Jino Kang's WEAPON OF CHOICE: Making it Personal

 

 

   One of the great pleasures of experimenting with off-the-radar action films is making a grand discovery, the likes of which is incredibly rare these days in the post-hard copy media, downloadable age of the new millennium. As mom and pop video stores and brick and mortar video rental and sales establishments like Blockbuster Video, Tower, and Hollywood Video have gone the way of the 8-track, it's becoming ever more difficult to make surprising and revelatory discoveries that aren't offered up to you by Netflix, Hulu, and whatever streaming device you subscribe to. Filmmaker and martial arts action star Jino Kang is someone who has been making films for several decades under no studio banner or producing powerhouse, and yet he's made three indelible martial arts-infused action films completely independently and off Hollywood's grid, and it's finally time that the martial arts world and beyond takes notice.

 

   Born in South Korea, Kang immigrated to San Francisco with his parents in the 1970's, and he currently runs Hapkido USA, a school in San Francisco that has been a pillar of the community for over 30 years. Currently a 7th degree black belt in Hapkido, of the International Hapkido Federation, and holding black belts in Kyokushin-Kai Karate, Tae Kwon Do, and Gracie Jiu Jitstu, as well as creating his own style called Hapki-Jitsu, Kang is a multi-faceted martial artist, whose father was a master in Hapkido. "When I was four, he started bringing me into his studio," says Kang. "That's where all the black belts came in and started training together. Of course, I was just a four year old, running around the mat. I would wake up on the mat with my gi already on. Then, I would just jump into class, and needless to say that was history." Kang goes on to say, "I started training then. We immigrated to the states in 1971. My father didn't own a martial arts school at that time, but he started teaching from home. Once I became of age in 1981, he said, I think it's time to open up a Hapkido school. We opened up a Hapkido institute in California, and that was the beginning of our journey from then to now."     

 

   His first film, Blade Warrior (2001) was begun while he was still in college, and his two successive films Fist 2 Fist (2011) and Fist 2 Fist 2: Weapon of Choice (2014) are carefully constructed films, filled with his own personal philosophies, which showcase his impressive Hapkido martial arts abilities. "When you're young, you're always watching movies and when you're at that very impressionable age when Bruce Lee hit the screen, I was just enamored with the guy's demeanor and his moves and charisma," Kang explains. "I was interested in movies. In 1986, there was a big tournament from Leo Fong and Ron Marchini, and they said that they had a part in a movie that was available, and I won the part. Once I became a part of the production, I played the part of an FBI agent. I had never done any acting before, but I was supposed to showcase what I knew with Hapkido. Then I watched the production and saw how things worked. I thought, I know I can do this, but I also thought that I'd better go to school and learn it." Though that film with Leo Fong never received a release, Kang continued on with his dream, and never gave up. "I went to college for three years, and they had a great film department," he says, adding, "I learned how to make a movie and write a script. I then shot the first ten minutes of Blade Warrior. I shot that while I was attending college. A year after that, I finished the film." As to the long duration of Blade Warrior's filming, Kang goes on to discuss the challenges that posed: "We shot every weekend, just about. It took us another year to edit. It was all shot on 16mm film. It was the mid '90s. By the time we were finished, we switched to digital because that's the way things were going. It took four years altogether. I call it my experimental learning film. We had a lot of fun with it. Ever since then I was hooked. A distributor picked it up right away." Kang emerges as a raw, unbridled talent in Blade Warrior, and it was immediately clear that if he continued on this path in future films that he would follow in the footsteps of the greats like Bruce Lee, Chuck Norris, Jeff Speakman, and Steven Seagal. Rarely has a debut film displayed such confidence from its star and with its jaw dropping displays of martial arts, Kang showed that he was a talent to watch out for. "My goal with Blade Warrior was to incorporate martial arts and the book The Art of War into it - as best I could - into a film," he explains. "If a martial artist were faced with a dilemma, how would he handle the situation? Hapkido is a blend of martial arts; it's very eclectic. We had kicks, strikes, weapons, swords, and so on, and it was easier to be more diverse." While the film went largely unnoticed with limited distribution and poor exposure, the gravitas of Kang's performance as a man hell-bent on avenging the death of his friend is a wonder to behold.

 

   With the ultra low budget and gritty Blade Warrior behind him, Kang took another 10 years before making his next film Fist 2 Fist. When this film was released in 2011, it was stocked on video store shelves all over the United States, and it gave him huge exposure. At this point, with two films under his black belt, Kang's philosophical way of presenting the stories in the midst of action seemed to be coming from a personal place. "They're my way of telling stories," he points out. "They're about how a person can change. When you're in a situation and someone's coming at you directly, you need to bend and redirect that conflict. That's what I wanted to show in the films. I also watched a lot of martial arts movies, and I don't know why, but a lot of these movies don't think about the plot - they only think about the action. There're only a few really good ones out there that do that. I think anybody can do action, but being able to tell a good story and being able to tell the story that you want ... and these are all fiction, just so you know ... the second one Fist 2 Fist was a personal experience I went through about twelve years ago. I incorporated some of my personal life into that film." Fist 2 Fist has Ken Min (played by Kang), a Hapkido instructor at a neighborhood youth center whose dark past is about to catch up with him when his former associate in crime Tokyo Joe (played by wrestler and NFL player Bill Duff) is released from prison with only one agenda: To get revenge on Ken. Ken has spent years preparing for the day when his associate would finally come for him, and the face off is grand indeed. Asked about why it took ten years to make his second film, Kang laughs: "It's a money issue. It takes forever to finance a movie. Also, in the meantime, I also run a school. It's my bread and butter. I have a very successful martial arts school, so my focus is divided into many things: Martial arts, family, film, and so on. I would like to focus on one thing, but I love them all."

 

   An in name only sequel to Fist 2 Fist was recently released called Weapon of Choice, and it's by far Kang's most accomplished and biggest production to date. Shot on a $300,000 budget on the state of the art RED 4K camera with a significantly larger cast and crew, the film stars Kang as a retired hitman named Jack, whose adopted daughter is taken by a crime lord, who also happens to be the boss of her paternal father. Jack makes his way through hordes of bad guys, while also befriending a tough FBI agent (played by Katherine Celio), whom he ends up falling for. The action scenes come in heavy doses in the final act that has a major showdown between the hitman and dozens of thugs who think they can stop him. Shot over 30 days in the San Francisco Bay area, Weapon of Choice played at the Action on Film Festival and won "Action Film of the Year," and though the mom and pop video stores that once stocked Fist 2 Fist were mostly gone at that point, Weapon of Choice is available to rent at every online streaming service (such as iTunes, Amazon Prime, Hulu, and Xbox) in North America, and once again it's given its writer/director/star the exposure he so richly deserves.

 

   With new projects on the horizon, Kang is excited to announce that his next picture is tentatively titled Blade Fury, which is a follow-up to Weapon of Choice. "I'll be working on getting financing, casting and distribution in the next few months. I'm not here to make a quick buck," he admits. "I'm not working for someone else, making the movie that they want. I want to make the movie the way I want to, and I want to be good at it. It's very tough to put a movie together. I'm in front of the camera and also behind it. Some of the storylines, I have to collaborate with other writers, and I don't mind doing that. Making it personal is the way to go."