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Donnie Yen leads the cast of 14 Blades as one of the secret agents of a Ming emperor while Wu Chun rules the desert in the Daniel Lee actioner.
LIKE a skilled old kung fu master, Daniel Lee’s right hand darted out at the mosquito buzzing next to his face, missing it by mere centimetres.
“I caught one just now,” he said, looking somewhat disappointedly at his empty hand. “Maybe I should have used some chopsticks instead. That’s very wuxia, right?”
Director Daniel Lee: ‘It would have been really boring to have just one blade!’ – SHAARI CHEMAT / The Star
Lee should know what wuxia (martial arts heroism in Mandarin) is – after all, he just made a wuxia movie starring the biggest star in the genre today – Donnie Yen.
Lee was in Kuala Lumpur last weekend to promote his latest movie, the US$15mil (RM50mil) 14 Blades, which stars the 47-year-old Hong Kong actor, who in recent years has headlined a string of blockbuster action films like Seven Swords, Painted Skin, Ip Man, and Bodyguards and Assassins.
Yen plays a member of the Jing Yi Wei (the Chinese title of the movie, which literally means “brocade-clad guards”), an elite group of trained “special agents” who serve the emperor of China almost exclusively, much like ancient Chinese CIA personnel.
Although the 14 blades wielded by Yen in the movie were pure fiction (“It would have been really boring to have just one blade!” Lee remarked), the Jing Yi Wei truly existed during the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), according to the Hong Kong auteur who directed Andy Lau and Vanness Wu in his last movie, the 2008 period epic Three Kingdoms: Resurrection of the Dragon.
Donnie Yen and his young co-star Wu Chun face off in a scene from the wuxia movie 14 Blades. – Movie pictures courtesy of RAM Entertainment
“The Ming Dynasty was actually a very dark age in history. The Jing Yi Wei were the emperor’s men then who had to do all the secret, underground assignments, no questions asked,” explained Lee. “Even if the emperor was evil, they would still have to carry out their tasks. So these special agents would have very conflicting moral values.”
In the movie, Qinglong (Green Dragon), played by Yen, is the vice-commander of the Jing Yi Wei, and is assigned to retrieve an item from a suspected traitor. Through the course of the mission, he uncovers a plot by an ambitious eunuch (Law Kar Ying) to usurp the current throne, and is betrayed and subsequently hunted by his fellow Jing Yi Wei. Left with no choice, he embarks on a quest to halt the plan and regain his honour. Along the way, he finds help in the form of the spunky Qiaohua (Vicki Zhao Wei), the daughter of a caravan leader, and the “judge” of the desert (Wu Chun). He also crosses swords with a powerful female assassin called Tuo Tuo (Kate Tsui) sent to kill him.
Heroes and villains
To Lee, Yen is the perfect person to pull off that conflict within the lead character Qinglong.
“Yen is known for his fighting, but the best part about him is, not only can he be a good guy, he can also play a really good villain,” Lee explained. “That’s what the role needed – since the Jin Yi Wei were feared by people, he had to start out as a bad guy, before slowly turning into a hero.”
He also raves about the performance of Wu Chun, best known as a member of the popular Taiwanese boy band Fahrenheit, who plays a bandit in the desert seeking an even higher purpose and wishing to be a hero.
“Even though Wu Chun had that kind of potential for the role, I still specifically requested that he be very different from his public image, and get as far away from his Fahrenheit persona as possible,” said Lee.
Vicki Zhao Wei is the spunky Qiaohua in 14 Blades.
Wu, who was also with Lee on the promo tour to KL, was just thankful that the director gave him a chance to be in the film.
“I am still new to acting, and being able to participate in a big-budget film is a very important stepping stone for me. It was a great experience, and I learnt a lot from it,” said the Brunei-born 30-year-old.
It also helped that he really enjoyed filming the fight scenes as well. “I’ve always loved kung fu. I learnt boxing before, and I used to do wushu as a child. So I was very enthusiastic about the training and learning kung fu!” he said gleefully.
The handsome star has acted in TV serials and the 2008 romantic wuxia flick The Butterfly Lovers before his first major action role (in 14 Blades).
Recalling one of the fights he had with Tsui’s Tuo Tuo in 14 Blades, in which he wields a double-bladed sabre against the latter’s metal whip, he said: “That fight involved a different kind of danger. We both got hurt a lot because our weapons had to pass each other very closely or it would not look realistic.
“I also tried to do most of the action myself and not use a double. The fighting we did was real fighting, and not just acting. It was done at high speed and we really landed the punches, so I got a lot of bruises.”
Claiming not to have been too worried about getting injured, Wu brushes off such concerns as being part of the job. “I was never afraid of getting injured, only about not acting my part well. If you’re too scared of getting hurt, you won’t be able to act properly,” he reasoned, adding that the hardest part of filming the movie was not the fighting itself, but doing the scenes in the desert.
Wu Chun may be named Judge but he’s a desert bandit.
The singer-actor also points out that real martial arts experts are not supposed to blink too much when they are fighting yet when they were doing it in the desert, “I couldn’t help it because the sand kept getting into my eyes!”
“I had to stop mid-shoot many times to change my contact lenses. That was a very frustrating thing for me because we wasted a lot of time with that,” he revealed.
He was in awe of Donnie Yen while on set, though. “I was really amazed by Yen – even after filming the whole day in the desert, he would still be working out outside,” said Wu. “He was also very good to the younger actors – he would observe my scenes and give me a lot of encouragement and tips.”
Fahrenheit fans can relax, though, as Wu’s foray into acting does not spell the end of his singing career. “I still love singing – the motivation you get from fans when you are singing on stage is very direct,” he said. “Making movies gives me another experience – it gives me a chance to do things I don’t normally do, like go to the desert and pretend to be a kung fu expert!”
‘14 Blades’ is now showing in Malaysian cinemas.
source: www.star-ecentral.com
LIKE a skilled old kung fu master, Daniel Lee’s right hand darted out at the mosquito buzzing next to his face, missing it by mere centimetres.
“I caught one just now,” he said, looking somewhat disappointedly at his empty hand. “Maybe I should have used some chopsticks instead. That’s very wuxia, right?”
Director Daniel Lee: ‘It would have been really boring to have just one blade!’ – SHAARI CHEMAT / The Star
Lee should know what wuxia (martial arts heroism in Mandarin) is – after all, he just made a wuxia movie starring the biggest star in the genre today – Donnie Yen.
Lee was in Kuala Lumpur last weekend to promote his latest movie, the US$15mil (RM50mil) 14 Blades, which stars the 47-year-old Hong Kong actor, who in recent years has headlined a string of blockbuster action films like Seven Swords, Painted Skin, Ip Man, and Bodyguards and Assassins.
Yen plays a member of the Jing Yi Wei (the Chinese title of the movie, which literally means “brocade-clad guards”), an elite group of trained “special agents” who serve the emperor of China almost exclusively, much like ancient Chinese CIA personnel.
Although the 14 blades wielded by Yen in the movie were pure fiction (“It would have been really boring to have just one blade!” Lee remarked), the Jing Yi Wei truly existed during the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), according to the Hong Kong auteur who directed Andy Lau and Vanness Wu in his last movie, the 2008 period epic Three Kingdoms: Resurrection of the Dragon.
Donnie Yen and his young co-star Wu Chun face off in a scene from the wuxia movie 14 Blades. – Movie pictures courtesy of RAM Entertainment
“The Ming Dynasty was actually a very dark age in history. The Jing Yi Wei were the emperor’s men then who had to do all the secret, underground assignments, no questions asked,” explained Lee. “Even if the emperor was evil, they would still have to carry out their tasks. So these special agents would have very conflicting moral values.”
In the movie, Qinglong (Green Dragon), played by Yen, is the vice-commander of the Jing Yi Wei, and is assigned to retrieve an item from a suspected traitor. Through the course of the mission, he uncovers a plot by an ambitious eunuch (Law Kar Ying) to usurp the current throne, and is betrayed and subsequently hunted by his fellow Jing Yi Wei. Left with no choice, he embarks on a quest to halt the plan and regain his honour. Along the way, he finds help in the form of the spunky Qiaohua (Vicki Zhao Wei), the daughter of a caravan leader, and the “judge” of the desert (Wu Chun). He also crosses swords with a powerful female assassin called Tuo Tuo (Kate Tsui) sent to kill him.
Heroes and villains
To Lee, Yen is the perfect person to pull off that conflict within the lead character Qinglong.
“Yen is known for his fighting, but the best part about him is, not only can he be a good guy, he can also play a really good villain,” Lee explained. “That’s what the role needed – since the Jin Yi Wei were feared by people, he had to start out as a bad guy, before slowly turning into a hero.”
He also raves about the performance of Wu Chun, best known as a member of the popular Taiwanese boy band Fahrenheit, who plays a bandit in the desert seeking an even higher purpose and wishing to be a hero.
“Even though Wu Chun had that kind of potential for the role, I still specifically requested that he be very different from his public image, and get as far away from his Fahrenheit persona as possible,” said Lee.
Vicki Zhao Wei is the spunky Qiaohua in 14 Blades.
Wu, who was also with Lee on the promo tour to KL, was just thankful that the director gave him a chance to be in the film.
“I am still new to acting, and being able to participate in a big-budget film is a very important stepping stone for me. It was a great experience, and I learnt a lot from it,” said the Brunei-born 30-year-old.
It also helped that he really enjoyed filming the fight scenes as well. “I’ve always loved kung fu. I learnt boxing before, and I used to do wushu as a child. So I was very enthusiastic about the training and learning kung fu!” he said gleefully.
The handsome star has acted in TV serials and the 2008 romantic wuxia flick The Butterfly Lovers before his first major action role (in 14 Blades).
Recalling one of the fights he had with Tsui’s Tuo Tuo in 14 Blades, in which he wields a double-bladed sabre against the latter’s metal whip, he said: “That fight involved a different kind of danger. We both got hurt a lot because our weapons had to pass each other very closely or it would not look realistic.
“I also tried to do most of the action myself and not use a double. The fighting we did was real fighting, and not just acting. It was done at high speed and we really landed the punches, so I got a lot of bruises.”
Claiming not to have been too worried about getting injured, Wu brushes off such concerns as being part of the job. “I was never afraid of getting injured, only about not acting my part well. If you’re too scared of getting hurt, you won’t be able to act properly,” he reasoned, adding that the hardest part of filming the movie was not the fighting itself, but doing the scenes in the desert.
Wu Chun may be named Judge but he’s a desert bandit.
The singer-actor also points out that real martial arts experts are not supposed to blink too much when they are fighting yet when they were doing it in the desert, “I couldn’t help it because the sand kept getting into my eyes!”
“I had to stop mid-shoot many times to change my contact lenses. That was a very frustrating thing for me because we wasted a lot of time with that,” he revealed.
He was in awe of Donnie Yen while on set, though. “I was really amazed by Yen – even after filming the whole day in the desert, he would still be working out outside,” said Wu. “He was also very good to the younger actors – he would observe my scenes and give me a lot of encouragement and tips.”
Fahrenheit fans can relax, though, as Wu’s foray into acting does not spell the end of his singing career. “I still love singing – the motivation you get from fans when you are singing on stage is very direct,” he said. “Making movies gives me another experience – it gives me a chance to do things I don’t normally do, like go to the desert and pretend to be a kung fu expert!”
‘14 Blades’ is now showing in Malaysian cinemas.
source: www.star-ecentral.com
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