August 19, 2025 • 55 mins
In part 2 of our interview with producer Bey Logan, Michael and Bey address the film they made together in Hong Kong called ‘The Blood Bond’. They talk about how the project came to be, from Bey's early days in Hong Kong's film industry to his tenure at Miramax, and how the concept of 'Blood Bond' evolved through various challenges. They also discuss the challenges and hilarious moments on set, like struggling with an untrained local crew and the trials they faced from pre-production to post
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CHAPTERS:
00:00 Introduction to Blood Bond
02:36 Casting Challenges and Phoenix's Performance
07:38 Directing and Production Hurdles
21:26 Post-Production
29:31 Screen Actors Guild Concerns
30:40 Reflections on Past Projects
34:37 Reconnecting and Future Projects
39:58 Vietnamese Film Industry
45:57 Miramax and Personal Struggles
52:15 Conclusion
Follow The Show Online:
YOUTUBE: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4dHNzumLLaFOIRqm4kcaAA
INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/justfoolinabout/
TIKTOK: https://www.tiktok.com/@justfoolinaboutpodcast
FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61560220663952
CHAPTERS:
00:00 Introduction to Blood Bond
02:36 Casting Challenges and Phoenix's Performance
07:38 Directing and Production Hurdles
21:26 Post-Production
29:31 Screen Actors Guild Concerns
30:40 Reflections on Past Projects
34:37 Reconnecting and Future Projects
39:58 Vietnamese Film Industry
45:57 Miramax and Personal Struggles
52:15 Conclusion
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
I have declared against my brain in order to see.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
That.
Speaker 3 (00:06):
One's don't seem to so long as that they will
you stop days, I don't have to.
Speaker 4 (00:19):
Let's let's let's let's talk about Blood Bond.
Speaker 5 (00:22):
Okay, where did you call me up, Bay or at
some point did you call me and say, hey, I've
got some money we can How did we How do
we reco my recollection?
Speaker 4 (00:39):
I know you've got a very good memory.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
For now I have another year.
Speaker 4 (00:43):
Well, yeah, I got a few years on you.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
So I had. I had that. I'd written the script
for what became Blood Bond very early in my tenure
in Hong Kong, and like most writers, i'd written many
more movies than than ever got made. So that was
one of them. And had had my tenure at that
time with Mirramax, which gave me access to connections and
(01:08):
money and whatever. But my recollections. When we did Dragon Squad,
you had read the script and said, oh, this is
really interesting. You try to You had another script called
The Mercy House that you wanted to do. Maybe we
should have done that instead anyway, but that was with
you and Maggie. You and Maggie would have done that one.
It was about a father losing his Eurasian daughter and
tracking her down. And you had that script. I think
(01:31):
it was written by Dallas Dallas Sonia. Was that the
guy that you brought in?
Speaker 5 (01:35):
No, not we know who we know Dallas, but no,
that waste.
Speaker 4 (01:41):
I wrote that script with U.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
And then there was and then there was you read
Blood Bond and go, okay, well this is kind of
cooled and interesting and it was very different from what
we ended up shooting. But anyway, that was the first thing.
And then I said, well, if I get the money
to do it, then you know, not direct, but you
should star in the film. And yeah, so in the
intervening time, I mean, you know, so many criticisms that
(02:05):
one can make about me, but one that I don't
think will be founded is that I'm not loyal. So
I was like, if I said you were going to
star in the movie, then you're going to star in
the movie, and regardless whatever. And then so some years
after and I just said, look, I've got the money,
let's do this movie. The mystery, in my mind, is
(02:26):
the obvious thing to do. And what would have made
a lot more sense would have been to have you
and Maggie star in the film, and I can't for
the life of me, I think by that point she
had gone Hollywood, and perhaps I don't know, and maybe
I felt it was going to be imposing on our
friendship to say, please come back and do a low
budget film. I didn't feel a way about you because
(02:48):
I already ordered you, offered you the part. But we
ended up, as you know, we've got this incredible girl, Phoenix,
who the great missed opportunity of you know, she should
have been.
Speaker 5 (03:00):
Let me let me say something about Phoenix, Okay, and
that is by I heard you on the other podcast
say that.
Speaker 4 (03:11):
You know she was.
Speaker 5 (03:12):
Uh, there was a listen I on this podcast stupidly
at one point, UH called you a gopher. Okay, and
you know the ship comes out of my mouth. I
kind of meant you were doing stuff for me.
Speaker 4 (03:33):
Uh.
Speaker 5 (03:34):
You know, obviously you had a producer's credit on it.
That hurt your feelings. I think you went on another
podcast and uh one of the one of the one
of the things that that that you talked about was
the girl that I mean I didn't know you cast,
(03:54):
I mean we cast her together.
Speaker 4 (03:56):
I guess she was a very pretty girl.
Speaker 1 (03:59):
Uh.
Speaker 4 (04:00):
Uh And.
Speaker 6 (04:03):
Wait, wait, wait, one of my one of your one
of your one of your one of your criticisms of
me was that, like I didn't spend enough time with
her to try to get like a performance out of her.
Speaker 5 (04:16):
And you know, base sometimes it's hard to get blood
from a.
Speaker 7 (04:21):
Stone, you know, you don't And and she went on
to do what even in.
Speaker 5 (04:30):
That podcast, you were like, I don't know what she
did one more thing and.
Speaker 4 (04:34):
Never nothing ever happened with her. I don't know why
she couldn't.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
I want to kind of like, uh, you know, kick
a kick a dead dog now, because I mean it's like,
obviously her career didn't happen. And I know to some
degree that she was her own worst enemy. And by
the way, I think at the time it was just yeah,
I hear what you're saying. Think her huge problem was
(04:59):
that she had She had, I mean a number of gifts.
I mean, she was stunningly beautiful. I thought she was
a nice person, she was physicality, all of that. That
The area that I think was a problem was she somehow.
Speaker 8 (05:15):
Felt it might be unfair of me, but but but okay,
there were My model for the movie was the African queen,
and that crusty old you know, Humphrey Bogud, And it happened.
Speaker 1 (05:33):
There were some scenes in the movie if you go
back and look through them again, where some of that happened.
And I just think maybe that got lost in all
the chaos of shooting at ace or what have you.
But I hear what you're saying, and I think you're
absolutely right. It's unfair of me, But it was interesting.
Even though the other girl, the bad girl, did not
(05:53):
speak English. I remember you were far more taken with
her as a performer and her sona then with Phoenix,
and you said to me, that's do you remember her?
The girl, the.
Speaker 5 (06:07):
Chinese girl, the girl that came in from China. She
was unbelievable. We'll get to her in a second.
Speaker 4 (06:12):
Okay, Oh sure, I wanted.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
So if you want to do you want to know
what happened to Phoenix or you want to talk about
her some more, please go ahead. No.
Speaker 5 (06:20):
I just felt like, yeah, you know, I thought it
was It felt a little bit when you were talking
on the other podcast, it was sort of there was
there was a mention of like me not spending enough
time with her to get a good performance out of her,
and maybe I was jealous because she was so right,
(06:41):
she was so good that or something.
Speaker 4 (06:43):
And I just.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
I was thinking, is it because I called you a gopher?
But I mean, I think I have enough removed to go.
You know, I'm thinking, why was it a concern that
if she is you know, if you if if she
kind of like because she's a stunningly beautiful kung fu
fighting girl and she steals every scene. I mean, does
(07:09):
it dim an issue as an actor?
Speaker 4 (07:11):
She didn't. She was terrible. I couldn't get hurt.
Speaker 1 (07:16):
No, You're right, Michael. I mean I think as an
actor she felt she was good and she wasn't. I
was just thinking about the fact that she was on
camera she looked stunning, She's very beautiful, and her movement
when she did the action, which obviously in an action
film is and then when we did the reshoots, she
did a lot more even than she did the first
(07:36):
time around, and she was just I would put her
in the top, you know, three percent two percent of
Asian fighting women I've ever worked with.
Speaker 4 (07:44):
Okay, I'm just saying.
Speaker 5 (07:46):
I'm just saying I couldn't get a let me let
me go back to something else too.
Speaker 4 (07:52):
I did I didn't. I didn't ask you to direct
that movie.
Speaker 1 (07:56):
Today, No I asked you to do.
Speaker 5 (07:59):
You asked me to do it, and I think one
of the reasons that you asked me to do it
was because you thought it would help promote the movie.
Speaker 4 (08:08):
Are in sales that I have never done.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
Actually, no, I'll tell you what it was. I felt that, well,
first of all, I couldn't find anybody who I trusted
locally to do this English language picture, and certainly none
of the people that Henry Luk, the owner of the studio,
had around. And I felt that by Osmosis that you'd
worked with some of the greatest directors, you know, James
(08:32):
Cameron and Michael Bay and William Friedkin. By osmosis, that
you would have taken on some knowledge of directing. And
I think you did, because I mean to even have
the film that we had completed as a feature that
some people even today said to me, oh I saw
that movie and I quite liked it. That you must
(08:53):
be a director, because I didn't direct it, so you
must have been, you know. So I didn't think about
the marketing. My only if you say Michael Bean from Terminator,
Aliens The Rock Tombstone that's as an actor. That's that's gold.
That's what we wanted. But I look back on it,
and even in I was very I'm very slow to
(09:16):
I don't know why. Some other guys you're wrong, definitely,
but I mean, you know, but but I uh no,
I just want to say that when the people stirred,
some people stirred up that some animosity. But I think
if you watched the whole interview I did with David
A Viking Samurai, I don't think it's all mean spirited.
(09:37):
But I mean I said it's not.
Speaker 4 (09:39):
It's not. It's not all mean spirit I just want.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
To be talking now if it was no, no, no no.
Speaker 5 (09:44):
I just wanted to point out a few of what
I consider the because you know, you're talking about writing
a book, and I can't wait to read it. You're
writing it. You know, when it comes out, I'll read it.
This is my this is my book. Okay, this is
my book.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
By the way, from what I read in the comments,
all the fans want you to write your books.
Speaker 4 (10:04):
If you need to know this, I can't. I can't write,
so you know that I can.
Speaker 1 (10:08):
Well, maybe we'll collaborate, but I'm devon doing my own book,
which is called Falling Off the Dragon's Back, which i'll describe.
I'll explain another time why it's called that, but I
certainly taking on board the fact that you don't want
me to recount these stories in that book.
Speaker 4 (10:25):
No, here's here.
Speaker 5 (10:27):
Here was My experience of it was that, first of all,
you hired a good, a pretty good DP.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
The DP his name was Ross Clarkson, and you've done
a lot of action Australian guy.
Speaker 4 (10:44):
Yeah, Ross was a good DP. And the where we
shot in China, what's it called.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
It was called a Studios in a city called Nanaheim.
Speaker 5 (10:58):
It was gorgeous. I mean, if you want production value
as far as like being in China and being out
in the country and all of this kind of it
was absolutely fabulous.
Speaker 4 (11:11):
And when we were going on kind of.
Speaker 5 (11:13):
Location scouts and stuff like that, I'm like, oh my god,
look at this, and oh my god, look at that.
Speaker 4 (11:20):
Oh my god, look at this.
Speaker 5 (11:23):
I think that one of the things that we might
have to agree to disagree on, Bay was the fact that.
Speaker 4 (11:34):
That studio.
Speaker 5 (11:37):
That I'm not sure if they'd ever made a movie before,
that group.
Speaker 4 (11:44):
That called themselves a studio.
Speaker 5 (11:46):
I know that you said in your interview that some
other director like a Hong Kong director or Chinese director whatever,
worked with them and you know did something.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
Well, no, this was the Blood Blog was the first
I would say, proper movie. The movie before that, You're
in the Forest, that was Henry's film, but we'll putt
to get that story in event. But anyway, you were
actually in their first film as well as Blood Bond.
Speaker 5 (12:15):
Well, well, listen, first of all, it was a group
of people. In my mind, this is the way we
made it was. It was called the movie studio. But
like the sound guy had never done sound, The wardrobe
(12:41):
people had never done wardrobe, the hair people had never
done like.
Speaker 4 (12:45):
It was just a group of people.
Speaker 5 (12:47):
He called his his his crew, his crew. And it's
kind of hard to work as a director that I'm
a director anyway, now, I don't you know, I spent
too much time thinking about myself and my roles to
pay attention too much to Jim and all those sort
(13:08):
of guys. But I wasn't I wasn't getting much help
from that's the people that were in that studio.
Speaker 4 (13:18):
Would you agree with that?
Speaker 1 (13:19):
I also and I also think that for me as
a that was my first film moving into lead position.
I'm trying to think because I mean, you know, when
you do something like a Medallion with Jackie Chan, Yeah,
you're a producer, but you're a cog within this big machine.
(13:40):
Yes with Ace, you know, you were you had to
be the guy, and I was still I was still
figguring my own shit out. And I think if I
had it to do over, I could have supported you
better and known how to maneuver around that and kind
of like like h it was almost like I felt
(14:03):
it was like a Roger Corman experience, and a lot
of great directors did their first movie on a Roger
Corman shoot, like you know, not.
Speaker 4 (14:12):
Great movies, not necessarily.
Speaker 9 (14:16):
Box Yeah with with with when I think you could
this is what I perceived Nanhai to be of the
potential of being and the following year and I think
the difference was well, for one thing, you know, you
were an actor who I persuaded and you know, kind
(14:37):
of cajoled into being a director.
Speaker 1 (14:39):
And by the way, I want to say one thing
for the record about Michael as a team player. You
didn't get paid one dollar more to direct. You did
the whole thing you directed for free. So I mean,
you know, there's not many friends who would do that
for you. But the next year I had another guy
come back who was French, who was purely director, and
I think I'd come into myself a bit as a
producer and I'd known how to work Henry Relook in
(15:00):
the studio, so the film we could do then, and
I wish I could go back. It's like if I
knew then what I know now, you know, if I
could go back and do Blood Bond again, what I
think I could have given you better support and gone
into every day with the like, Okay, what are we
going to do? How are we going to do this? Different?
And interesting? There was still some some stuff in there
(15:22):
which was you know, had great scale to it and
looked incredible.
Speaker 4 (15:27):
I mean there wasn't there was.
Speaker 5 (15:30):
Like I said, the first of all, we had cart Blanche.
We could go anywhere and we could shoot anything. Now
I didn't realize it at the time, but we would
just go to somebody's house and I would go inside.
Speaker 4 (15:42):
Of it, and I like this. The next thing I
knew was people were gone out of that house. They
were like And it.
Speaker 5 (15:48):
Wasn't until about halfway through the shoot that I realized
that the two guys that were finding locations that were
making people show. Oh, by the way, dozens and dozens
of that's always extras, you know, like anything we need.
Speaker 1 (16:04):
We had the Guru, the guy that gets shot and
he's speaking, and you have all the people coming in
from the fields like gandhy and you've got this crane
shot of it's like a David Lean movie a farm
as the eye can see.
Speaker 5 (16:17):
Well, this there's there was There were two guys that
were in a car that seemed to always be able
to organize all this stuff, and they were.
Speaker 1 (16:25):
The local gangsters.
Speaker 5 (16:27):
Yeah, about half about halfway through the about halfway through
the shoot, I was guys said get the back get
in the back seat. I'll get you over there because
I needed to go someplace.
Speaker 4 (16:37):
I got in the back seat.
Speaker 1 (16:38):
Two of them.
Speaker 4 (16:38):
It was baseball.
Speaker 1 (16:42):
That's that's right. He had a baseball bat in the
back of his car. And it's all dinged up from
I guess hitting people.
Speaker 7 (16:49):
My dad here, we want to shoot, we want to
shoot it here, get out, you know, bring me one
hundred and fifty extras in ten minutes, so I'm gonna be.
Speaker 1 (17:01):
That was it. And then but that same guy you
put in the movie playing a soldier and he kind
of like just dented his his elbow on something. Ye boy,
that was you're the same guy with the baseball bat.
Speaker 4 (17:16):
So so we you know, we I as because I was.
Speaker 5 (17:24):
Used to a normal crew, yeah, And I was used
to the art direction, and I was used to people
doing their jobs.
Speaker 4 (17:31):
And I felt I was running around doing so many
other and you were busy. You you would come in
and you were kind of first.
Speaker 1 (17:39):
I think I allowed myself to be distracted by other
things going on around and I did not appreciate you
know that. And I tried to say this, Actually it
was a mistake. I didn't phrase it right, but there
was You were doing an interview with one of those
Michael Bean fan sites, and I spoke about it, and
I just said something like, you know, I should have
given Michael and more support because because I've been the
(18:03):
white guy working in Hong Kong by that point for
so many years, I just got couple of like pretty
much everybody's Chinese, and they speak English to different levels.
None of them particularly know their job. And you were
in at the defense, and I look back that I
could have been more support.
Speaker 4 (18:21):
Well, that's okay, listen, bab it's fucking twenty years. Though
I don't give a ship, it's my book.
Speaker 1 (18:27):
I think the other thing is what you what, what
you you learn from it? And you know, I saw
the Victim and I thought, you know, you did a
really good you know, spit on your grade again.
Speaker 5 (18:39):
The Victim was made for two hundred thousand dollars, which
I took fifty of. Okay, so that that's a completely
different story. But I wanted to mention a couple other
things before where you kind of get off that off
the subject. One of the things which is absolutely true
is that I was like screaming like.
Speaker 4 (19:04):
Motherfucker god, damn it, no fucking god. I just absolutely like,
like at least.
Speaker 1 (19:12):
Toys, which was a problem because you had scenes.
Speaker 4 (19:16):
But maybe twice a day.
Speaker 5 (19:18):
I would absolutely lose it because there would there would
be things that would happen like, okay, we're ready to
shoot you ready, we got everybody in place, were kind
of rehearse that.
Speaker 4 (19:29):
Okay, what a hammer? Okay? Can I have a hammer? Please?
A hammer? A hammer? Like a hammer? A hammer? Can
I have a hammer please? Like a hammer? Some guy?
Go okay and need run off and fucking never come back,
(19:50):
and I tell somebody else give me a ham. You know,
half an hour later I was still sitting there waiting
waiting for a hammer.
Speaker 1 (19:58):
That's what I should have been there with the hammer
in one.
Speaker 5 (20:01):
Yeah, you were you look like you were setting up
your next movie or working on You weren't listen.
Speaker 4 (20:06):
I don't.
Speaker 5 (20:07):
I don't, so so I did scream, but and I
screamed a lot on that movie.
Speaker 4 (20:14):
But one of the things I have to say is
they're all fucking Chinese. They had had no idea when
I was screaming. And I never screamed at anybody.
Speaker 5 (20:23):
I never screamed like you motherfucker, get me a hammer.
Speaker 1 (20:26):
I just like.
Speaker 4 (20:27):
Went like, God help me. God right.
Speaker 1 (20:31):
This is true after the famous Christian Bale run, so
I had great concerns that this video of you would
get out and damage you and damage the movie. So
I went up to the making up guy and I said,
can you give me that footage? And he goes, it's
no problem. Michael told me every time he starts yelling
to cut. So I was the footage of Michael got
(20:52):
and then cutting. So we didn't do anything. Now, I
would never have used it My concern was because what
happened with the Christian Bale thing was think it was
hugely unprofessional that somebody leaked that and that it was
then the subject of whatever it was subject of. It
was something that should have been kept within that production
and dealt with, and the same thing with us. I
didn't want that going out and Michael being misrepresented because
(21:14):
you're absolutely right, and a lot of times you were just
yelling to the heavens and.
Speaker 4 (21:18):
Yes, just nobody spoke English. Nobody spoke you know.
Speaker 5 (21:22):
I did have a translator that was there sometimes and
wasn't there at the time. But here here's the bottom line,
and this is why I wanted. I feel bay that
it's unfair to call me the director of the movie.
Speaker 4 (21:38):
And that's why this is going back to uh like.
Speaker 5 (21:42):
When Jim Cameron shot piranha okay, he shot it and
then they came in and said, thank you very much,
see you later.
Speaker 4 (21:53):
Can I have those keys?
Speaker 5 (21:54):
And that was that they didn't let him into the
editing room.
Speaker 4 (21:59):
So it was.
Speaker 5 (22:00):
And and you're the producer, You've got your own and
don't I don't fault you for like you've got your
own decisions to make for whatever reasons.
Speaker 4 (22:11):
But we finished that.
Speaker 5 (22:13):
Movie and I came back to Los Angeles with the
understanding in my mind. I thought that I got from
you or and thought we're all along. It was going
to be this way that I was going to take
a couple of weeks off. I was going to fly
back to Hong Kong and cut the movie, do the music,
(22:36):
do the sound design, all that kind of stuff that
directors do.
Speaker 4 (22:40):
And you never brought me back.
Speaker 1 (22:44):
And that was a mistake. I should have brought you
back to Look, I tried to. I mean I did
the first. I think my recollections overall are fairly accurate
on that point, and I've admitted it in writing. And
a minute now I was wrong in my You're gonna
kind of like hurl something at me, You're gonna held.
Speaker 4 (23:04):
I don't care. I don't care to laugh. My ass
about all of this ship now.
Speaker 1 (23:12):
Counter into view was that you had. But what I
realized was, and this is why I suppose, to some degree,
I think the truth lies somewhere in between. What happened
was why we didn't bring you back on what was
happening then, I don't know, but we edited what had
been shot, send it to you, and I have a
(23:34):
mess emails from you with conotes and comments and you
didn't like this, you like that? What overall? You signed
off on it?
Speaker 5 (23:39):
And wait, wait, wait wait, I'm in l A. I
don't have a studio, I don't have anything. You send
me a kind of the movie and say what do
you think?
Speaker 4 (23:53):
And I'm like, what am I gonna do?
Speaker 1 (23:55):
What are you gonna say? Yeah?
Speaker 4 (23:57):
You know, like, I don't have any way to cut movie.
I don't. It's not it's your movie at this right
and no.
Speaker 1 (24:04):
And I and I and I think that the reason
I had that sense that it was your cut was
because the footage was shot in such a way that
it fits. And that I think does speak to your
confidence as a director that even an idiot like me,
you could go in the editing room and cut it
ab CD and it would cut together as a smooth
(24:25):
movie from beginning to end. And you had a film
that you could play. You've heard a film that you take.
Speaker 5 (24:30):
The can you've heard the uh, the sentence or whatever,
will fix it and post, Yeah, right, we'll fix it
and post whatever it is, we'll fix it and post.
And I just wanted us to have this conversation, because listen,
you've been involved in some great stuff.
Speaker 4 (24:50):
I've been involved in some great stuff.
Speaker 5 (24:52):
I've been involved in some real shit, some really bad stuff.
So like we all hope and we all, like you
know how have good fights.
Speaker 1 (25:01):
And you know, the thing was, and I said this
in the other interview, was at the end of it,
I said, after all of that, and and I absolutely,
I mean I think there's yes, I one hundred percent agree.
I can't. The reason I can't answer this or for
this is I really this For some reason, I'm blanking
on why we didn't fly you back. I know whether
(25:23):
I can't, I don't know what it was. And we
just cut together what we had and sent it to you,
and I think that was wrong, and I apologize. At
the same time, you'd cut it, you'd shot what you
shot cut together very smoothly, and it was like, yeah, yeah,
I know you probably would have tweaked it, but I
mean you.
Speaker 4 (25:41):
Might have more than tweak it.
Speaker 5 (25:42):
And I'm not saying that it could it might might
have turned out to be fucking what it was anyway,
because you took you took it, you took that cut,
and you took your that cut, your music, your sound design.
You took all of that and then went out and
tried to sell correct true, okay, and basically people said
(26:05):
we don't want anything to do with it. Correct and
then correct, and then you went back and added a
bunch of shit to it.
Speaker 4 (26:11):
Correct, correct, and then tried to sell it again.
Speaker 1 (26:14):
Right, I did sell it again, or you did. And
there was a.
Speaker 4 (26:20):
Hell and there was a helicopter that.
Speaker 5 (26:22):
Yeah, I'm not trying to find Listen, babe, I love
you and we've had so much fun.
Speaker 4 (26:27):
I just you know, I'm not angry. I'm not like you.
Speaker 1 (26:32):
Know, you know what the thing was. And even when
we when these different things went up, I mean, there
were people making mean comments and I was like I
said to them, I said, why are you trying to
stir up the brothers meaning you and me? I mean,
this is right after you and I had our phone
conversation every twenty years, like clockwork, so you know, we
got on the phone to laugh. But I did say
(26:53):
on the interview, I said my recollection of Michael was
that we were friends and that, yes, dear friend, we
would just laugh our asses off and the day and
this is worthy of note, was Henry, Look who was
that the former Wall Street guy who was the owner
of Ace considered himself, perhaps uniquely, to be a director
(27:18):
monkey and he directed this film called The Forest. And
there was a character in that movie called Pete, and
he'd been played by another actor. And when Michael turned up,
Henry offered a bag of money to Michael to you
to say, would you come and shoot this character for
my movie The Forest? And you know, hey, what the
hell at gigs a gig? Right? But I do remember
(27:40):
just the pain of the laughter of that day, because
it was you were working in Pete's pharmacy and you
had a white coat with Pete. I don't know why
that was funny, but just when you appeared in the
doorway in my office in your pharmacy coat with Pete
just and then I think you edge somewhere you were
(28:00):
going to be on the edge of a precipice, and
wriggle your fingers, and Henry was such an I was done.
I was trying to call him.
Speaker 5 (28:08):
I was trying to crawl out of something, and we
were all laughing so hard, me and you were laughing
so hard.
Speaker 4 (28:14):
But oh, it was it was like a day. Gave
me ten grand but The thing about it, Bay.
Speaker 5 (28:20):
Is it's not on IMDb, and it doesn't come on
IMDb that I directed the.
Speaker 1 (28:29):
He made many other movies that could never be released,
and they did a couple of pictures after Blood Bond
that they did films that make Blood Bond look like
Citizen Kane. That's why I think you best make yourself
as a director, because you should see the pic. I
did one good movie. I did the best movie that
could be done, but it was not because of Henry.
(28:49):
It was in spite of him that I learned how
to kind of work around him. That the basil faulty
of the studio. Yes, it did his film called Borderland,
which I think was good, but then I realized that's
kind of as good. You could keep doing films at
that level, and my desire was to do bigger and
(29:11):
different and better movies. And it was after that I
did Crouching Tiger Lady other films with other people. So
it worked out thankfully, but I didn't want to get
stuck at the studio and just be doing films at
that level. He then did other films after that, and
I kind of have a you know, I don't like
as a filmmaker to be critiquing other people's films too loudly,
(29:33):
but the films they did afterwards, if you saw them,
you would go, my god, blood one looks pretty good
because that.
Speaker 4 (29:41):
Was the crew that I got to work with.
Speaker 1 (29:44):
That's true.
Speaker 4 (29:44):
What I wanted you to.
Speaker 5 (29:45):
Know too, Bay that you mentioned something about the screen
actor skilled.
Speaker 1 (29:52):
Yes, And I don't know if you wanted to mention
that now, because I don't want to put you into
any difficult situation.
Speaker 4 (30:00):
Because what he No.
Speaker 5 (30:02):
Uh, you mentioned on the podcast that there was a
situation where either you needed some voice over work, you
need a voice I've forgotten what it was, but but uh,
and I had said to you like, well, you need
to talk to the screen actors skill, because it wasn't
(30:24):
It wasn't something that I was worried about. It wasn't
me going like this guy did this and this guy
did that.
Speaker 4 (30:32):
I was worried about my fucking self.
Speaker 5 (30:35):
I was worried about that maybe I had done something
bad and therefore the screen actors killed would would go like, oh,
you went over to China and you made this movie
and you didn't tell us this, and that you're on
probation or you're on suspension or whatever.
Speaker 1 (30:54):
We my recollection of it, and I think it's born out.
I went back and looked at some of the exchanges.
Was I had a hard time getting from anybody in
your management or agency at the time an accurate list
of what the SAG requirements were. I felt on Blood
Bond we actually fulfilled them, perhaps more readily than we
(31:18):
had on Dragon Squad, because things like the working hours
and the turnaround were ignored throughout Dragon Squad. But on
Blood Bond you set the schedule, so I mean, it
wasn't too onerous, and I felt we had kind of
the Then when I you put your foot down and said, look,
we really need to get this cleared with SAG, which
is perfectly you know, within your rights. I called them
(31:39):
and I said, hypothetically, if I had shot a film
with one of your you know, kind of like members,
what would I do to get right with the union
and do this? Knew that and early and the guy
just said to me, did you have the guy in China?
You paid him already and he's been paid in full.
I said yes, And it says, says, don't why are
you bothering me? Most of our act most of our
members make not don't make a living, and I.
Speaker 5 (32:02):
I was always paid every dime, whether it was per diem,
I was. I was put up in an incredible The
hotel that I stayed at in China was absolutely phenomenal.
Speaker 4 (32:16):
I was the only person in it.
Speaker 1 (32:17):
But like the whole time, remember we had a massuse
for you, for you and Jennifer. You know, we basically
whatever we could do to make it a more pleasurable experience.
But yeah, so I felt bad about that.
Speaker 4 (32:28):
And I didn't need a masseuse. I needed a hammer.
Speaker 1 (32:35):
But you know what was funny was, you know when
we uh, you know, on the when we're talking about Sack,
there was a provision they had which was I don't
think any Chinese producers.
Speaker 5 (32:47):
I've never heard of this provision, and I don't Jim
can talk about it.
Speaker 1 (32:52):
They may have gone away with that.
Speaker 5 (32:53):
I don't think there's any provision that says you need
to hold a bunch of money in a place in
case the movie makes money. First of all, I've never
gotten any money from any production.
Speaker 1 (33:05):
Maybe SAG just keep the money. I don't know, But
at the time it was such a strange provision. I'm
pretty sure and I've got an email.
Speaker 4 (33:13):
Tell you, tell me what you think the provision was.
I want to ask you the provision.
Speaker 1 (33:18):
What the provision was that there would be actors that
had a profit participation in the film, that their anticipated
revenues from the release of the film would be sent
to a SAG account and held in what is the
word when you hold money? And you yeah, And then
(33:42):
subsequently you would provide accounts for what the film costs
to make and what it went back, and if it
hadn't made money, then the money would be refunded to you.
And no Hong Kong producer, including me, was going to
go along with that. They may have stopped doing it now.
But I actually in the wake up because I realized
that as good as my memory is, there was stuff
(34:02):
I really got wrong, and it was important, stuff like
I don't know whether you caught the film or not,
you know, and to see the back and forth the
other thing was and really regret this, and I'm really
happy that we kind of reconnected because in my memory
and actually this was going to be in the book,
(34:23):
was going to be. Everything ended very acrimoniously. But I
remember the last email you sent me. I don't remember
I read it. The last email that you ever sent
me of that era was when Elizabeth was going to
have the twins Short and Tire. At the time, the
last message you said was congratulations, you're such a great dad.
(34:43):
You asked your three boys and I'm sure you were too,
And that was that. And then later I remember Daniel
wanted you to come back to China to do another
movie playing a genius scientist. And I reached out to
you guys, and I didn't know the lay of the land,
because you know people you know that maybe held a
(35:07):
grudge or there was some bad feeling. And I remember
Jennifer kind of written back and just said that you
weren't interested at that time. But I'll tell you this.
I went back to Daniel.
Speaker 4 (35:16):
I was probably I was probably in rehab.
Speaker 1 (35:21):
You didn't mention that man. But then I went to Daniel.
I said, you know, how about so and so and
so and so and so and so, and he goes, Now,
if you if we can't get Michael, don't bother So.
Speaker 4 (35:32):
Daniel, I'm up for anything he's got from here on it.
Speaker 1 (35:36):
You know what step one you get to it. It's
a twelve step program me. Sam hum Simon Ye, Maggie.
Speaker 9 (35:42):
Q and you should.
Speaker 1 (35:43):
You should be on Ballard, the show she's doing now,
the spin off from Bosh whatever this thing is, she's
doing it in America.
Speaker 4 (35:51):
What's called what's ballad?
Speaker 1 (35:54):
Ballad? A L L A.
Speaker 4 (35:56):
I'm happy. What's the name of that actor who's a
B I'm happy for him?
Speaker 1 (36:03):
Odd kind of Tolliver, something very good.
Speaker 4 (36:07):
Yes, he's been around for a long tim.
Speaker 1 (36:09):
Five times, he's been married five times. There's obviously something
wrong with him.
Speaker 5 (36:13):
But the good news is that he married five times
before he got that show.
Speaker 1 (36:21):
You you know, it's like when when when a friend
of mine lost his job and he had five kids,
and I said, the goodness is two of them are mine.
Speaker 5 (36:34):
Titus well Titus well Over.
Speaker 4 (36:39):
That's just right, Yeah, yeah, yeah, give me that nice guy.
Speaker 1 (36:42):
I definitely want to reconnect you. We should do another call.
I mean, actually, he'd probably come on the show if
we asked him. You want him Daniel Daniel Lee. But
but you know, with Daniel, I mean again, you know
telling no one tells he was out of school, but
he did a run of period films in China, and
(37:03):
I kind of felt with Dragon Squad and the first
one of those three kingdoms that he would have had.
There's something I don't know. The Chinese industry compared to
South Korea has somewhat diminished in terms of its global footprint,
and I'm not sure it's something I guess relevant to
the system. The way films are made in China different
to the way we used to make them in Hong Kong,
(37:25):
very different to the way they do them in South Korea,
because South Korea's it's like, you know, very small place
and has come to dominate, you know, the global industry,
whether it's TV films, South everything, South Korea. Yeah, it's insane.
It's really extraordinary the way that that's taken over, and
it's kind of become the new Hong Kong. Because Hong
(37:46):
Kong in the eighties and nineties this tiny little place
and they were cranking out movie after movie, you know, drama, action, horror, horror, comedy, horror, drama,
and I got into the tail end of it.
Speaker 5 (38:01):
I want I wanted to ask your babe, because, uh,
you know, since we've spent time together, since I've been
in Hong Kong, that whole takeover of you know.
Speaker 4 (38:14):
We get who are we with the West?
Speaker 5 (38:17):
Or whatever gave Hong Kong back to China and China
protests and everything. And when I talked to you on
the phone, I said, like, ugh, like, what's it like now,
like thinking and uh, you kind of like gave me
the impressions like that, you know, as long as you're
not running around with signs.
Speaker 4 (38:37):
Yeah, yeah, they had been a change.
Speaker 1 (38:40):
I think if if you were overtly political, are overtly
outspokenly political in a way that the government does not
like you have an issue. I've never been a political animal.
I'm a humanist. I mean, I'm vote for any party
that makes people less hungry, better educated, you know, less
or you know whatever those things are that no one
(39:02):
seems to focus on it. If we can do that,
I don't care which party it is, So I'm not
interested in the politics of it. So I was other
than on a humanist level, I would never be making
statements of like this Hong Kong should be this, Hong
Kong should be that. So for me living and working
day by day, it didn't.
Speaker 4 (39:18):
Really to this day it has not, and.
Speaker 1 (39:23):
To this day for me it has not, and I
think for most people in Hong Kong it's not because
Most people in Hong Kong are very pragmatic and not
really political. One thing I would say is that our
Hong Kong filmmaking kind of ethos changed because the aim
became to make movies that would work in the mainland
(39:45):
Chinese market, and that's a very different market the one
that Hong Kong used to be, Ashu used to be,
the West used to be. So I think Hong Kong
cinema has declined, and I think Chinese cinema, given the
massive amounts of money, the people, the resource is that
one has, I would think you should be able to,
you know, it should be functioning better than it is
(40:08):
and producing more great films than it has. So that's
my feeling. But I was lucky because I branched out
and in recent years the films I guess that have
done the best were Fury and Furies, which are two
films that we did in Vietnam, which was another incredible experience.
I mean, probably as much as you had a culture
shot when you came to Hong Kong, I had it
(40:29):
when I came to work in in Vietnam. Hold on
a minute, I'm just gonna get a cable.
Speaker 10 (40:35):
I also just wanted to say too in terms of
we were talking about South Korea kind of taking over production.
We were talking about Parasite two episodes ago, how well
that did. Squid Games right now is the biggest show
on TV. It has really just kind of taken over
the Asian market, I feel like, and with Vietnam.
Speaker 1 (40:51):
What was interesting was I there was a you know,
the backstory to it was interesting. I was at the
American Film Market and I ran into a friend of
mine called Dustin winn Or as he likes to be called,
that Asian guy from twenty one Jump Street. So I
always introduced him to people. I say, here's my friend,
Austin or is he likes to be called So he
was the Asian guy in twenty one Jump Street and
(41:12):
he we were both drunk at a party during the
American Film Market and he wandered up to me. I actually,
what's funny that same year you and I met Michael
and with Elizabeth and we had lunch and we laughed
so hard again I thought we were going to have hernias.
It was just memories but in LA But anyway, so
then he gave me this was so long. He gave
(41:34):
me a disc he gave me like a DVD disc
because I put in my pocket this is his new movie.
And I came back to Hong Kong and I had
this habit. He was playing something in the background. I
was a bit jet lagged. I'm working in my cond
I just put this film on, found it in my pocket. Oh,
put this on, played it and this this movie called
The Rebel. It was a period action film in Vietnam.
I took a look at it and I was like,
oh my god, this is incredible. Who's this girl, who's
(41:55):
this guy? And at the time, I was working for
Mirrimax and those did I caught it, bought me a ticket.
I'm going to sig on, there's this great movie, there's
this great director. And I just flew out the next day.
And that began my working relationship with another incredible Vietnamese person,
Veronica No. And Veronica worked on Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
(42:17):
Io with inf Me. When we shot that in New Zealand,
which was this big Netflix epic, we were at their
premiere in Beijing and she said to me, I want
to do this other movie in Vietnam. It's going to
be kind of a version of Taken, but it's like
a mother and her daughter, and then taglines they've messed
(42:38):
with the wrong mother and she goes after the guys
who're trying to human traffic her daughter, who's a little girl.
And this became huge and it was like the most popular,
most successful film at that point in the history of Vietnam,
and it was nominated for an Oscar and what have you.
So that was really interesting. And then we did a
couple of years later, we did the sequel, a prequel
(42:59):
called Furies, And right now I'm working on the third one,
a Fury three, which hey, we'll do in l A
and Michael, you should be in that one. Actually, the
plotline is very similar to the Blood cheaper than I
used to be. That's that's not what Jennifer to But anyway,
(43:21):
so yeah, I'm working on that at the moment. But
those movies, if you, if You, if you. I think
the first film maybe the Netflix license has expired because
I was recommending a friend to watch it. The second
one is on on on Netflix, the first one maybe
it's on Amazon. And one of the other ones, Fury
and Fury is f U r I E and f
U R I E s. Actually I followed the exact
(43:43):
alien model Alien Aliens, and the third one is going
to be Fury three. So that's what we were doing.
So I did those three. I did those two, and
that was Vietnam. Have you been to Vietnam?
Speaker 4 (43:55):
I want to go so badly.
Speaker 5 (43:58):
I will fly to til And and you know when
I'm in yeah, yeah, or whatever.
Speaker 4 (44:04):
God, I'd love to go there.
Speaker 1 (44:06):
It's incredible. I mean, it's what's interesting about it was,
even though it's obviously, you know, has a similar ruling
party to the one in China, it's still very much Francophone.
It's very much Franco Field. It's like it feels like
a French European. What they did in what they did,
(44:27):
which I think has been to the detriment of Hong Kong,
is that in Vietnam they welcomed back the diaspora. All
of the kids who had been war babies, who grew
up in like Orange County, that grew up in Norway,
that grew up in Germany, they all came back to
Vietnam and they spoke Vietnamese, they were ethnic Vietnamese, but
they had this international mindset, including Veronica, my producing partner
(44:52):
and friend, who had been in Norway and it was
It was really interesting because when we did Crouching Tiger,
we had different directors helping us on the film, and
one was Morton Tilden and Morton had directed a film
called Passengers and Imitation Game and he's a Norwegian director
and interesting guy. So he came in and I said, oh,
this girl's coming in tomorrow and she's the Vietnamese but
(45:14):
she was raised in Norway and he was like really,
and then when they met, it was the funniest thing
because he was like he she like lily. So we
were on the set we would have like him directing
in Norwegian, and then Jan wore Paining directing in Chinese
and another guy directing in Vietnamese, so it was me
(45:34):
directing in English. So it was.
Speaker 4 (45:39):
Interpreters y way forward.
Speaker 1 (45:46):
It was crazy.
Speaker 2 (45:48):
Crouching Tiger is on also on on on Netflix because
they they we began production and it was an independent
film and midway through it was acquired by and financed
by Netflix, and even the second Furies was Netflix original.
Speaker 1 (46:02):
So they've been very good to us, very good to me.
Speaker 4 (46:05):
They are. Do you wish you'd never heard of mirrormaxs
you issue has never gone to work for them.
Speaker 1 (46:13):
No, I don't, because I mean, I think the issues
that I had in my own life were not directly
a result of that. They were I was not involved
with anything relevant to Harvey or any of that, because
I was always.
Speaker 4 (46:27):
You didn't get the fucking the wave.
Speaker 1 (46:31):
I had my own.
Speaker 4 (46:32):
I had my own, didn't that.
Speaker 5 (46:36):
Don't you think that had a lot to do with
the fact that you were working at Mirrimack?
Speaker 1 (46:40):
There were, there were, there were It's an indirect thing.
I mean, there's two aspects to it. One was, when
I was with Miramax, I was in Hong Kong, and
I would basically see you know, Harvey twice a year
when he flew in, or I would see him in
passing a cann or an American film market. So there
was no interaction or no where of anything that might
(47:01):
have anything that people think about of that era. I
didn't know, and I didn't really know about it even
to this day, other than what I would read like everybody.
So I just did my job at Merrimax, and it
was a fantastic experience, and I got to work with
filmmakers and do films that I would otherwise never got
to do. Many years after, there was a journalist in
(47:22):
Hong Kong who had this aim to She basically wrote
a headline because she met a disgruntled actress that I
had worked with, who had had a complicated relationship with,
and she heard that I worked for Harvey Weinstein, like
thousands of people in the movie industry.
Speaker 11 (47:37):
So she went and wrote a headline a Hong Kong
rep of Harvey Weinstein Merrimax accused by multiple women, and
then she set out to try to find a way
to cobble a story together.
Speaker 1 (47:49):
And I, unfortunately, at that time in my own life,
I was really you talk about being in rehab, I
think I should have been. My life was just chaos.
And if I had particularly been in a functional working
space with my soulmate Elizabeth at that time, we would
(48:09):
have chewed up Selena Chang and spat her out on
the side of the road. But I handled it really badly.
And so I don't blame Mirramax, I don't blame anybody
it was. I blame the reporter because she obviously wanted
to make a name for herself at my expense, and
it was a cheap shot because it was, like, you know,
of all of the filmmakers in Hong Kong, the only
(48:31):
one to be accused of anything like this was me,
the white guy. So it was easy. You could virtue signal, oh,
we took care of this guy who was related to
Harvey and Mirramax, and he's been taken care of and
now all's good. If she really cared about anything beyond
making a name for herself, she would have gone after
all the other people. But maybe then she'd be floating
(48:52):
in the Harvey.
Speaker 9 (48:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (48:57):
That, and it was really brutal. It was probably the
worst thing that did that happen, other than losing my parents.
You know, it's the worse thing.
Speaker 4 (49:07):
Did that affect your filmmaking ability?
Speaker 1 (49:11):
I'll tell you it's really interesting because in the immediate
wake of the story coming out, and I dealt with
it badly and been drinking and self medicating and all
other crazy stuff was going on, and I wasn't maintaining
a very good family unit work unit. Of course, when
you were the inside of that chaos, you don't see it.
It's later you look back on your own life and
(49:32):
you go, what was I thinking? What was wrong with me?
But I remember. It's interesting, you say, because where else
we had story just did a play from in there.
Apart from the furniture, there was a DVD of the
Bob Dylan documentary by Da Pennebacker don't look back. Oh wow,
that's advice. And then I went out and it was
(49:54):
a beautiful like today, a full moon, and I was
thinking of drinking about a bottle of whiskey on the beach,
and I I looked out and saw this wonderful moonlight
like a path on the waves, and I thought, I'll
just get another half through this bottle, and I'm going
to swim out down that line as far as I
can go, and then just think, and that's going to
(50:15):
be it. And I as a Buddhist, in my concept,
when you achieve nirvana and you kind of like dissolve
into nothingness, it's like a star under the stars and
a warm night in the sea, and you dissolve into
love and light. That's what will happened, and then I
don't need to worry about stuff anymore, which after half
a bottle of jack is the kind of stuff that
(50:35):
rolls for your brain. Fortunately, and the reason I'm on
your podcast is I kept drinking and passed out so
I couldn't to oblivion. But I woke up in the
early hours.
Speaker 4 (50:50):
Where I put that gun. That's my problem. I can't
remember find there.
Speaker 1 (50:56):
No one has guns, Otherwise it would have been easier.
But then so I put the wis. I woke up
on Michael, we know how this feels. I'll work out
freezing cold on the beach with a raging headache and
a half bottle of jack in my hand. And then
I looked sat there looking out, and there was a
fisherman out to see and he just cast his net
(51:16):
in a beautiful circle out onto the waves, and I
thought he looks familiar. And I realized that I'd actually
been there for a few days before. I hit that
kind of moment of satory of enlightenment, and I thought,
this guy every day goes out, maybe he catches fish,
maybe he doesn't. And if there is a path back
for you Bay as a filmmaker, as a writer, as
(51:38):
a family man, as a friend, it's going to be
getting up every day and just going back to work.
That's going to be it. You know that you'd be
like the fisherman. You catch something, you don't catch something,
You've got to get up and go back to work
and That's what I did. And now I'm sitting in
my lovely house that you know, the fruit of my efforts.
And it worked out and I kind of, over years,
(52:00):
reclaimed my family, reclaimed my career. I think what made
it easier was that the it was a cobble together story,
and if there'd been any real by me that it
would have been harder to do that because people would
have said, oh, but you did this, but you did that,
(52:22):
and I didn't. Really it was it was a made
up story by one journalist who wanted to make a
name for herself.
Speaker 5 (52:28):
Well they were We kind of are at a time
that we usually call this. I want to thank you
so much.
Speaker 1 (52:41):
You.
Speaker 4 (52:43):
I love you, You're You're just a true friend.
Speaker 5 (52:47):
And any kind in any relationship, sometimes there's going to
be a miscommunication and I just want you to know
you how much you mean to me. And uh yeah,
give me back over to Vietnam.
Speaker 1 (53:03):
I'd love that same same from my side. And I'm
back and forward to the States all the time, and
it'll be wonderful to reconnect and as I say, only
regret when I look back at the the the final
exchanges that we had before, like going our separate ways?
Was it was so positive? And I don't know. It's
like I mentioned just now. You know, when you're sometimes
(53:25):
you have a certain mindset. When you're in that mindset,
you see things a certain way, and later you look
back at yourself and you feel like a stranger to yourself.
And that's how I am. Sometimes I think, what was
I thinking? Why didn't I keep calling Michael? Why didn't
I maintain friendship?
Speaker 3 (53:41):
You know?
Speaker 1 (53:41):
But I did. But I know that when Daniel wanted
you again, I had no compunction about reaching out right
away and trying to and I didn't. And I know, Michael,
bless your heart. I mean, you've been through some some
de challenge yourself and in a way more profound than
whatever I went through with the Mirrimax thing. So you know,
(54:02):
my heart goes out to you, my friend, and you
know you're always a brother to me, and I just
those times, those experiences are very dead in my heart.
When you read the book, I think you'll laugh and
be happy.
Speaker 4 (54:11):
All right, when's it coming out?
Speaker 1 (54:13):
You think I'm finishing.
Speaker 4 (54:15):
I did it.
Speaker 1 (54:16):
I've written. I'll send these to you. I've did two
books about Hong Kong action cinema, I did a book
about Bruce Lee that was very successful. I'm just finishing
one about Jackie Chan and I think my book will
be the next one. So I would say probably the
end of this year, November, around the time of my birthday.
So I'll send you copies and hey, maybe I'll come
(54:38):
back on the show to talk some more about the
book when it comes out. Catching up on this. This
is such a wonderful thing that you're doing, and the
stuff you're sharing is so wonderful, and it's also very
important because I think it's giving life lessons to a
new generation of filmmakers and people that will inherit the world.
And I think that's really important.
Speaker 4 (54:58):
What world is us?
Speaker 1 (55:01):
Yes, that's right, all right, bebe thank you, thank you.
Speaker 4 (55:05):
This has been it's been so terrif thank you absolutely.
Speaker 3 (55:11):
How much you lent to a strange begin show. Which
hand would you choose to whip away unto my gree
to your waiting bound.
Speaker 1 (55:20):
Your old billy? How would you look upon someone dirtier
than you? Under me? Why do you let me carry
on with our shoes? You
I have declared against my brain in order to see.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
That.
Speaker 3 (00:06):
One's don't seem to so long as that they will
you stop days, I don't have to.
Speaker 4 (00:19):
Let's let's let's let's talk about Blood Bond.
Speaker 5 (00:22):
Okay, where did you call me up, Bay or at
some point did you call me and say, hey, I've
got some money we can How did we How do
we reco my recollection?
Speaker 4 (00:39):
I know you've got a very good memory.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
For now I have another year.
Speaker 4 (00:43):
Well, yeah, I got a few years on you.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
So I had. I had that. I'd written the script
for what became Blood Bond very early in my tenure
in Hong Kong, and like most writers, i'd written many
more movies than than ever got made. So that was
one of them. And had had my tenure at that
time with Mirramax, which gave me access to connections and
(01:08):
money and whatever. But my recollections. When we did Dragon Squad,
you had read the script and said, oh, this is
really interesting. You try to You had another script called
The Mercy House that you wanted to do. Maybe we
should have done that instead anyway, but that was with
you and Maggie. You and Maggie would have done that one.
It was about a father losing his Eurasian daughter and
tracking her down. And you had that script. I think
(01:31):
it was written by Dallas Dallas Sonia. Was that the
guy that you brought in?
Speaker 5 (01:35):
No, not we know who we know Dallas, but no,
that waste.
Speaker 4 (01:41):
I wrote that script with U.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
And then there was and then there was you read
Blood Bond and go, okay, well this is kind of
cooled and interesting and it was very different from what
we ended up shooting. But anyway, that was the first thing.
And then I said, well, if I get the money
to do it, then you know, not direct, but you
should star in the film. And yeah, so in the
intervening time, I mean, you know, so many criticisms that
(02:05):
one can make about me, but one that I don't
think will be founded is that I'm not loyal. So
I was like, if I said you were going to
star in the movie, then you're going to star in
the movie, and regardless whatever. And then so some years
after and I just said, look, I've got the money,
let's do this movie. The mystery, in my mind, is
(02:26):
the obvious thing to do. And what would have made
a lot more sense would have been to have you
and Maggie star in the film, and I can't for
the life of me, I think by that point she
had gone Hollywood, and perhaps I don't know, and maybe
I felt it was going to be imposing on our
friendship to say, please come back and do a low
budget film. I didn't feel a way about you because
(02:48):
I already ordered you, offered you the part. But we
ended up, as you know, we've got this incredible girl, Phoenix,
who the great missed opportunity of you know, she should
have been.
Speaker 5 (03:00):
Let me let me say something about Phoenix, Okay, and
that is by I heard you on the other podcast
say that.
Speaker 4 (03:11):
You know she was.
Speaker 5 (03:12):
Uh, there was a listen I on this podcast stupidly
at one point, UH called you a gopher. Okay, and
you know the ship comes out of my mouth. I
kind of meant you were doing stuff for me.
Speaker 4 (03:33):
Uh.
Speaker 5 (03:34):
You know, obviously you had a producer's credit on it.
That hurt your feelings. I think you went on another
podcast and uh one of the one of the one
of the things that that that you talked about was
the girl that I mean I didn't know you cast,
(03:54):
I mean we cast her together.
Speaker 4 (03:56):
I guess she was a very pretty girl.
Speaker 1 (03:59):
Uh.
Speaker 4 (04:00):
Uh And.
Speaker 6 (04:03):
Wait, wait, wait, one of my one of your one
of your one of your one of your criticisms of
me was that, like I didn't spend enough time with
her to try to get like a performance out of her.
Speaker 5 (04:16):
And you know, base sometimes it's hard to get blood
from a.
Speaker 7 (04:21):
Stone, you know, you don't And and she went on
to do what even in.
Speaker 5 (04:30):
That podcast, you were like, I don't know what she
did one more thing and.
Speaker 4 (04:34):
Never nothing ever happened with her. I don't know why
she couldn't.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
I want to kind of like, uh, you know, kick
a kick a dead dog now, because I mean it's like,
obviously her career didn't happen. And I know to some
degree that she was her own worst enemy. And by
the way, I think at the time it was just yeah,
I hear what you're saying. Think her huge problem was
(04:59):
that she had She had, I mean a number of gifts.
I mean, she was stunningly beautiful. I thought she was
a nice person, she was physicality, all of that. That
The area that I think was a problem was she somehow.
Speaker 8 (05:15):
Felt it might be unfair of me, but but but okay,
there were My model for the movie was the African queen,
and that crusty old you know, Humphrey Bogud, And it happened.
Speaker 1 (05:33):
There were some scenes in the movie if you go
back and look through them again, where some of that happened.
And I just think maybe that got lost in all
the chaos of shooting at ace or what have you.
But I hear what you're saying, and I think you're
absolutely right. It's unfair of me, But it was interesting.
Even though the other girl, the bad girl, did not
(05:53):
speak English. I remember you were far more taken with
her as a performer and her sona then with Phoenix,
and you said to me, that's do you remember her?
The girl, the.
Speaker 5 (06:07):
Chinese girl, the girl that came in from China. She
was unbelievable. We'll get to her in a second.
Speaker 4 (06:12):
Okay, Oh sure, I wanted.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
So if you want to do you want to know
what happened to Phoenix or you want to talk about
her some more, please go ahead. No.
Speaker 5 (06:20):
I just felt like, yeah, you know, I thought it
was It felt a little bit when you were talking
on the other podcast, it was sort of there was
there was a mention of like me not spending enough
time with her to get a good performance out of her,
and maybe I was jealous because she was so right,
(06:41):
she was so good that or something.
Speaker 4 (06:43):
And I just.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
I was thinking, is it because I called you a gopher?
But I mean, I think I have enough removed to go.
You know, I'm thinking, why was it a concern that
if she is you know, if you if if she
kind of like because she's a stunningly beautiful kung fu
fighting girl and she steals every scene. I mean, does
(07:09):
it dim an issue as an actor?
Speaker 4 (07:11):
She didn't. She was terrible. I couldn't get hurt.
Speaker 1 (07:16):
No, You're right, Michael. I mean I think as an
actor she felt she was good and she wasn't. I
was just thinking about the fact that she was on
camera she looked stunning, She's very beautiful, and her movement
when she did the action, which obviously in an action
film is and then when we did the reshoots, she
did a lot more even than she did the first
(07:36):
time around, and she was just I would put her
in the top, you know, three percent two percent of
Asian fighting women I've ever worked with.
Speaker 4 (07:44):
Okay, I'm just saying.
Speaker 5 (07:46):
I'm just saying I couldn't get a let me let
me go back to something else too.
Speaker 4 (07:52):
I did I didn't. I didn't ask you to direct
that movie.
Speaker 1 (07:56):
Today, No I asked you to do.
Speaker 5 (07:59):
You asked me to do it, and I think one
of the reasons that you asked me to do it
was because you thought it would help promote the movie.
Speaker 4 (08:08):
Are in sales that I have never done.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
Actually, no, I'll tell you what it was. I felt that, well,
first of all, I couldn't find anybody who I trusted
locally to do this English language picture, and certainly none
of the people that Henry Luk, the owner of the studio,
had around. And I felt that by Osmosis that you'd
worked with some of the greatest directors, you know, James
(08:32):
Cameron and Michael Bay and William Friedkin. By osmosis, that
you would have taken on some knowledge of directing. And
I think you did, because I mean to even have
the film that we had completed as a feature that
some people even today said to me, oh I saw
that movie and I quite liked it. That you must
(08:53):
be a director, because I didn't direct it, so you
must have been, you know. So I didn't think about
the marketing. My only if you say Michael Bean from Terminator,
Aliens The Rock Tombstone that's as an actor. That's that's gold.
That's what we wanted. But I look back on it,
and even in I was very I'm very slow to
(09:16):
I don't know why. Some other guys you're wrong, definitely,
but I mean, you know, but but I uh no,
I just want to say that when the people stirred,
some people stirred up that some animosity. But I think
if you watched the whole interview I did with David
A Viking Samurai, I don't think it's all mean spirited.
(09:37):
But I mean I said it's not.
Speaker 4 (09:39):
It's not. It's not all mean spirit I just want.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
To be talking now if it was no, no, no no.
Speaker 5 (09:44):
I just wanted to point out a few of what
I consider the because you know, you're talking about writing
a book, and I can't wait to read it. You're
writing it. You know, when it comes out, I'll read it.
This is my this is my book. Okay, this is
my book.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
By the way, from what I read in the comments,
all the fans want you to write your books.
Speaker 4 (10:04):
If you need to know this, I can't. I can't write,
so you know that I can.
Speaker 1 (10:08):
Well, maybe we'll collaborate, but I'm devon doing my own book,
which is called Falling Off the Dragon's Back, which i'll describe.
I'll explain another time why it's called that, but I
certainly taking on board the fact that you don't want
me to recount these stories in that book.
Speaker 4 (10:25):
No, here's here.
Speaker 5 (10:27):
Here was My experience of it was that, first of all,
you hired a good, a pretty good DP.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
The DP his name was Ross Clarkson, and you've done
a lot of action Australian guy.
Speaker 4 (10:44):
Yeah, Ross was a good DP. And the where we
shot in China, what's it called.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
It was called a Studios in a city called Nanaheim.
Speaker 5 (10:58):
It was gorgeous. I mean, if you want production value
as far as like being in China and being out
in the country and all of this kind of it
was absolutely fabulous.
Speaker 4 (11:11):
And when we were going on kind of.
Speaker 5 (11:13):
Location scouts and stuff like that, I'm like, oh my god,
look at this, and oh my god, look at that.
Speaker 4 (11:20):
Oh my god, look at this.
Speaker 5 (11:23):
I think that one of the things that we might
have to agree to disagree on, Bay was the fact that.
Speaker 4 (11:34):
That studio.
Speaker 5 (11:37):
That I'm not sure if they'd ever made a movie before,
that group.
Speaker 4 (11:44):
That called themselves a studio.
Speaker 5 (11:46):
I know that you said in your interview that some
other director like a Hong Kong director or Chinese director whatever,
worked with them and you know did something.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
Well, no, this was the Blood Blog was the first
I would say, proper movie. The movie before that, You're
in the Forest, that was Henry's film, but we'll putt
to get that story in event. But anyway, you were
actually in their first film as well as Blood Bond.
Speaker 5 (12:15):
Well, well, listen, first of all, it was a group
of people. In my mind, this is the way we
made it was. It was called the movie studio. But
like the sound guy had never done sound, The wardrobe
(12:41):
people had never done wardrobe, the hair people had never
done like.
Speaker 4 (12:45):
It was just a group of people.
Speaker 5 (12:47):
He called his his his crew, his crew. And it's
kind of hard to work as a director that I'm
a director anyway, now, I don't you know, I spent
too much time thinking about myself and my roles to
pay attention too much to Jim and all those sort
(13:08):
of guys. But I wasn't I wasn't getting much help
from that's the people that were in that studio.
Speaker 4 (13:18):
Would you agree with that?
Speaker 1 (13:19):
I also and I also think that for me as
a that was my first film moving into lead position.
I'm trying to think because I mean, you know, when
you do something like a Medallion with Jackie Chan, Yeah,
you're a producer, but you're a cog within this big machine.
(13:40):
Yes with Ace, you know, you were you had to
be the guy, and I was still I was still
figguring my own shit out. And I think if I
had it to do over, I could have supported you
better and known how to maneuver around that and kind
of like like h it was almost like I felt
(14:03):
it was like a Roger Corman experience, and a lot
of great directors did their first movie on a Roger
Corman shoot, like you know, not.
Speaker 4 (14:12):
Great movies, not necessarily.
Speaker 9 (14:16):
Box Yeah with with with when I think you could
this is what I perceived Nanhai to be of the
potential of being and the following year and I think
the difference was well, for one thing, you know, you
were an actor who I persuaded and you know, kind
(14:37):
of cajoled into being a director.
Speaker 1 (14:39):
And by the way, I want to say one thing
for the record about Michael as a team player. You
didn't get paid one dollar more to direct. You did
the whole thing you directed for free. So I mean,
you know, there's not many friends who would do that
for you. But the next year I had another guy
come back who was French, who was purely director, and
I think I'd come into myself a bit as a
producer and I'd known how to work Henry Relook in
(15:00):
the studio, so the film we could do then, and
I wish I could go back. It's like if I
knew then what I know now, you know, if I
could go back and do Blood Bond again, what I
think I could have given you better support and gone
into every day with the like, Okay, what are we
going to do? How are we going to do this? Different?
And interesting? There was still some some stuff in there
(15:22):
which was you know, had great scale to it and
looked incredible.
Speaker 4 (15:27):
I mean there wasn't there was.
Speaker 5 (15:30):
Like I said, the first of all, we had cart Blanche.
We could go anywhere and we could shoot anything. Now
I didn't realize it at the time, but we would
just go to somebody's house and I would go inside.
Speaker 4 (15:42):
Of it, and I like this. The next thing I
knew was people were gone out of that house. They
were like And it.
Speaker 5 (15:48):
Wasn't until about halfway through the shoot that I realized
that the two guys that were finding locations that were
making people show. Oh, by the way, dozens and dozens
of that's always extras, you know, like anything we need.
Speaker 1 (16:04):
We had the Guru, the guy that gets shot and
he's speaking, and you have all the people coming in
from the fields like gandhy and you've got this crane
shot of it's like a David Lean movie a farm
as the eye can see.
Speaker 5 (16:17):
Well, this there's there was There were two guys that
were in a car that seemed to always be able
to organize all this stuff, and they were.
Speaker 1 (16:25):
The local gangsters.
Speaker 5 (16:27):
Yeah, about half about halfway through the about halfway through
the shoot, I was guys said get the back get
in the back seat. I'll get you over there because
I needed to go someplace.
Speaker 4 (16:37):
I got in the back seat.
Speaker 1 (16:38):
Two of them.
Speaker 4 (16:38):
It was baseball.
Speaker 1 (16:42):
That's that's right. He had a baseball bat in the
back of his car. And it's all dinged up from
I guess hitting people.
Speaker 7 (16:49):
My dad here, we want to shoot, we want to
shoot it here, get out, you know, bring me one
hundred and fifty extras in ten minutes, so I'm gonna be.
Speaker 1 (17:01):
That was it. And then but that same guy you
put in the movie playing a soldier and he kind
of like just dented his his elbow on something. Ye boy,
that was you're the same guy with the baseball bat.
Speaker 4 (17:16):
So so we you know, we I as because I was.
Speaker 5 (17:24):
Used to a normal crew, yeah, And I was used
to the art direction, and I was used to people
doing their jobs.
Speaker 4 (17:31):
And I felt I was running around doing so many
other and you were busy. You you would come in
and you were kind of first.
Speaker 1 (17:39):
I think I allowed myself to be distracted by other
things going on around and I did not appreciate you
know that. And I tried to say this, Actually it
was a mistake. I didn't phrase it right, but there
was You were doing an interview with one of those
Michael Bean fan sites, and I spoke about it, and
I just said something like, you know, I should have
given Michael and more support because because I've been the
(18:03):
white guy working in Hong Kong by that point for
so many years, I just got couple of like pretty
much everybody's Chinese, and they speak English to different levels.
None of them particularly know their job. And you were
in at the defense, and I look back that I
could have been more support.
Speaker 4 (18:21):
Well, that's okay, listen, bab it's fucking twenty years. Though
I don't give a ship, it's my book.
Speaker 1 (18:27):
I think the other thing is what you what, what
you you learn from it? And you know, I saw
the Victim and I thought, you know, you did a
really good you know, spit on your grade again.
Speaker 5 (18:39):
The Victim was made for two hundred thousand dollars, which
I took fifty of. Okay, so that that's a completely
different story. But I wanted to mention a couple other
things before where you kind of get off that off
the subject. One of the things which is absolutely true
is that I was like screaming like.
Speaker 4 (19:04):
Motherfucker god, damn it, no fucking god. I just absolutely like,
like at least.
Speaker 1 (19:12):
Toys, which was a problem because you had scenes.
Speaker 4 (19:16):
But maybe twice a day.
Speaker 5 (19:18):
I would absolutely lose it because there would there would
be things that would happen like, okay, we're ready to
shoot you ready, we got everybody in place, were kind
of rehearse that.
Speaker 4 (19:29):
Okay, what a hammer? Okay? Can I have a hammer? Please?
A hammer? A hammer? Like a hammer? A hammer? Can
I have a hammer please? Like a hammer? Some guy?
Go okay and need run off and fucking never come back,
(19:50):
and I tell somebody else give me a ham. You know,
half an hour later I was still sitting there waiting
waiting for a hammer.
Speaker 1 (19:58):
That's what I should have been there with the hammer
in one.
Speaker 5 (20:01):
Yeah, you were you look like you were setting up
your next movie or working on You weren't listen.
Speaker 4 (20:06):
I don't.
Speaker 5 (20:07):
I don't, so so I did scream, but and I
screamed a lot on that movie.
Speaker 4 (20:14):
But one of the things I have to say is
they're all fucking Chinese. They had had no idea when
I was screaming. And I never screamed at anybody.
Speaker 5 (20:23):
I never screamed like you motherfucker, get me a hammer.
Speaker 1 (20:26):
I just like.
Speaker 4 (20:27):
Went like, God help me. God right.
Speaker 1 (20:31):
This is true after the famous Christian Bale run, so
I had great concerns that this video of you would
get out and damage you and damage the movie. So
I went up to the making up guy and I said,
can you give me that footage? And he goes, it's
no problem. Michael told me every time he starts yelling
to cut. So I was the footage of Michael got
(20:52):
and then cutting. So we didn't do anything. Now, I
would never have used it My concern was because what
happened with the Christian Bale thing was think it was
hugely unprofessional that somebody leaked that and that it was
then the subject of whatever it was subject of. It
was something that should have been kept within that production
and dealt with, and the same thing with us. I
didn't want that going out and Michael being misrepresented because
(21:14):
you're absolutely right, and a lot of times you were just
yelling to the heavens and.
Speaker 4 (21:18):
Yes, just nobody spoke English. Nobody spoke you know.
Speaker 5 (21:22):
I did have a translator that was there sometimes and
wasn't there at the time. But here here's the bottom line,
and this is why I wanted. I feel bay that
it's unfair to call me the director of the movie.
Speaker 4 (21:38):
And that's why this is going back to uh like.
Speaker 5 (21:42):
When Jim Cameron shot piranha okay, he shot it and
then they came in and said, thank you very much,
see you later.
Speaker 4 (21:53):
Can I have those keys?
Speaker 5 (21:54):
And that was that they didn't let him into the
editing room.
Speaker 4 (21:59):
So it was.
Speaker 5 (22:00):
And and you're the producer, You've got your own and
don't I don't fault you for like you've got your
own decisions to make for whatever reasons.
Speaker 4 (22:11):
But we finished that.
Speaker 5 (22:13):
Movie and I came back to Los Angeles with the
understanding in my mind. I thought that I got from
you or and thought we're all along. It was going
to be this way that I was going to take
a couple of weeks off. I was going to fly
back to Hong Kong and cut the movie, do the music,
(22:36):
do the sound design, all that kind of stuff that
directors do.
Speaker 4 (22:40):
And you never brought me back.
Speaker 1 (22:44):
And that was a mistake. I should have brought you
back to Look, I tried to. I mean I did
the first. I think my recollections overall are fairly accurate
on that point, and I've admitted it in writing. And
a minute now I was wrong in my You're gonna
kind of like hurl something at me, You're gonna held.
Speaker 4 (23:04):
I don't care. I don't care to laugh. My ass
about all of this ship now.
Speaker 1 (23:12):
Counter into view was that you had. But what I
realized was, and this is why I suppose, to some degree,
I think the truth lies somewhere in between. What happened
was why we didn't bring you back on what was
happening then, I don't know, but we edited what had
been shot, send it to you, and I have a
(23:34):
mess emails from you with conotes and comments and you
didn't like this, you like that? What overall? You signed
off on it?
Speaker 5 (23:39):
And wait, wait, wait wait, I'm in l A. I
don't have a studio, I don't have anything. You send
me a kind of the movie and say what do
you think?
Speaker 4 (23:53):
And I'm like, what am I gonna do?
Speaker 1 (23:55):
What are you gonna say? Yeah?
Speaker 4 (23:57):
You know, like, I don't have any way to cut movie.
I don't. It's not it's your movie at this right
and no.
Speaker 1 (24:04):
And I and I and I think that the reason
I had that sense that it was your cut was
because the footage was shot in such a way that
it fits. And that I think does speak to your
confidence as a director that even an idiot like me,
you could go in the editing room and cut it
ab CD and it would cut together as a smooth
(24:25):
movie from beginning to end. And you had a film
that you could play. You've heard a film that you take.
Speaker 5 (24:30):
The can you've heard the uh, the sentence or whatever,
will fix it and post, Yeah, right, we'll fix it
and post whatever it is, we'll fix it and post.
And I just wanted us to have this conversation, because listen,
you've been involved in some great stuff.
Speaker 4 (24:50):
I've been involved in some great stuff.
Speaker 5 (24:52):
I've been involved in some real shit, some really bad stuff.
So like we all hope and we all, like you
know how have good fights.
Speaker 1 (25:01):
And you know, the thing was, and I said this
in the other interview, was at the end of it,
I said, after all of that, and and I absolutely,
I mean I think there's yes, I one hundred percent agree.
I can't. The reason I can't answer this or for
this is I really this For some reason, I'm blanking
on why we didn't fly you back. I know whether
(25:23):
I can't, I don't know what it was. And we
just cut together what we had and sent it to you,
and I think that was wrong, and I apologize. At
the same time, you'd cut it, you'd shot what you
shot cut together very smoothly, and it was like, yeah, yeah,
I know you probably would have tweaked it, but I
mean you.
Speaker 4 (25:41):
Might have more than tweak it.
Speaker 5 (25:42):
And I'm not saying that it could it might might
have turned out to be fucking what it was anyway,
because you took you took it, you took that cut,
and you took your that cut, your music, your sound design.
You took all of that and then went out and
tried to sell correct true, okay, and basically people said
(26:05):
we don't want anything to do with it. Correct and
then correct, and then you went back and added a
bunch of shit to it.
Speaker 4 (26:11):
Correct, correct, and then tried to sell it again.
Speaker 1 (26:14):
Right, I did sell it again, or you did. And
there was a.
Speaker 4 (26:20):
Hell and there was a helicopter that.
Speaker 5 (26:22):
Yeah, I'm not trying to find Listen, babe, I love
you and we've had so much fun.
Speaker 4 (26:27):
I just you know, I'm not angry. I'm not like you.
Speaker 1 (26:32):
Know, you know what the thing was. And even when
we when these different things went up, I mean, there
were people making mean comments and I was like I
said to them, I said, why are you trying to
stir up the brothers meaning you and me? I mean,
this is right after you and I had our phone
conversation every twenty years, like clockwork, so you know, we
got on the phone to laugh. But I did say
(26:53):
on the interview, I said my recollection of Michael was
that we were friends and that, yes, dear friend, we
would just laugh our asses off and the day and
this is worthy of note, was Henry, Look who was
that the former Wall Street guy who was the owner
of Ace considered himself, perhaps uniquely, to be a director
(27:18):
monkey and he directed this film called The Forest. And
there was a character in that movie called Pete, and
he'd been played by another actor. And when Michael turned up,
Henry offered a bag of money to Michael to you
to say, would you come and shoot this character for
my movie The Forest? And you know, hey, what the
hell at gigs a gig? Right? But I do remember
(27:40):
just the pain of the laughter of that day, because
it was you were working in Pete's pharmacy and you
had a white coat with Pete. I don't know why
that was funny, but just when you appeared in the
doorway in my office in your pharmacy coat with Pete
just and then I think you edge somewhere you were
(28:00):
going to be on the edge of a precipice, and
wriggle your fingers, and Henry was such an I was done.
I was trying to call him.
Speaker 5 (28:08):
I was trying to crawl out of something, and we
were all laughing so hard, me and you were laughing
so hard.
Speaker 4 (28:14):
But oh, it was it was like a day. Gave
me ten grand but The thing about it, Bay.
Speaker 5 (28:20):
Is it's not on IMDb, and it doesn't come on
IMDb that I directed the.
Speaker 1 (28:29):
He made many other movies that could never be released,
and they did a couple of pictures after Blood Bond
that they did films that make Blood Bond look like
Citizen Kane. That's why I think you best make yourself
as a director, because you should see the pic. I
did one good movie. I did the best movie that
could be done, but it was not because of Henry.
(28:49):
It was in spite of him that I learned how
to kind of work around him. That the basil faulty
of the studio. Yes, it did his film called Borderland,
which I think was good, but then I realized that's
kind of as good. You could keep doing films at
that level, and my desire was to do bigger and
(29:11):
different and better movies. And it was after that I
did Crouching Tiger Lady other films with other people. So
it worked out thankfully, but I didn't want to get
stuck at the studio and just be doing films at
that level. He then did other films after that, and
I kind of have a you know, I don't like
as a filmmaker to be critiquing other people's films too loudly,
(29:33):
but the films they did afterwards, if you saw them,
you would go, my god, blood one looks pretty good
because that.
Speaker 4 (29:41):
Was the crew that I got to work with.
Speaker 1 (29:44):
That's true.
Speaker 4 (29:44):
What I wanted you to.
Speaker 5 (29:45):
Know too, Bay that you mentioned something about the screen
actor skilled.
Speaker 1 (29:52):
Yes, And I don't know if you wanted to mention
that now, because I don't want to put you into
any difficult situation.
Speaker 4 (30:00):
Because what he No.
Speaker 5 (30:02):
Uh, you mentioned on the podcast that there was a
situation where either you needed some voice over work, you
need a voice I've forgotten what it was, but but uh,
and I had said to you like, well, you need
to talk to the screen actors skill, because it wasn't
(30:24):
It wasn't something that I was worried about. It wasn't
me going like this guy did this and this guy
did that.
Speaker 4 (30:32):
I was worried about my fucking self.
Speaker 5 (30:35):
I was worried about that maybe I had done something
bad and therefore the screen actors killed would would go like, oh,
you went over to China and you made this movie
and you didn't tell us this, and that you're on
probation or you're on suspension or whatever.
Speaker 1 (30:54):
We my recollection of it, and I think it's born out.
I went back and looked at some of the exchanges.
Was I had a hard time getting from anybody in
your management or agency at the time an accurate list
of what the SAG requirements were. I felt on Blood
Bond we actually fulfilled them, perhaps more readily than we
(31:18):
had on Dragon Squad, because things like the working hours
and the turnaround were ignored throughout Dragon Squad. But on
Blood Bond you set the schedule, so I mean, it
wasn't too onerous, and I felt we had kind of
the Then when I you put your foot down and said, look,
we really need to get this cleared with SAG, which
is perfectly you know, within your rights. I called them
(31:39):
and I said, hypothetically, if I had shot a film
with one of your you know, kind of like members,
what would I do to get right with the union
and do this? Knew that and early and the guy
just said to me, did you have the guy in China?
You paid him already and he's been paid in full.
I said yes, And it says, says, don't why are
you bothering me? Most of our act most of our
members make not don't make a living, and I.
Speaker 5 (32:02):
I was always paid every dime, whether it was per diem,
I was. I was put up in an incredible The
hotel that I stayed at in China was absolutely phenomenal.
Speaker 4 (32:16):
I was the only person in it.
Speaker 1 (32:17):
But like the whole time, remember we had a massuse
for you, for you and Jennifer. You know, we basically
whatever we could do to make it a more pleasurable experience.
But yeah, so I felt bad about that.
Speaker 4 (32:28):
And I didn't need a masseuse. I needed a hammer.
Speaker 1 (32:35):
But you know what was funny was, you know when
we uh, you know, on the when we're talking about Sack,
there was a provision they had which was I don't
think any Chinese producers.
Speaker 5 (32:47):
I've never heard of this provision, and I don't Jim
can talk about it.
Speaker 1 (32:52):
They may have gone away with that.
Speaker 5 (32:53):
I don't think there's any provision that says you need
to hold a bunch of money in a place in
case the movie makes money. First of all, I've never
gotten any money from any production.
Speaker 1 (33:05):
Maybe SAG just keep the money. I don't know, But
at the time it was such a strange provision. I'm
pretty sure and I've got an email.
Speaker 4 (33:13):
Tell you, tell me what you think the provision was.
I want to ask you the provision.
Speaker 1 (33:18):
What the provision was that there would be actors that
had a profit participation in the film, that their anticipated
revenues from the release of the film would be sent
to a SAG account and held in what is the
word when you hold money? And you yeah, And then
(33:42):
subsequently you would provide accounts for what the film costs
to make and what it went back, and if it
hadn't made money, then the money would be refunded to you.
And no Hong Kong producer, including me, was going to
go along with that. They may have stopped doing it now.
But I actually in the wake up because I realized
that as good as my memory is, there was stuff
(34:02):
I really got wrong, and it was important, stuff like
I don't know whether you caught the film or not,
you know, and to see the back and forth the
other thing was and really regret this, and I'm really
happy that we kind of reconnected because in my memory
and actually this was going to be in the book,
(34:23):
was going to be. Everything ended very acrimoniously. But I
remember the last email you sent me. I don't remember
I read it. The last email that you ever sent
me of that era was when Elizabeth was going to
have the twins Short and Tire. At the time, the
last message you said was congratulations, you're such a great dad.
(34:43):
You asked your three boys and I'm sure you were too,
And that was that. And then later I remember Daniel
wanted you to come back to China to do another
movie playing a genius scientist. And I reached out to
you guys, and I didn't know the lay of the land,
because you know people you know that maybe held a
(35:07):
grudge or there was some bad feeling. And I remember
Jennifer kind of written back and just said that you
weren't interested at that time. But I'll tell you this.
I went back to Daniel.
Speaker 4 (35:16):
I was probably I was probably in rehab.
Speaker 1 (35:21):
You didn't mention that man. But then I went to Daniel.
I said, you know, how about so and so and
so and so and so and so, and he goes, Now,
if you if we can't get Michael, don't bother So.
Speaker 4 (35:32):
Daniel, I'm up for anything he's got from here on it.
Speaker 1 (35:36):
You know what step one you get to it. It's
a twelve step program me. Sam hum Simon Ye, Maggie.
Speaker 9 (35:42):
Q and you should.
Speaker 1 (35:43):
You should be on Ballard, the show she's doing now,
the spin off from Bosh whatever this thing is, she's
doing it in America.
Speaker 4 (35:51):
What's called what's ballad?
Speaker 1 (35:54):
Ballad? A L L A.
Speaker 4 (35:56):
I'm happy. What's the name of that actor who's a
B I'm happy for him?
Speaker 1 (36:03):
Odd kind of Tolliver, something very good.
Speaker 4 (36:07):
Yes, he's been around for a long tim.
Speaker 1 (36:09):
Five times, he's been married five times. There's obviously something
wrong with him.
Speaker 5 (36:13):
But the good news is that he married five times
before he got that show.
Speaker 1 (36:21):
You you know, it's like when when when a friend
of mine lost his job and he had five kids,
and I said, the goodness is two of them are mine.
Speaker 5 (36:34):
Titus well Titus well Over.
Speaker 4 (36:39):
That's just right, Yeah, yeah, yeah, give me that nice guy.
Speaker 1 (36:42):
I definitely want to reconnect you. We should do another call.
I mean, actually, he'd probably come on the show if
we asked him. You want him Daniel Daniel Lee. But
but you know, with Daniel, I mean again, you know
telling no one tells he was out of school, but
he did a run of period films in China, and
(37:03):
I kind of felt with Dragon Squad and the first
one of those three kingdoms that he would have had.
There's something I don't know. The Chinese industry compared to
South Korea has somewhat diminished in terms of its global footprint,
and I'm not sure it's something I guess relevant to
the system. The way films are made in China different
to the way we used to make them in Hong Kong,
(37:25):
very different to the way they do them in South Korea,
because South Korea's it's like, you know, very small place
and has come to dominate, you know, the global industry,
whether it's TV films, South everything, South Korea. Yeah, it's insane.
It's really extraordinary the way that that's taken over, and
it's kind of become the new Hong Kong. Because Hong
(37:46):
Kong in the eighties and nineties this tiny little place
and they were cranking out movie after movie, you know, drama, action, horror, horror, comedy, horror, drama,
and I got into the tail end of it.
Speaker 5 (38:01):
I want I wanted to ask your babe, because, uh,
you know, since we've spent time together, since I've been
in Hong Kong, that whole takeover of you know.
Speaker 4 (38:14):
We get who are we with the West?
Speaker 5 (38:17):
Or whatever gave Hong Kong back to China and China
protests and everything. And when I talked to you on
the phone, I said, like, ugh, like, what's it like now,
like thinking and uh, you kind of like gave me
the impressions like that, you know, as long as you're
not running around with signs.
Speaker 4 (38:37):
Yeah, yeah, they had been a change.
Speaker 1 (38:40):
I think if if you were overtly political, are overtly
outspokenly political in a way that the government does not
like you have an issue. I've never been a political animal.
I'm a humanist. I mean, I'm vote for any party
that makes people less hungry, better educated, you know, less
or you know whatever those things are that no one
(39:02):
seems to focus on it. If we can do that,
I don't care which party it is, So I'm not
interested in the politics of it. So I was other
than on a humanist level, I would never be making
statements of like this Hong Kong should be this, Hong
Kong should be that. So for me living and working
day by day, it didn't.
Speaker 4 (39:18):
Really to this day it has not, and.
Speaker 1 (39:23):
To this day for me it has not, and I
think for most people in Hong Kong it's not because
Most people in Hong Kong are very pragmatic and not
really political. One thing I would say is that our
Hong Kong filmmaking kind of ethos changed because the aim
became to make movies that would work in the mainland
(39:45):
Chinese market, and that's a very different market the one
that Hong Kong used to be, Ashu used to be,
the West used to be. So I think Hong Kong
cinema has declined, and I think Chinese cinema, given the
massive amounts of money, the people, the resource is that
one has, I would think you should be able to,
you know, it should be functioning better than it is
(40:08):
and producing more great films than it has. So that's
my feeling. But I was lucky because I branched out
and in recent years the films I guess that have
done the best were Fury and Furies, which are two
films that we did in Vietnam, which was another incredible experience.
I mean, probably as much as you had a culture
shot when you came to Hong Kong, I had it
(40:29):
when I came to work in in Vietnam. Hold on
a minute, I'm just gonna get a cable.
Speaker 10 (40:35):
I also just wanted to say too in terms of
we were talking about South Korea kind of taking over production.
We were talking about Parasite two episodes ago, how well
that did. Squid Games right now is the biggest show
on TV. It has really just kind of taken over
the Asian market, I feel like, and with Vietnam.
Speaker 1 (40:51):
What was interesting was I there was a you know,
the backstory to it was interesting. I was at the
American Film Market and I ran into a friend of
mine called Dustin winn Or as he likes to be called,
that Asian guy from twenty one Jump Street. So I
always introduced him to people. I say, here's my friend,
Austin or is he likes to be called So he
was the Asian guy in twenty one Jump Street and
(41:12):
he we were both drunk at a party during the
American Film Market and he wandered up to me. I actually,
what's funny that same year you and I met Michael
and with Elizabeth and we had lunch and we laughed
so hard again I thought we were going to have hernias.
It was just memories but in LA But anyway, so
then he gave me this was so long. He gave
(41:34):
me a disc he gave me like a DVD disc
because I put in my pocket this is his new movie.
And I came back to Hong Kong and I had
this habit. He was playing something in the background. I
was a bit jet lagged. I'm working in my cond
I just put this film on, found it in my pocket. Oh,
put this on, played it and this this movie called
The Rebel. It was a period action film in Vietnam.
I took a look at it and I was like,
oh my god, this is incredible. Who's this girl, who's
(41:55):
this guy? And at the time, I was working for
Mirrimax and those did I caught it, bought me a ticket.
I'm going to sig on, there's this great movie, there's
this great director. And I just flew out the next day.
And that began my working relationship with another incredible Vietnamese person,
Veronica No. And Veronica worked on Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
(42:17):
Io with inf Me. When we shot that in New Zealand,
which was this big Netflix epic, we were at their
premiere in Beijing and she said to me, I want
to do this other movie in Vietnam. It's going to
be kind of a version of Taken, but it's like
a mother and her daughter, and then taglines they've messed
(42:38):
with the wrong mother and she goes after the guys
who're trying to human traffic her daughter, who's a little girl.
And this became huge and it was like the most popular,
most successful film at that point in the history of Vietnam,
and it was nominated for an Oscar and what have you.
So that was really interesting. And then we did a
couple of years later, we did the sequel, a prequel
(42:59):
called Furies, And right now I'm working on the third one,
a Fury three, which hey, we'll do in l A
and Michael, you should be in that one. Actually, the
plotline is very similar to the Blood cheaper than I
used to be. That's that's not what Jennifer to But anyway,
(43:21):
so yeah, I'm working on that at the moment. But
those movies, if you, if You, if you. I think
the first film maybe the Netflix license has expired because
I was recommending a friend to watch it. The second
one is on on on Netflix, the first one maybe
it's on Amazon. And one of the other ones, Fury
and Fury is f U r I E and f
U R I E s. Actually I followed the exact
(43:43):
alien model Alien Aliens, and the third one is going
to be Fury three. So that's what we were doing.
So I did those three. I did those two, and
that was Vietnam. Have you been to Vietnam?
Speaker 4 (43:55):
I want to go so badly.
Speaker 5 (43:58):
I will fly to til And and you know when
I'm in yeah, yeah, or whatever.
Speaker 4 (44:04):
God, I'd love to go there.
Speaker 1 (44:06):
It's incredible. I mean, it's what's interesting about it was,
even though it's obviously, you know, has a similar ruling
party to the one in China, it's still very much Francophone.
It's very much Franco Field. It's like it feels like
a French European. What they did in what they did,
(44:27):
which I think has been to the detriment of Hong Kong,
is that in Vietnam they welcomed back the diaspora. All
of the kids who had been war babies, who grew
up in like Orange County, that grew up in Norway,
that grew up in Germany, they all came back to
Vietnam and they spoke Vietnamese, they were ethnic Vietnamese, but
they had this international mindset, including Veronica, my producing partner
(44:52):
and friend, who had been in Norway and it was
It was really interesting because when we did Crouching Tiger,
we had different directors helping us on the film, and
one was Morton Tilden and Morton had directed a film
called Passengers and Imitation Game and he's a Norwegian director
and interesting guy. So he came in and I said, oh,
this girl's coming in tomorrow and she's the Vietnamese but
(45:14):
she was raised in Norway and he was like really,
and then when they met, it was the funniest thing
because he was like he she like lily. So we
were on the set we would have like him directing
in Norwegian, and then Jan wore Paining directing in Chinese
and another guy directing in Vietnamese, so it was me
(45:34):
directing in English. So it was.
Speaker 4 (45:39):
Interpreters y way forward.
Speaker 1 (45:46):
It was crazy.
Speaker 2 (45:48):
Crouching Tiger is on also on on on Netflix because
they they we began production and it was an independent
film and midway through it was acquired by and financed
by Netflix, and even the second Furies was Netflix original.
Speaker 1 (46:02):
So they've been very good to us, very good to me.
Speaker 4 (46:05):
They are. Do you wish you'd never heard of mirrormaxs
you issue has never gone to work for them.
Speaker 1 (46:13):
No, I don't, because I mean, I think the issues
that I had in my own life were not directly
a result of that. They were I was not involved
with anything relevant to Harvey or any of that, because
I was always.
Speaker 4 (46:27):
You didn't get the fucking the wave.
Speaker 1 (46:31):
I had my own.
Speaker 4 (46:32):
I had my own, didn't that.
Speaker 5 (46:36):
Don't you think that had a lot to do with
the fact that you were working at Mirrimack?
Speaker 1 (46:40):
There were, there were, there were It's an indirect thing.
I mean, there's two aspects to it. One was, when
I was with Miramax, I was in Hong Kong, and
I would basically see you know, Harvey twice a year
when he flew in, or I would see him in
passing a cann or an American film market. So there
was no interaction or no where of anything that might
(47:01):
have anything that people think about of that era. I
didn't know, and I didn't really know about it even
to this day, other than what I would read like everybody.
So I just did my job at Merrimax, and it
was a fantastic experience, and I got to work with
filmmakers and do films that I would otherwise never got
to do. Many years after, there was a journalist in
(47:22):
Hong Kong who had this aim to She basically wrote
a headline because she met a disgruntled actress that I
had worked with, who had had a complicated relationship with,
and she heard that I worked for Harvey Weinstein, like
thousands of people in the movie industry.
Speaker 11 (47:37):
So she went and wrote a headline a Hong Kong
rep of Harvey Weinstein Merrimax accused by multiple women, and
then she set out to try to find a way
to cobble a story together.
Speaker 1 (47:49):
And I, unfortunately, at that time in my own life,
I was really you talk about being in rehab, I
think I should have been. My life was just chaos.
And if I had particularly been in a functional working
space with my soulmate Elizabeth at that time, we would
(48:09):
have chewed up Selena Chang and spat her out on
the side of the road. But I handled it really badly.
And so I don't blame Mirramax, I don't blame anybody
it was. I blame the reporter because she obviously wanted
to make a name for herself at my expense, and
it was a cheap shot because it was, like, you know,
of all of the filmmakers in Hong Kong, the only
(48:31):
one to be accused of anything like this was me,
the white guy. So it was easy. You could virtue signal, oh,
we took care of this guy who was related to
Harvey and Mirramax, and he's been taken care of and
now all's good. If she really cared about anything beyond
making a name for herself, she would have gone after
all the other people. But maybe then she'd be floating
(48:52):
in the Harvey.
Speaker 9 (48:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (48:57):
That, and it was really brutal. It was probably the
worst thing that did that happen, other than losing my parents.
You know, it's the worse thing.
Speaker 4 (49:07):
Did that affect your filmmaking ability?
Speaker 1 (49:11):
I'll tell you it's really interesting because in the immediate
wake of the story coming out, and I dealt with
it badly and been drinking and self medicating and all
other crazy stuff was going on, and I wasn't maintaining
a very good family unit work unit. Of course, when
you were the inside of that chaos, you don't see it.
It's later you look back on your own life and
(49:32):
you go, what was I thinking? What was wrong with me?
But I remember. It's interesting, you say, because where else
we had story just did a play from in there.
Apart from the furniture, there was a DVD of the
Bob Dylan documentary by Da Pennebacker don't look back. Oh wow,
that's advice. And then I went out and it was
(49:54):
a beautiful like today, a full moon, and I was
thinking of drinking about a bottle of whiskey on the beach,
and I I looked out and saw this wonderful moonlight
like a path on the waves, and I thought, I'll
just get another half through this bottle, and I'm going
to swim out down that line as far as I
can go, and then just think, and that's going to
(50:15):
be it. And I as a Buddhist, in my concept,
when you achieve nirvana and you kind of like dissolve
into nothingness, it's like a star under the stars and
a warm night in the sea, and you dissolve into
love and light. That's what will happened, and then I
don't need to worry about stuff anymore, which after half
a bottle of jack is the kind of stuff that
(50:35):
rolls for your brain. Fortunately, and the reason I'm on
your podcast is I kept drinking and passed out so
I couldn't to oblivion. But I woke up in the
early hours.
Speaker 4 (50:50):
Where I put that gun. That's my problem. I can't
remember find there.
Speaker 1 (50:56):
No one has guns, Otherwise it would have been easier.
But then so I put the wis. I woke up
on Michael, we know how this feels. I'll work out
freezing cold on the beach with a raging headache and
a half bottle of jack in my hand. And then
I looked sat there looking out, and there was a
fisherman out to see and he just cast his net
(51:16):
in a beautiful circle out onto the waves, and I
thought he looks familiar. And I realized that I'd actually
been there for a few days before. I hit that
kind of moment of satory of enlightenment, and I thought,
this guy every day goes out, maybe he catches fish,
maybe he doesn't. And if there is a path back
for you Bay as a filmmaker, as a writer, as
(51:38):
a family man, as a friend, it's going to be
getting up every day and just going back to work.
That's going to be it. You know that you'd be
like the fisherman. You catch something, you don't catch something,
You've got to get up and go back to work
and That's what I did. And now I'm sitting in
my lovely house that you know, the fruit of my efforts.
And it worked out and I kind of, over years,
(52:00):
reclaimed my family, reclaimed my career. I think what made
it easier was that the it was a cobble together story,
and if there'd been any real by me that it
would have been harder to do that because people would
have said, oh, but you did this, but you did that,
(52:22):
and I didn't. Really it was it was a made
up story by one journalist who wanted to make a
name for herself.
Speaker 5 (52:28):
Well they were We kind of are at a time
that we usually call this. I want to thank you
so much.
Speaker 1 (52:41):
You.
Speaker 4 (52:43):
I love you, You're You're just a true friend.
Speaker 5 (52:47):
And any kind in any relationship, sometimes there's going to
be a miscommunication and I just want you to know
you how much you mean to me. And uh yeah,
give me back over to Vietnam.
Speaker 1 (53:03):
I'd love that same same from my side. And I'm
back and forward to the States all the time, and
it'll be wonderful to reconnect and as I say, only
regret when I look back at the the the final
exchanges that we had before, like going our separate ways?
Was it was so positive? And I don't know. It's
like I mentioned just now. You know, when you're sometimes
(53:25):
you have a certain mindset. When you're in that mindset,
you see things a certain way, and later you look
back at yourself and you feel like a stranger to yourself.
And that's how I am. Sometimes I think, what was
I thinking? Why didn't I keep calling Michael? Why didn't
I maintain friendship?
Speaker 3 (53:41):
You know?
Speaker 1 (53:41):
But I did. But I know that when Daniel wanted
you again, I had no compunction about reaching out right
away and trying to and I didn't. And I know, Michael,
bless your heart. I mean, you've been through some some
de challenge yourself and in a way more profound than
whatever I went through with the Mirrimax thing. So you know,
(54:02):
my heart goes out to you, my friend, and you
know you're always a brother to me, and I just
those times, those experiences are very dead in my heart.
When you read the book, I think you'll laugh and
be happy.
Speaker 4 (54:11):
All right, when's it coming out?
Speaker 1 (54:13):
You think I'm finishing.
Speaker 4 (54:15):
I did it.
Speaker 1 (54:16):
I've written. I'll send these to you. I've did two
books about Hong Kong action cinema, I did a book
about Bruce Lee that was very successful. I'm just finishing
one about Jackie Chan and I think my book will
be the next one. So I would say probably the
end of this year, November, around the time of my birthday.
So I'll send you copies and hey, maybe I'll come
(54:38):
back on the show to talk some more about the
book when it comes out. Catching up on this. This
is such a wonderful thing that you're doing, and the
stuff you're sharing is so wonderful, and it's also very
important because I think it's giving life lessons to a
new generation of filmmakers and people that will inherit the world.
And I think that's really important.
Speaker 4 (54:58):
What world is us?
Speaker 1 (55:01):
Yes, that's right, all right, bebe thank you, thank you.
Speaker 4 (55:05):
This has been it's been so terrif thank you absolutely.
Speaker 3 (55:11):
How much you lent to a strange begin show. Which
hand would you choose to whip away unto my gree
to your waiting bound.
Speaker 1 (55:20):
Your old billy? How would you look upon someone dirtier
than you? Under me? Why do you let me carry
on with our shoes? You
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