9-11-08: MEETING THE WONG JING OF HOLLYWOOD

prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" /One night in Bangkok with Roger Corman.

prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" / 

It has to be said that Bangkok Film Festival was much diminished this year. The fest had split from its ‘market’ aspect, an Entertainment Expo held at a convention centre situated in the Siam Paragon mall. (Awesome book store in that place, by the way.) Perhaps to make up for the lack of exhibitors and business, those with stalls at the Expo had evidently been ordered to crank up the volume on their respective promotional videos. The overall affect was akin to being trapped inside a Siamese pinball machine… I fled the premises to preserve what remains of my hearing.

My local contact at the festival, Paul Spurrier, had earlier contacted me about speaking on a co-production panel, but this seems to have fallen through for logistical reasons (which normally translates as “it was too expensive”!) Paul proved to be an amiable host, and I was invited to attend a number of enjoyable and productive fest events. These included a meet-and-greet with visiting film-makers etc, at which I was delighted to run into the great Roger Corman…

I said the great Roger Corman…! It amazed me that, when I returned to Hong Kong, of my younger friends (and, these days, virtually all my friends are younger, damn it…), none had the faintest idea who Corman is. This veteran director/producer was instrumental in launching the career of half of Hollywood. He made the early or very first films of Francis Coppola (Dimension 13), Martin Scorsese (Boxcar Bertha), Jack Nicholson (Little Shop Of Horrors), Ron Howard (Grand Theft Auto), Charles Bronson (Machine Gun Kelly), James Cameron (Pirahnas 2: The Flying Killers)… Beyond that, he made numerous films with the kind of guys I get to hang out with, genuine talents like Richard Norton (Raiders Of The Sun) and Don ‘The Dragon’ Wilson (the Bloodfist series). Corman’s Death Race 2000, which co-starred a young Sylvester Stallone, was recently remade as a Jason Statham vehicle. So, like I said, the GREAT Roger Corman.

Most of Corman’s films weren’t made for art, but commerce. They were shot cheap, and aimed at exploiting a specific section of the market. Biker flicks, women-in-prison, blaxploitation, black biker women in prison… Whatever would sell. Most manage to entertain far more than more expensive contemporary fare, and a few have latterly been rediscovered as genuine classics. The prolific, populist Chinese director Wong Jing is often described as ‘the Roger Corman of Hong Kong’, so, being the wise ass I am, I introduced myself to Roger by asking if he was ‘the Wong Jing of Hollywood’… He seemed entertained by the notion, and asked that I send him some representative samples of Jing’s work (and, given the eclectic nature of Jing’s films, I’m still trying to figure out if such a thing exists!).

I have to admit that I spent most of the evening talking to Corman, much to the annoyance of any other folk wanting to meet him (or me, if there were indeed any of the latter.) I discussed our Weinstein Company remake of ‘Seven Samurai’, which Roger had previously remade as the S-F epic ‘ Battle beyond the Stars’. (I remember watching it on the big screen at the Odeon, back in my old home town of Peterborough.) Off the cuff, I asked Roger if he had ever met director Akira Kurosawa, and he replied, casually, that the great man had dined at the Corman house while visiting Hollywood. Apparently, of the several remakes (official and otherwise) of his works, ‘ Battle’ had a special place in the shogun’s heart! Ironically, Kurosawa’s great unfinished masterpiece was an animated remake of Corman’s Masque of the Red Death.

Roger gave many future stars their entrance, and gave my old friend David Carradine one of the greatest exits ever afforded an actor: crucified on the side of a train that rumbles off at the end of ‘Boxcar Bertha’. Carradine became a Corman regular, combining car crashes and kung fu-ery in films like Cannonball (the prototype ‘Cannonball Run’) and the afore-mentioned Death Race 2000. (Carradine, by the way, also starred in The Warrior and The Sorceress, an S-F remake of Kurosawa’s Yojimbo.)  

To my surprise, Roger has never filmed in Hong Kong, though he did produce Peter Bogdanovich’s Saint Jack, which was shot in Singapore. (I never miss a George Lazenby movie…) He was also one of the first American film-makers to take advantage of the cost-cutting benefits of shooting in the Phillipines, working with local directors like the late, great Cirio Santiago. (Quentin Tarantino was working on a documentary about the Filipino exploitation film biz, but I’m not sure of its status.)

Accompanying Corman at the festival were his wife Julie, herself a producer of great merit, and his two lovely daughters, both of whom tower over me. It was a pleasure to meet a legend, and now at least I won’t have to explain to any Alive Not Dead-ers who Roger Corman is!

Bey with the great Roger Corman