Awesome Music Beats with Hands and Body

Posted on Sep 8, 2011 in Random Rants | 0 comments

I came across this really awesome video of a group of people making music with their hands and body. Performed with amazing synchronization and great comedy!

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The Viral Factor 逆戰 – My Experience

Posted on Jul 26, 2011 in Work Life | 0 comments

The action movie “The Viral Factor” (逆戰) starring Jay Chou (周杰倫) and Nicholas Tse (谢霆锋) wrapped filming in Maylasia on July 7th. Here is a bit of background of how I got on the show and the experience I had while working on it.

It was around fall/winter of 2010 when I had arrived in Hong Kong from Toronto. During the first month or two I had been partying quite a bit in Lan Kwai Fong, just minutes from my flat in SOHO district, Central. I had met many bar owners, managers, and promoters during my outings and told them that I work as an actor and stuntman in film and television.

One of those contacts passed my card off to a casting agent for the movie “The Viral Factor”, and I was contacted to come in for an audition shortly after. The audition went very well and I was told that they already had in mind a fairly sizeable role for me and that I would be filming in Jordan, Malaysia and other locations.

The next following months were a bit frustrating since during this time I was given filming dates that kept changing on a weekly basis. The amount of days, the locations, and filming dates kept changing and were being pushed further and further. The fact that I was traveling back and forth between Hong Kong and Toronto frequently also made it more frustrating to plan ahead since the production wasn’t able to give me solid confirmed shooting dates.

In the end, after months of negotiations, dozens of emails, and many long distance phone calls, I finally got my ticket to fly out to Kuala Lumpur to work on the movie.

Originally I was slated to work for a full month with about 15 shooting days and have fight scenes and dialogue. By the end when I was sent out to work on the show, it got slashed down to 3 days, and possibly no dialogue or fight scenes. Unfortunately, the latter is what happened and it was a bit disappointing for me as well as the casting person who brought me on board.

Film projects in Asia are done very differently than North America. It is not uncommon for people on a production to not know what is going on until literally when the shot needs to happen on that day. Scripts and dialogue are written sometimes just hours before it is shot and your dialogue is handed to you on a ripped piece of lined paper! I understand why now that things changed so drastically, but still does suck that my part got cut down so much.

I play as one of the lead bad guy’s henchmen played by Andy On. I get shot by Jay Chou and end up getting killed by tactical police agents opening fire on me.

It was a pleasure to hang out with Nicolas Tse, Andy On, and Sammy Hung (Sammo’s son), while we were off set and not filming. I found out that they are all good buddies who love to play video games and are all super addicted to the game World of Warcraft which they all have played for over 5 years!

The movie is slated to be released around Chinese New Year 2012 and it should be a big hit. With leading actors Jay and Nicholas in a movie loaded with action and explosions, there will be little reason why it wouldn’t be. So definitely check out this movie when it comes out and pay attention near the end when my little part comes up

Here is a video clip of some random shots I took on set during filming and off camera with my iPhone. The rest are images that I grabbed here and there when I got into Malyasia.

Enjoy!

My driver that picked me up at the airport when I arrived in Kuala Lumpur to take me straight to the movie set for fitting into my wardrobe.

A typical page from my Canadian passport. I’ve entered and left Hong Kong many times lol.

I saw this at the bottom of the card I had to fill out when entering Malaysia. I asked my driver about it and he laughed. Malaysia is one of the most corrupt countries in the World…police will even make you want to bribe them lol.

The hallway to the service apartment I stayed at. The following are pictures of the place.

Me, up at 5am in the morning for the first day of shooting! Not a happy camper.

Me with action director and stunt coordinator, Chin Ka Lok.

One of the China stuntmen I became a friend of. Shane is a Wushu champion in China.

Lunch anybody? McDonalds burgers packed in a box.

A bunch of girls and a guy must have got word where we were shooting. They waited outside for hours for Jay Chou to finish filming and leave the building.

Here is a vLog I shot before going to Malaysia to work on the movie. Overall a great experience and I hope the movie is going to be successful!

You can check out more behind the scenes photos and some video taken by my friend Vivien who lives in Malaysia where they shot a big part of the film. Her blog post can be found here. http://www.vvens.com/?p=3083

For a sneak peak at the movie. Here is a The Viral Factor trailer!

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