of an added section yeah see that's revolutionary oh this bit now is that so yeah you go into this separate room this was done later in los angeles right yes because the stories changed because the original story is i killed him while there but later on the story we figure out the story and change the story he's not dead so we have to reach a little bit maybe he's still like keep your life yeah i love that a little bit there yeah pretty cute and just this breeze block thing looks like it kills him i know and then before we do this he was like uh talking to himself he's like do i do this do i do this do i do this he said he's here okay let's do it let's do [Laughter] it's it funny yeah i mean i'm sure it was fine for him he's been hit in the face by plenty of people and it's it's not a real freeze block but it looks looks so weird right it looks well real yeah his reaction is it looks really real as well yes blood and everything it's brilliant yeah so what's next tiger come on triple threat two then interpreted too uh yeah we've been working on this story i mean we've been working on this script for like a long time already half a year already but we still didn't have the good script it's not easy to make everybody's certified it's not easy to make everybody happy yeah well try my best yeah fast well thanks buddy thanks for coming on the art of action and sharing your knowledge greatly appreciate it and best of luck in the future okay thank you hopefully i see you soon happy working soon with you yes thanks tonight

Channel: Scott Adkins

Views: 73,571

Keywords: scott adkins, Boyka, Undisputed, Martial Arts

Id: GhNyw8dti74

Length: 44min 52sec (2692 seconds)

Published: Tue May 18 2021