Johnny Nguyen Talks The Rebel (Dòng Máu Anh Hùng)

Whether you're aware of it or not you've most likely seen Vietnam-born stunt man / martial artist / actor Johnny Nguyen in action. Martial arts fans know him thanks to his featured roles in Cradle 2 The Grave with Jet Li and Tom Yum Goong with Tony Jaa but he's been seen and seen often in the mainstream as well thanks to key stunt roles in the Spider-Man films, Jarhead, Serenity and many more. For his latest effort Nguyen returned to the country of his birth and donned many hats - writer, producer, actor, stunt choreographer - to help create The Rebel. We had the chance to talk with him about the film last week. Check out a gallery of stills from the film here and the trailer here, then continue on for the interview.

TB: Are you based in Vietnam these days or are you moving back and forth?

JN: Yeah, I just moved there. After the film I had a few commercials and other projects come up so I figured I’d just stay there.

TB: What can you tell me about The Rebel? What is it actually about?

JN: The Rebel is a story set in Vietnam during 1922. Back then the country was a colony of France. There were a lot of rebel groups fighting for freedom for the country, fighting for freedom for the people. And the French also hired or employed Vietnamese agents to go look for, to hunt down these rebels. The character that I play is one of these agents. During one of his missions he captures this girl who is an anti-French revolutionary and that’s where the story begins. There are a lot of twists and turns but in the end the character that I play becomes a rebel himself.

TB: Now, you’re doing more than just acting in this one, are you not?

JN: Right.

TB: What are your other roles in the production?

JN: At the start I actually wrote the first version of the script. After I worked on Tom Yum Goong I wanted to make a film in Vietnam. While I was working in Thailand, on a break in shooting, I went on vacation in Vietnam and I saw there was a lot of beautiful scenery and there was this city that was almost like a living set, dating back to the late eighteen hundreds. All of the buildings were still there. So I thought it would be beautiful to capture it on film. So I went back and had this idea and started to write the script and six months later I had a first draft. So I got together with some friends in the industry to get some feedback from some other writers and we went from there.

After that, during preproduction, I knew coming in that I’d have to do a lot because there just aren’t a lot of people in Vietnam who … it’s just not a booming film industry there so far. There’s not a lot of professionals there, so I knew I’d have to bring some of my friends back from the States, at least the department heads. I knew that I wanted to co-produce the film with some of my friends here, so I did that. And then, based on my experience working on stunts, I wanted to choreograph the action. Working on a number of Hollywood films there were a lot of things that I learned from and then I also worked on Thai films, and I’ve worked with some Chinese action coordinators and I’ve learned a lot from these people and I also have some ideas of my own that I wanted to try that I couldn’t throw in to some of the scripts that I’d worked on. So I wanted to put those into this film.

Going into this the biggest challenge was, I guess, was to make a big movie there. Our budget wouldn’t be a big movie in Hollywood but when you bring that to Vietnam it’s a huge movie. Most films there are made for two hundred fifty thousand US dollars, that’s a film in thirty five millimeter. So I went there and I started to look for stunt people. I knew a lot of stunt people here in Hollywood but there were all working on big budget films so going to Vietnam, I had to get some people there. I auditioned them and then started to train them to fit this film because I really expected a lot out of them. And in the script the female lead’s part was very demanding. Drama-wise it was demanding to act it but then in the action we needed a girl who could handle the action. I didn’t want to use a stunt girl to double the lead. That’s one of my things for the film, I don’t want any of the actors to be doubled. So I told me friends, “It’s going to be hard to find this girl.” We started with wushu champions, we auditioned them and of course their skills were good but the acting wasn’t there. So finally we came across and casted an actor who was willing to train, and I trained her with an intense military style training because I knew I only had two months to get her ready. We trained five or six times a week, five hours a day. A couple hours in the morning, three hours in the afternoon, just intense martial arts training.

TB: What are we going to see as far as martial arts styles? Are we going to see some Vietnamese fight styles?

JN: Yeah, if we were going to make the film in Vietnam I wanted to incorporate some Vietnamese fight styles. That’s one of the things that’s going to be different from other martial arts films. So far there hasn’t been a martial arts film that has gone out internationally and really shown Vietnamese martial arts. So I really wanted to incorporate some of these styles and some of the techniques just look really good on film.

TB: What would the big differences be between Vietnamese martial arts and, say, wushu?

JN: I’d say a lot of it, in terms of the minor moves, it will be very difficult for most people to tell. But there are a few techniques where there is a huge difference and you’ll see it in the film. There are a couple of them in the trailer. What’s specific about Vietnamese martial arts is that there’s a really high, jumping scissor kick. It’s a take down move that’s a highlight of Vietnamese martial arts, you jump up and you take someone by the neck with a scissor kick and pull them down with that. Essentially you break their neck and choke them to death on the ground. There are twenty two different techniques of this jumping scissor kick. I picked those out and incorporated them into the film. Of course, there are other Vietnamese martial arts techniques in there but unless you have a trained eye you probably won’t be able to pick them out.

TB: Now am I right in reading – I’ve seen a couple of different things out there – that you’re related to the director of the film as well?

JN: Yeah, the director of the film is actually my brother. Going into Vietnam with this story I knew that I wanted a director who understood the culture there as well as what I wanted to do. I needed a director who I could really connect with action wise and I may not have been able to find that with a Vietnamese director from Vietnam. We needed to communicate a lot and work on a level where the action served the story with the drama leading to the action, it had to make sense. We didn’t want a movie where the drama goes no where and is just there to fill the gaps between the action. We wanted you to feel for the characters.

TB: As an actor, am I right in thinking this is your first lead?

JN: It’s my first lead in a major film but I’ve also been a lead in a film shot here in California, a little independent film where I play one of the leads but not the main, main lead. And I also play, of course, in Tom Yum Goong, but not the main lead.

TB: Does that put some extra pressure on you when you’re so involved in other areas as well?

JN: Oh, yeah. This is the hardest I’ve worked on a film. There were no day breaks for me. When you’re just an actor when you’re scene’s not shooting you’re sitting out, but here when I wasn’t in the scene myself I’d be supervising or prepping action scenes for other parts of the film. It was a lot of work.

TB: You mentioned how you brought a lot of talent with you from Hollywood and I know Dustin [co-star Dustin Nguyen] has worked a fair bit in Hollywood as well. People outside of Vietnam really don’t know anything about the Vietnamese industry, what were you looking to bring in that you didn’t think you’d be able to find there?

JN: Well, besides the director we really needed to make sure we had a good DP. And, of course, we brought a makeup artist because we just couldn’t find a real makeup artist in Vietnam. Some lighting people, a lot of the support team and production coordinators just so that we understood how to work with each other as a team. I know a few Vietnamese people who have graduated from Hollywood and come to for projects in Vietnam, to make films there, but when I visited the set it was very hard for them to work because it was only the director and producer who had brought that level of experience back from Hollywood and everyone else was used to working in a very different atmosphere. Going in to this project I knew I had to bring the whole team, the core team, back to make it work.

TB: Now, what are the release plans for it so far? You’re doing Vietnam at the end of the year?

JN: Um, no. We originally planned for that but we just had a post production company who have really helped to support us offer to do a digital intermediate for the film. We always wanted to do that but the process is very expensive and now with this company, it’s a German company that has come to Vietnam, we can go through the process but it takes a bit of time. We’ve had to push the release date back to April 20th in Vietnam.

TB: And after that you’ll be looking to sell it internationally?

JN: Yeah, after we have the finished film we’re going to look at the international market.

TB: Now, I have to ask because you’ve fought against both of them. Jet Li versus Tony Jaa, who wins?

JN: [laughs] Oh, this is tricky. I guess they’re different animals, it’s hard to compare them that way. Jet Li is very fast, he’s hard to go up against because he’s just so fast and very solid. Tony is, I don’t know where he gets his air time but he can really jump. Jet Li verus Tony Jaa, I don’t know. It would be different on different days. It would depend on what’s on the ground.