Shooting Red Dawn Rising#2

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Kung Fu Temple of Doom

As the Red Dawn Rising shoot continues, director Antony Szeto, action director Ken Ip and the team move into our temple set to stage a furious and fast fight between Deva and a sextet of weapon-wielding monks.

In ‘Blood Bond’, the most we had Phoenix fight at a time was three unarmed heavies. For this film, she takes on six highly trained opponents. This means that Phoe had to train harder, remember more moves and, on set, react faster than ever. Lucky for us, she's the gamest girl in town, taking in her stride the scrapes and dents that are an inevitable part of shooting this kind of action movie.

I used to spend my Saturday afternoons back in Peterborough watching kung fu movies; now I'm spending them making one. The thing I never realised until I got onto a Hong Kong action film set was the sheer number of takes it requires to get a good one.

One thing you learn is that making these kind of intricately choreographed fight scenes isn't just a question of hiring a few kung fu experts and turning them loose. Ken breaks the scene down into a mosaic of specific shots, all of different lengths, that, in his mind, come together to form a specific scene. Often these beats are filmed out of sequence, and only start to make sense in the cutting room.

Phoe's basic physical background is in dance, and her flexibility gets taken to the limit for one sequence.

I should also mention our assistant action director, German Cheng, sworn foe of all shirt-makers (and, with a physique like his, who can blame him?). German is a terrific martial artist and choreographer, and I want to find something for him to do on camera, too.

Today, these studios feel like Golden Harvest in the glory days, with everyone in the same heat, focussed on these complicated kung fu fighting moves.

If we weren't all such great friends, doing what we love best, this would feel a lot like hard work...