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• 8 -10 - 09 : The Blood Bond Saga (part three)

  Monday, Oct 12, 2009 1:29AM / Standard Entry / Members only
  6 comments

   

  Shooting Aces.

  

  I first met Henry Luk a year or so ago. Though Henry comes from a Hong Kong film-making family, he had previously pursued other business interests (and with great success!). He had decided to, finally!, follow in his father's foot-steps, and establish a film studio in China.

  When I first met Henry, I had never heard of him, or Ace Studios, or Nanhai. He didn't seem to lack for vision and ambition, but I wondered if he could really pull it off. As I sit here now in my office on the lot (number 008!), I can say that he definitely did.

  

   From his own early self-produced features and through a series of low-budget genre films shot for American movie-makers, Henry turned his Nanhai facility into a real contender.

  It was only after screening the first Ace Studios feature that I first took the two hour train ride to Guangzhou, and then onwards to Nanhai. The region borders on Foshan, with which I have an affinity given the Hung Gar/Wong Fei-hung connection.

  I found the studio itself to be surprisingly spacious and well-equipped. Besides the three decent sized soundstages, there's also a blue screen cyclorama at the front, and a grassy area to one side, on which Michael was out choreographing a jungle action scene this AM.

  

  The site is impressive because of the sheer variety of locales within just ten minutes of the place.

  In 'Blood Bond', we have a car chase in a stone quarry, a Rambo-style showdown in what looks like a rainforest, a punch up in a rural bar... Just scouting for half an hour, you see enough potential locations for three further films.

  One of the strength's of the studio itself is its construction department, which works tirelessly under the eagle eye of Master Li. Basically, if you can draw it, they can build it. On this shoot, we're going to have a huge hospital set on one stage, with its exterior constructed on the backlot, and a biker bar kind of joint, again, inside and out.

  Having presided over so many incarnations of the script, with various versions of these locales described, its a kick to see them finally come to life around us.

  

  We're also placing a heavy demand on the costume department for 'Blood Bond', as we require military attire for the antagonistic freedom fighter Lompoc (Simon Yam) and his band of brothers. Writing them on the page is one thing; making them look real on the stage is another.

  Throughout this process, I've been alternately impressed and depressed by director Michael Biehn's minute attention to detail. He hand-picked virtually all the rebel outfits. "I want them stressed," he told our wardrobe mistress, Pink, indicating some fabric. He turned to me. "Do you know what 'stressed' means?" On this movie?  I think so...

  We scouted an apartment where one of the blood donors being killed by our rebels is supposedly living. "Its not scuzzy enough." We ended up in a decaying block out the back of studio.

  A country road for a car chase. "Not exciting enough." We found a disused quarry that seemed to stretch on forever.

  

  

  

  Michael insisted on racing Henry's Buick around it, bashing my head in the ceiling in the process.

  

  Whatever the demands we've placed on the studio and its environs, Ace and Nanhai have been able to deliver.

  As I sit here, its 1am, and the team and I are still hammering away at the script. I'm in my office and they're in the conference room. The film seems to be growing like crystals on a rock, expanding in unexpected directions.

  Michael says its the most fun he's had on a movie, and I have to agree with him. Whenever we get as 'stressed' as the wardrobe, we have a great team around us, and especially the lovely Phoenix, to raise our spirits...

  

  Next : The Biehn machine