June 10, 2008 Rebel With A Pause : Showdown In Saigon

June 10, 2008

REBEL’ WITHOUT A PAUSE : Showdown in Saigon.

I’m in a Vietnamese city, the name of which remains in a state of confusion. Formerly known as Saigon, now called either Ho Chi Minh City or Saigon Ho Chi Minh… Anyway, it provides my first exposure to Vietnam as Saigon (as I shall call it) is home to the new force in the nation’s cinema industry. I’m here to catch up with the team behind ‘The Rebel’, a period actioner that looks set to put commercial Vietnamese film-making on the world cinema map.

My journey here began at the American Film Market, when a friend suggested that I meet actor Dustin Nguyen, who had just finished shooting ‘The Rebel’. “You mean that guy from 21 Jump Street?” Dustin proved to be totally charming, and, having been given a DVD of the film, I figured the least I could do was watch it. When I did, I was amazed at the production value the film had on its limited budget, the clarity of the vision of director Charlie Nguyen, the quality of the action delivered by star and choreographer Johnny Nguyen… It also featured a star making turn from Vietnamese actress Veronica Ngo.

Vietnam, as both a nation and a location, has long been an elusive concept in Hong Kong cinema. The magnum opera of Sammo Hung and John Woo, Eastern Condors and Bullet In The Head, were both set there, but filmed in the Philippines and Thailand respectively. In Alfred Cheung’s underrated Hong Kong noir, On The Run, Pat Ha, who is Chinese, plays a Vietnamese hit woman, and in my film Dragon Heat (available on Dragon Dynasty), Maggie Q, who is half-Vietnamese, plays a Hanoi-born sniper. Maverick director Tsui Hark was born in Vietnam (or, rather, Indochine). His film Once Upon A Time In China begins with a Chinese fleet sailing for an (unseen) Vietnam, and the underrated third film in the A Better Tomorrow series, Love And Death In Saigon, was the last action film shot in that country, until The Rebel…

I’m met at the airport by the redoubtable Jimmy Pham, who, along with his wife Tawny, produced the film. Their Chanh Phuong Films company now seems set to revive the industry at both ends of the scale, with commercial fare like Dustin’s directorial debut, Monk On Fire, and art-house releases. Though ‘Nguyen’ (the title of a former king) is an ubiquitous Vietnamese surname, Tawny is the sister of ‘Rebel’ director Charlie Nguyen and of Johnny.

Given that all three leads of ‘The Rebel’ speak English, we’ve decided to have them record their own roles for the dubbed version, and one of my missions in Saigon is to supervise the process. After I drop my bags at the Sheraton, Jimmy and I meet Dustin before heading to the studio. The latter is in training for another Vietnamese film, and has injured his knee while performing a 180 degree jumping kick. We head to Saigon’s ground zero for the caffeinated, Café Centro, where the coffee is so good it curls your eyebrows. There we meet the literary dynamo that is Vincent Ngo, whose film Hancock is just hitting theatres as I write this. Vincent is yet another talented Vietnamese-American returnee intent on reviving the local industry.

It was great to catch up with Dustin, and to get to know Vincent better. Two cappuccini later, I headed to the dubbing studio with Jimmy and Dustin. Though situated in a non-descrīpt backstreet, the place was well-equipped, and, in the motorbike-packed Saigon, mercifully sound-proofed.

Since his ‘Jump Street’ days, Dustin has worked consistently on both the big and small screen. I remember going to a Hong Kong studio with Maggie (Q) when she recorded pick up lines for a scene in MI3. I was amazed how she managed to get back into the moment, many months and miles later, to recreate the emotion her character was feeling. Dustin has the same level of ability and work ethic. The only challenge, as ever with this kind of dubbing, was finding a decent English equivalent to the original dialogue, and something that ‘fit’ the actor’s lip movements when dubbed. Here’s a tip : you can get away with murder so long as the mouth and dialogue end at the exact same moment.

Our biggest challenge, in terms of rewriting, was Dustin’s last shot in the film, after he gets kicked from a stationary train by Johnny. His line, in Vietnamese, got a big reaction when the film premiered in Saigon, and we wanted to find something that worked for western audiences. Check out the dub version of the end scene when you buy the Dragon Dynasty DVD of the The Rebel (as I know you will!) and let us know if we succeeded.