THE FURIOUS Interview: Xie Miao

The action star Xie Miao has worked in film for decades, including playing Jet Li's son in My Father Is a Hero (1995).

After earning a degree in Ethnic Sports, Xie worked in television on martial arts shows. Roles in films like Ip Man: The Awakening led to the Eye for an Eye franchise.

In The Furious, Xie plays Wang Wei, a freelance handyman in an unnamed Southeast Asian city. An incident in China left him with a metal plate in his skull. Now mute and in exile, his world revolves around his daughter Rainy (Yang Enyou). Her kidnapping sets in motion one of the most propulsive action movies of the year.

Xie spoke with ScreenAnarchy on a Zoom call.

How do you play a character who cannot speak?

I wanted to play this role very well, so I watched a lot of documentaries about the deaf and mute. I recalled the deaf people I have met, and I tried to capture what they looked like when they spoke. I also studied sign language. Yang Enyou, who plays my daughter Rainy, studied sign language as well.

You two have a wonderful chemistry.

That's because this is the second time we've worked together in a film, after Eye for an Eye 2 (2024).

When did you start training for this project?

About one month. Like professional athletes, we train six days a week, every morning and afternoon, and then we rested one day. This wasn't like other movies where you can just practice your body movements. The everyday practice is what we ended up filming.

Can you talk about putting action scenes together?

Kenji [Tanigaki] and [Kensuke] Sonomura worked out the action before production started. When I got on set, they had already completed 80% of the action setups.

Were you injured during the shoot?

Everyone on this film was a professional. With an experienced action team and the protective measures in place, there weren't any major injuries. Some bumps and bruises, maybe a little bleeding.

What happens when a stunt goes wrong?

When we were filming at the Tiger Club, I had a scene where I fought with a lot of people. After they finished filming that scene, they saw that behind my ear there was a lot of blood. They asked me if that blood was from makeup. I was thinking, "Hmm, it seems like I didn't have makeup there." I looked and it was real.

That was a great scene, I think the first time you used your hammer as a weapon.

Yeah, it's the first time I hammered people.

What I love about the action in this movie is that it's not precise and accurate like old school Jet Li and Jackie Chan films.

You're absolutely right. A lot of things in this movie happened naturally. They weren't planned for. When we were shooting Tiger Club, I don't know if you saw this detail. After I finished hitting someone, I used my other hand to support the hand holding the hammer, then kept on hitting. Because I was sweating a lot at that time, I was worried that the hammer might fly off.

The fights are so intimate, with a lot of grappling to gain an advantage.

At times you are genuinely really struggling because when everyone is putting a lot of effort. Sometimes they can't control their own strength. So I have to use all of my strength to break free.

That must be especially difficult when you're in one of those "people pyramid" scenes.

Those moments where we're piled on top of each other were really hard. In my training, I almost felt they were impossible. I mean, I never succeeded in the training. On the day of filming, I still thought these moves were impossible to do. After trying many times, I just couldn't do it. I got a bit annoyed and I stopped caring. I let my hands loose and just did it. It actually gave me a really good result.

The five-way fight at the end, Kenji Tanigaki told me it took 18 days to shoot.

Yes. The scene was very difficult for us. We see five people fighting together, but there's actually a sixth person there, the cameraman. We needed six people working together. That scene was so chaotic that I often couldn't find my opponent. I had to remember my moves and think about the right moment to jump back in.

What's next for you?

The Furious means so much to me. I hope in the future we can use this kind of standard for every action movie. Maybe I won't be as good as this one, but I will treat it as a goal to work toward.