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Executive produced by legendary filmmaker, Martin Scorsese, Revenge of the Green Dragons, is a brilliant combination between a Hong Kong action film and a New York City crime thriller. MStars News spoke with co-directors Andrew Lau and Andrew Loo about how their cast ensemble, which includes Ray Liotta, dived deep the underworld of Asian-American gang life in '80s New York City.
In the film, Sonny (Justin Chon) and Steven (Kevin Wu) quickly rise up the ranks of their Chinatown gang, the Green Dragons. After drawing the unwanted attention of a hard-boiled city cop (Liotta), Sonny is pitted against Steven in the worst possible way. Now Sonny sets out for revenge on the very gang who made him who he is.
MStars spoke with directors Loo and Lau about how their project came about, working with their top-notch cast, and the reunion with Scorsese, who won the Academy Award for the remake of Lau's Infernal Affairs.
MStars News: How did the project come about?
Andrew Loo: We were sent an article, the New Yorker article for Revenge of the Green Dragons back in '08. There was a pair of producers in New York and they had optioned the article. They sent it to us and said, "Hey, would you guys be interested in directing?" So we read the article and we said, "Yeah, it's great. It's rich. There's so many characters and things happening. It's all real." But there was no script; so we started the process together to get the script out and the subsequent steps of getting financing, and ultimately, shooting the film; that's how it started.
MS: Since you are both sharing credit, how did you go about directing the scenes with the actors? Do you storyboard in such a collaboration?
Andrew Loo: So we're actually obviously, very different. Director Lau was born and raised in Hong Kong. I was born and raised in the states. His background comes from the tech side as a cameraman. My background comes more from the producing side.
There's just a natural difference, which lends itself to a very complementary approach. There's not a lot of overlap, which then would create this potential for conflict. For example, if we were setting up shots and things were going on set with all the tech staff, I'd want Andrew to be there, sort of moving that forward. If the actors, some of whom were a little more inexperienced, needed a little more conversation, a little more guidance, a little more support, we were able to divide and conquer and satisfy those requirements from a director as well, without slowing things down.
MS: Could you tell me how Martin Scorsese became involved?
Andrew Lau: It was just luck. [Laughs] Maybe we have some relationship, he bought Infernal Affairs ( which became the remake, The Departed). We liked Martin. I say "Why not?" Then they sent the script to Martin. That's it. Martin came to a meeting; just like this. [Laughs]
MS: Tell me about working with Ray Liotta, who is such a powerhouse actor. How do you go about directing him?
Andrew Loo: Ray was a real pro. Obviously, with a lot of these guys who are bit well-known, they have a reputation, and I think some people might have been intimidated with Ray's past involvement with film. But I got a call from him a week before he was supposed to shoot. He was just like, "Hey, this is Ray! I just want to go over some dialogue with you."
So I could already tell, from the first conversation, that he was invested in the film. He had questions that were very specific about choice of words, and why his detective character would say or do certain things. He was a joy to work with; he was very committed.
Andrew Lau: He was very easy to work with. I still remember when we shot the first day, he just flew from L.A., and he just arrived. And then, he went to make-up and we shoot, and I still remember that talk before at Brooklyn Heights. He's easy!
MS: Going back with the actors, tell me about Justin Chon and Kevin Wu. They're best friends, but they also have to share a "brother" type of relationship. How do you go about building that chemistry between them?
Andrew Loo: With specifically what you referred to, Kevin and Justin, the thing is they're best friends in real life. There wasn't a lot of bridge building required for their chemistry, and I think it shows in a scene like that alleyway.
Steven's just killed the restaurant manager and things are really starting to get back for them, and they have this sort of brotherly moment. I think they just had a natural chemistry. It's odd we talk about this. People say, "How was it with the crew?" and "What were some of the highlight moments of shooting this film?" I generally go back to a very organic kind of evolution in this film, where it just seemed like everyone bonded on a great level.
I think if you ask maybe the actors or some of the crew members, they'll say they'll look back on this film and say they probably met some of their best friends on this film. Everyone got along and I think it's just because of the nature of this being a very high profile Asian-American project. I think it was the nature of material. People just felt really excited to be a part of it. And things across the board sort of reflected that.
MS: Because it's very in tune to crime fiction, I was wondering what references you used to shoot this type of film?
Andrew Loo: Clearly we're aware of books, movies, documentaries, TV shows, all sorts of things which kind of play in this neighborhood. It's part of our subconscious; it's part of our awareness of entertainment. I can't honestly sit here and say there was no influence at all, but in us developing the script and while we were shooting, I can honestly say, there's not really a moment where we say we're going to make this like Goodfellas, or we're going to make this like Boys in the Hood.
You can't create original work if you're working in that way with another piece of work as your inspiration. So, were we influenced by it? Culturally speaking, of course, but not on that obvious, sort of conscious level.
Andrew Lau: I saw a lot of gangster movies in Hong Kong. I would say, "Okay, sort of gangster movie." Of course, some things were based on my old movies. It's talking about gangster life; something similar. I mean it's good inspiration from old movies. Just follow the story. You have to dig into the story. What is the Green Dragon? It was important to us to create the Green Dragon's world.
MS: Tell me about the significance of the setting, such as the '80s and the '90s. I felt like this film was also a period piece.
Andrew Loo: I think it's important to understand the dynamics in play on a global basis that gave rise to gangs like the Green Dragons. We sort of reference that a little bit in the main title sequence. There was a very specific piece of legislature that passed in the early '80s, with good intentions.
Basically granting political asylum to anyone overseas who, for human rights issues, could in fact apply for asylum. It created this influx of illegal immigrants coming into this country and unfortunately, the United States just didn't have the infrastructure to really provide the support that a lot of these immigrants needed, just to get started with their new life in America. So you had overcrowding, a lot of people came here with bad intentions, people who weren't educated, that were previously criminals. You had all these sort of folks here on the ground already with a need to make a living, to exist.
That's a specific dynamic that existed in the '80s and early '90s. Now that dynamic is not in place now. It's a different time; it's a different world. China, in the next two decades is going to be the world's largest economy, so if you were asking the question to someone in mainland China, "Do you want to go to America for economic opportunity?" Those guys are going to say, "No, I'm going to stay in China because that's where my opportunities are." It's a different world now, so it could only have taken place in that time frame.
Check out this clip here:
MS: Tell me about the depiction of violence in the film, which feel gritty and shocking.
Andrew Lau: We tried to make the audience scared. So that's why we have some scenes of the boys killed in Chinatown. It would make the audience scared. We have to decide how the torture speaks. We kept the white tiger to torture the people and make the audience scared. We create that kind of emotion.
Andrew Loo: It's meant to be uncomfortable. It's meant for the audience to experience some of what actually happened, the rape scene happened, this guy was tortured. Too often we think in movies, the violence is glorified, or it's stylized in a way where the audience could almost check out.
There's no cost, there's no discomfort that's created. You're like "Oh, okay well this guy's head blew up." [Laughs] There's no effect. But ours, it's meant to be uncomfortable, because again, we want it to be truthful to what was going on. That's how these guys roll, that's what they did to each other, and the violence has a cost. A very real cost; so that's on purpose.
MS: What other projects are you working on now?
Andrew Loo: We got a couple of things that we're collaborating on and one of them is a little thriller that we hope to do soon. Hopefully, we'll be back here in another year talking to you about it.
Andrew Lau: I just finished a movie, an action comedy. The movie will be released in February. So I'll hurry back to Hong Kong to do the post.
Revenge of the Green Dragons hits theaters on October 24, 2014, and also available on DirecTV.
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