13-11-09 : The Blood Bond Saga (part 38)

Butt kicking babe hits bar

Tonight filmdom saw the arrival of a new female furie as our lethal lead Phoenix Chou showed her style in a fast, fierce barroom brawl.

The sequence concerned has our lead character, Deva (Phoe) enter the bar owned by Jesse (Jennifer Blanc) to deliver a message from John Tremayne (Michael Biehn). She gets set upon by a band of salty dogs, and it's on...

The scene began with a dialogue exchange between Deva and barman Ken (Thomas Ho).

I conferred with the team before we shot this.

MB soon stripped to the waist in the humidity of the bar set. That bastard certainly keeps himself in shape, that's for sure...

We're lucky to have the services of DP Ross Clarkson, who probably has more experience of shooting stylised martial arts action than anyone else on the scene, having survived a series of Nu Image shoots in Bulgaria (most recently on Undisputed 3 and The Ninja.)

Phoenix is one of the few actresses on the scene who can perform all her movements in the 'master' : a single take in which the full action of a sequence is played out start to finish. Most of this generation of Hong Kong performers will have a double perform the master, and then be shot for close-ups on various techniques.

Anyone can perform the moves at half-speed and behind the cameras. It takes a different breed of performer to pull off a sequence of techniques beneath the lights and in front of the cast, crew and assembled extras. Phoe acquits herself with grace and power. 'Boy,' mutters Michael, 'did her training ever pay off!'

This is the first time we've really seen Phoe kick in the film, and her dance training pays off. Action director Ken Yip has designed a shot where she downs three attackers, one after the other, with multiple leg techniques, and that doesn't even sound easy...

We have a fresh team of stuntmen in from Guangzhou, having used up our regular ones in various supporting roles. This is even more of a test for Phoe, given that they don't know her timing as well as the other players. Despite this, the scene plays like a dynamic dream, and no-one gets hit when they should have been missed.

I can't claim to have discovered Phoenix. I was just lucky that her first producer couldn't (as yet) get his film made. I am delighted that the stars alligned so that she could make her starring debut in 'The Blood Bond'.

Michael and I have come up with a bunch of catchphrases meaningful only to us: 'You can rationalise anything', 'Reach for the remote', 'It was at that point that I started drinking...'. Another one is 'That was another righteous day'. This comes from a comment made by Dennis Hopper, who shot one day on the Albert Pyun film 'Ticker', and then found he was in most of the finished film! After they screened the film, Hopper turned to Pyun and said "That was one righteous day you got out of me..."

This was one righteous day we got out of Phoe.

Next : Bar brawl concluded, and meet Jesse