about.com
Fred Topel interview
DATE: 2002/01/21
URL: about.com
Brotherhood of the Wolf's Mark Dacascos
Part One - Martial Arts Styles
Mark Dacascos' movies frequently go straight to video, but his latest role, as Native American hunter Mani in Brotherhood of the Wolf, is receiving international theatrical acclaim. The French production by director Christophe Gans tells the story of a group of fighters hunting a monstrous beast, and Mani often uses martial arts skills to fight the creature and other human foes.
Dacascos gave out pieces of Ginseng when he met the press to talk about the movie. The Hawaiian Euro-Asian actor is a real-life champion in Kung Fu and Karate competitions, and he met press last November to talk about the film. The film is now in its widest release yet, so all should have a chance to see Dacascos kick it en Francais.
How much of the fight choreography in your movies do you influence? As far as the choreography, I've had the good fortune of working with good choreographers, so as far as putting moves together, I haven't done a lot of that so far. In a movie called Crying Freeman which Christophe and I did seven years ago, Christophe, the stunt coordinator and myself, we did put that end fight scene together. But as far as Brotherhood of the Wolf and the other movies, we've had some amazing talent and what I do is just go in there and tweak it for my interpretation at the end before we execute it.
How about for Drive? Oh, man, it was Koichi Sakamoto. He's a brilliant choreographer and he has a great stunt team and he just put the movie together and said, "Can you do this?" I said, "I hope so." And we did it.
How did you get cast in Brotherhood? For this particular movie, Christophe told me that he actually wrote the character with me in mind because we had our working relationship on Crying Freeman. So, I was fortunate enough to be the guy that he was thinking of.
Did you guys study the real fighting styles of the era? I think Christophe may have taken a little creative liberty on some of the weapons, but the fact is, I think in America when we think of martial arts, we usually think of Asian influenced martial arts, Kung Fu or Karate. But the fact is, everywhere in the world they have their own indigenous ways of fighting because unfortunately, people have always been fighting. People have different ways of fighting but the fact is a front kick is always just going to be a front kick. What makes a front kick different is the before and after, before the execution and after. But the fact is the knee is still going to come up, the foot's going to go out and come back in. Still a front kick. So, for me, when I was doing the fight scenes as Mani, it was justifiable that he could kick. Okay, maybe the choreography and the energy was a little more out there, but it is a movie. The fact is, if somebody's being attacked by five or six different people and he's using his hands and hands are busy, why not just throw a kick out there? The choreography, the challenge was to bring in that Hong Kong action energy while still making it somewhat plausible for the character, because Christophe definitely wanted the high energy action from Hong Kong. That's why he brought Phillip Kwok over. Christophe would give the ideas of the fight scenes to Phillip, Phillip would put the movements together and then my job was to get the movements from Phillip and to execute them and interpret them the way I thought Mani may have. Not as a Kung Fu stylist, but just as a natural man who was fighting. So, I took out the angles - if you look at fight scenes, the kicks are bent. There aren't any stances prior to or after the techniques. I tried to take out the angles because Chinese Kung Fu is very angular and snap[py]. I tried to take that out. You don't see him snapping his head, it's more just looking. It was a three step process as far as that, and then some of the weapons were just out of Christophe's crazy brain.
How did the opening fight scene develop? That first fight scene is only one third of what we actually shot. We shot for almost two weeks on that opening scene. It was very difficult because I don't know if you can tell, but we are on a slant, on an angle of a mountain. It was muddy there. Christophe brought in these huge rain machines. We had those outfits, the leather coats were thick weather and then it got sopping wet, just drenched wet. It felt like it was 20 or 30 pounds, like a quarter of my body weight. We have wet suits underneath so not only was it heavy and cumbersome, but we're also freezing cold in mud with rain in our eyes. Christophe said, "Make sure you cover your eyes." Well, if I cover my eyes, I can't see so how am I going to fight? The great thing about all that is it really makes you stay in the moment. It was like acting not required, just try and do your moves. That's all you had to do, just try to get through the fight scene and that was enough because you had all the elements helping you to get there.
What didn't we see from that fight? The second sequence of the fight is Samuel Le Bihan fighting the guys and then the third sequence is us fighting them as a team. But I think one, it became so much about the fight and also the guys get kind of beat up and then take three beatings. It was kind of redundant. But it was fun.
Fred Topel interview
DATE: 2002/01/21
URL: about.com
Brotherhood of the Wolf's Mark Dacascos
Part One - Martial Arts Styles
Mark Dacascos' movies frequently go straight to video, but his latest role, as Native American hunter Mani in Brotherhood of the Wolf, is receiving international theatrical acclaim. The French production by director Christophe Gans tells the story of a group of fighters hunting a monstrous beast, and Mani often uses martial arts skills to fight the creature and other human foes. Dacascos gave out pieces of Ginseng when he met the press to talk about the movie. The Hawaiian Euro-Asian actor is a real-life champion in Kung Fu and Karate competitions, and he met press last November to talk about the film. The film is now in its widest release yet, so all should have a chance to see Dacascos kick it en Francais.
How much of the fight choreography in your movies do you influence? As far as the choreography, I've had the good fortune of working with good choreographers, so as far as putting moves together, I haven't done a lot of that so far. In a movie called Crying Freeman which Christophe and I did seven years ago, Christophe, the stunt coordinator and myself, we did put that end fight scene together. But as far as Brotherhood of the Wolf and the other movies, we've had some amazing talent and what I do is just go in there and tweak it for my interpretation at the end before we execute it.
How about for Drive? Oh, man, it was Koichi Sakamoto. He's a brilliant choreographer and he has a great stunt team and he just put the movie together and said, "Can you do this?" I said, "I hope so." And we did it.
How did you get cast in Brotherhood? For this particular movie, Christophe told me that he actually wrote the character with me in mind because we had our working relationship on Crying Freeman. So, I was fortunate enough to be the guy that he was thinking of.
Did you guys study the real fighting styles of the era? I think Christophe may have taken a little creative liberty on some of the weapons, but the fact is, I think in America when we think of martial arts, we usually think of Asian influenced martial arts, Kung Fu or Karate. But the fact is, everywhere in the world they have their own indigenous ways of fighting because unfortunately, people have always been fighting. People have different ways of fighting but the fact is a front kick is always just going to be a front kick. What makes a front kick different is the before and after, before the execution and after. But the fact is the knee is still going to come up, the foot's going to go out and come back in. Still a front kick. So, for me, when I was doing the fight scenes as Mani, it was justifiable that he could kick. Okay, maybe the choreography and the energy was a little more out there, but it is a movie. The fact is, if somebody's being attacked by five or six different people and he's using his hands and hands are busy, why not just throw a kick out there? The choreography, the challenge was to bring in that Hong Kong action energy while still making it somewhat plausible for the character, because Christophe definitely wanted the high energy action from Hong Kong. That's why he brought Phillip Kwok over. Christophe would give the ideas of the fight scenes to Phillip, Phillip would put the movements together and then my job was to get the movements from Phillip and to execute them and interpret them the way I thought Mani may have. Not as a Kung Fu stylist, but just as a natural man who was fighting. So, I took out the angles - if you look at fight scenes, the kicks are bent. There aren't any stances prior to or after the techniques. I tried to take out the angles because Chinese Kung Fu is very angular and snap[py]. I tried to take that out. You don't see him snapping his head, it's more just looking. It was a three step process as far as that, and then some of the weapons were just out of Christophe's crazy brain.
How did the opening fight scene develop? That first fight scene is only one third of what we actually shot. We shot for almost two weeks on that opening scene. It was very difficult because I don't know if you can tell, but we are on a slant, on an angle of a mountain. It was muddy there. Christophe brought in these huge rain machines. We had those outfits, the leather coats were thick weather and then it got sopping wet, just drenched wet. It felt like it was 20 or 30 pounds, like a quarter of my body weight. We have wet suits underneath so not only was it heavy and cumbersome, but we're also freezing cold in mud with rain in our eyes. Christophe said, "Make sure you cover your eyes." Well, if I cover my eyes, I can't see so how am I going to fight? The great thing about all that is it really makes you stay in the moment. It was like acting not required, just try and do your moves. That's all you had to do, just try to get through the fight scene and that was enough because you had all the elements helping you to get there.
What didn't we see from that fight? The second sequence of the fight is Samuel Le Bihan fighting the guys and then the third sequence is us fighting them as a team. But I think one, it became so much about the fight and also the guys get kind of beat up and then take three beatings. It was kind of redundant. But it was fun.
