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Tue, February 09, 2010
Where is ULTRAVIOLET on the Action Wavelength of Film?
by Dr. Craig Reid
For years, Hollywood has been trying to emulate Hong Kong stylized action, going as far as bringing over the best Chinese fight directors and choreographers to America. Yet have you noticed that there are fewer and fewer American-made martial arts films that are using Hong Kong talent at the helm? But when you watch films like UNDERWORLD, ELECKTRA, EQUILIBRIUM and now ULTRAVIOLET, you can definitely see the underlying tone of Hong Kong-stylized action. These films reflect the legacy left by Hong Kong influence. When I saw a 15-minute, unedited clip of ULTRAVIOLET's behind-the-scenes footage a few weeks ago, it struck me that ULTRAVIOLET was on the verge of something very special, a movie that could have shown the cinematic world the direction American action films was going. At the crux of this centerpiece of celluloid is a highly dedicated group of American stunt and fight coordinators and the undying, hard work of the Russian-born, American-bred Militza (Milla) Natasha Jovovich.
"Well certainly I've never trained as hard for any other film as for ULTRAVIOLET," Jovovich tells, "and yes, I did do all of my own fights. However, it is important to note that I had two doubles on the set all the time, and another double to do the motorcycle stunts. I did the entire sword and martial arts fights but I did not do the flips or gymnastic techniques. I've never done sword work before but quickly found it to be like a dance, and Mike (Mike Smith; stunt coordinator) made it look so easy. He broke it down for me and made everyone available to teach me what I needed to do. I've never met an American stunt coordinator with that kind of imagination.
"In fact, Mike would give me these pep talks right before each take, saying things like that I've done this many times in rehearsals, I should imagine myself simply doing it, feel myself going through the movements, reminding me that this is the moment I have been working toward with a final comment saying (laughs)...I had better to a good job.?
With her short hair hugging her sparkling eyes, Milla sits there and giggles and shares war stories from the film as the snap-on buttons on her low neckline, vanilla-white, French-style blouse ensemble keep popping open around her body. It only adds to her rambunctious yet humorous repartee. When I ask Milla to describe the differences between her martial arts training for FIFTH ELEMENT, her fight preparations with American/Hong Kong action star Robin Shou for RESIDENT EVIL 2 and what she went through for ULTRAVIOLET she answers, "Well FIFTH ELEMENT wasn't totally martial arts driven and the training was not so much about doing the fights but more along the lines of simply becoming a lot more physical and developing stamina, which was mostly to help me get through the long hours of filming since it was my first time doing action. I did learn a bit of martial arts, but really only just a few tricks and kicks.
"For RESIDENT EVIL versus ULTRAVIOLET? The difference in the training was basically the different fighting styles. RESIDENT EVIL was much more like a modern style of street fighting, learning tae kwon do and escrima and a bit of kung fu.
?ULTRAVIOLET was a lot of wushu, movements I am not familiar with and have never trained in before. But the twist of this film compared to others was about combining the many martial arts styles and movements - wushu, kali, break dancing, rhythmic gymnastics, boxing, tae kwon do kicks - into the fights. There was also a lot of different stance training, spinning the body, spinning swords and all the poses. So ULTRAVIOLET was a very flashy, new type of look for a film."
Director Kurt Wimmer's analogy and approach for the fight sequences was that he wanted several moves in each fight to look like a comic book cover, therefore, the importance of stance and pose training. Although the film does feature comic book action and violence it is not based on any real comic and has nothing to do with the 1998 British TV vampire series ULTRAVIOLET. When I worked in Chinese film during the '70s and '80s, a great deal of time was spent on just teaching non-martial arts actors how to spin and pose, then how to sell the look of power on camera. If you watch the old Chinese films carefully, the actors will fight, fight, fight, and then they'll finish a sequence with a spin out off camera (because that's the double) and spin back into camera to freeze in a beautiful or intricate pose.
One day on set, Wimmer asked Jovovich to punch him, so he could get a feel for the intensity that she was putting into her strikes. For the next several days, Wimmer directed the film with a black eye. So it seems Jovovich was not only able to sell the look of power, but she had also developed it for real. However, Jovovich quickly points out, "Although I did all this training, Mike told me straight out that I must never try and do this stuff in public or for real. If I get into a situation where someone comes up to me, maybe I might get one good punch in, but basically I need to run. The stuff I'm doing won't work on the street."
But it does on film.
With a 100-day (92 for Jovovich) shooting schedule and shot for $30 million in China (Shanghai and Hong Kong) ULTRAVIOLET is a sort of BLADE meets THE GOLDEN CHILD ala ELEKTRA. It's about a subculture of humans who have been modified genetically by a vampire-like disease (Hemophagia), which gives them enhanced speed, incredible stamina and acute intelligence. However, because they are set apart from "normal" and "healthy" humans, the world has been pushed to the brink of worldwide civil war (a war between humans and hemophages) aimed at the destruction of the "diseased" population. In the middle of this cross-fire is Ultraviolet, an infected woman, who ends up protecting a nine-year-old boy named six, who has been marked for death by the human government, as he is believed to be a threat to humans.
Wimmer wrote the script specifically for Jovovich to be the star. Was that a pressure? She blurts, "No, to me it's wonderful. I really had more pressure to learn all the sword fighting and new martial arts maneuvers required for the action sequences. Basically, it felt good that people cared and respected me enough to be able to do this film. It is awesome.?
When I was watching the 15-minute aforementioned clip of ULTRAVIOLET, it dawned on me that there is a reversal in fight choreography trends erupting in Hollywood. What's evident is that Smith and this new generation of fight choreographers for years have been drawing inspiration from the likes of Jackie Chan, Jet Li and more recently films like HERO, HOUSE OF FLYING DAGGERS and CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON. However, they are not schooled in the old Chinese films made between the '60s and early '80s; the movies that influenced the filmmakers that these Hollywood stunties are emulating. Smith and company are reinventing the old Shaw Brothers kung-fu films with a Hollywood edge. Just watch those fights where the hemophages attack Violet using their hair as weapons, the Violet sword fights with all the bodies lying in heaps and the finale flaming sword extravaganza, they're all right out of Chang Cheh, King Hu and Liu Chia-liang's films. These American filmmakers are not trying to purposefully emulate something; they're discovering a new way to do an old thing without realizing it. This is refreshing for the film industry, and to the American audience it will be new. Furthermore, some Hollywood stars, like Jovovich, are beginning to understand the fight film mentality. Jovovich shares, "We got hurt doing the fights all the time that is the nature of the action and you don't complain about it, you just do it and keep going.
"I remember the worst that I got hurt, drawing-blood hurt, was when I was spinning this sword really fast, and then I was supposed to stab this guy behind me but ended up stabbing myself in the leg. I mean there was blood everywhere. The doctor on set comes over and I'm thinking, 'I need help, CPR, IVs, stitches,' and he just slaps a band aid on me. (laughs)
"In America there would have been this big deal. But in China and Hong Kong, it's a different culture and mentality. The stuntmen over there are incredible, they really do their stunts, jump off a 4-story building and land on concrete. Less safety, amazing stunts - it's real, and that's why it looks so good. It's such a different environment to make an action film over there."
She laughingly adds, "Once I had food poisoning and had to do the library fight, where Violet can predict the attacker's responses. Anyway, in that scene I had to do all that spinning and spinning, and feeling ill and then YECCK (sound of vomiting). So it was spin, spin...YECCK...spin, spin...YECCK. They finally sent me home. It was awful and we had to come back the next day and then do the actual scene.
"But I drew the line with the motorcycle stunts. I have an innate fear of motorcycles. I will do this, that, fights, jump off here and there, but I am not going to get on a motorcycle. That's my number one fear. So what they did was build this gimbal apparatus with a motorcycle on top. It was a hydraulic machine that could turn every which way. I still had to learn how to ride the motorcycle, but now it's just about making it look like I'm riding one, things like doing body leans and stuff like that."
 When we watch films like FLYING DAGGERS and CROUCHING TIGER we're not distracted by the far-out and over the top fight choreography, because in our eyes, the fights flow and there's a sense of continuity. The reason for this is that the fight directors of these films also edit the fight sequences. This is one of the major reasons why when a Hong Kong fight director works in Hollywood, their fights look wrong. It's because the Hong Kong fight directors do not end up editing their fights. Instead, the movie studios use an editor that knows nothing about how to edit this particular style of action. So as I am watching ULTRAVIOLET, I could see that something was missing in the final cut...all the great shots from the 15-minute clip. So why is that? Answer...someone must have done a really bad final cut of the action.
Many of you may remember ECKS VS. SEVER. What you many not know is that the director's original cut, without his knowledge, was re-cut by the film's producer. Then the studio cut the producer's version, without his knowledge. So with over 35 minutes of film missing, what you saw on screen was so jumbled, backwards and unrecognizable from the original that it would be like comparing a 23-year old model to your grandmother. Remember that $60 million blunder BATTLEFIELD EARTH? What you do not know is that after the stars' salaries were forked out, the shooting budget was less than $10 million. It now seems that ULTRAVIOLET has fallen under this category of studio tampering and mishaps.
When you watch the trailers of ULTRAVIOLET, they are literally wall-to-wall action shots explicitly advertising that this is an action driven movie (which it is). According to reports on the Internet, Wimmer was not involved in the film editing. Furthermore, with the new edit, undoubtedly edited by someone who does not understand action, the studio decided to take these bludgeoning R-rated fight sequences aimed at college and adult audiences and change them into pussycat PG-13 fights for Jr. High and High School kids. One can only imagine all the cool shots removed from the original sequences. So with these two things in mind, it is no wonder that the abridged fight sequences in ULTRAVIOLET look wrong because with all the missing shots the shortened fights look disjointed and lack a logical flow. And for a film that is action driven, touts cool fight sequences and hypes all the hard work and training that went into the fights, why would you bite the hand that feeds you? We may never know these answers, but the end result of the action can be seen. One can only hope that SONY will consider releasing an R-rated version of the film on DVD, so we can see the entire fights the way they were supposed to be seen.
If the studio had left things alone, ULTRAVIOLET could have been ranked at the high end of the action wavelength spectrum, but instead it may be destined to be in the red. Milla, who says she never watches the film's she stars in, chooses to close by philosophically sharing, "I've been training in martial arts for many different films, but now I have found my own center to the point where I can have my own style and still have all the other fluidity. I plan to keep this all for the rest of my life."
Written by Dr. Craig Reid for KUNGFUMAGAZINE.COM
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