In the first of several interviews highlighting Tracer (aka Truy Sat), we ask fight choreographer Trung Ly about his experience behind-the-scenes of Vietnam’s burgeoning film industry…
The man behind the action for such projects as the action comedy Hit Girls, Roger Corman’s Fists of the Dragon, the as yet unreleased Death Mist (with Bruce Liang) and Australian television’s first martial arts comedy series Maximum Choppage is Trung Ly – a dedicated martial artist who is getting chance to express his ideas on a much broader canvas with the release of the Vietnamese action thriller Tracer/ (aka Truy Sat), on which he serves as action director. Impact’s Far Eastern Editor Mike Leeder was involved throughout the project and recently caught up with Trung again for the following discussion on martial arts movie making…
IMPACT: Can we begin with you introducing yourself and telling us a bit about who you are, your martial arts background and how you first got involved with fight and stunt choreography?
Trung Ly: I’m Trung Ly, Fight Choreographer/Action Director . I started learning martial arts in 1984, my father is a Shaolin Master, I studied Vovinam (Vietnamese Martial Arts) for thirteen years before starting Hapkido, which I have continued in to this day. I have a school in Chipping Norton, Sydney and have been teaching for over 20 years. My team participate in competitions and have regular stage and theatre shows… hence it was easy to translate those skills into the realm of the film Industry. Instead of moving the martial artists to a good angle to see the moves, now I move the camera.
Fight choreography and action-direction is what I do and love! I have been doing shows and adding story to the action on stage for years, the ‘WOW’ factor as I call it is a must, but in film the ‘WOW’ factor can be out of character… so stage theatre choreography is different to film. I developed a good action sense from watching almost every action and fight film, so there is an understanding of what to do and just s importantly what not to do, to make the choreography look real and original is what I’m good at…
IMPACT: What are some of the projects you’ve been involved in as a choreographer prior to Tracer/Truy Sat… some of the challenges you’ve had to overcome on some of those?
Trung: I have staged the action for a number of projects. There was a documentary called The Crater in 2015 – for which I had to choreograph battle scene re-enactments involving many solders running down a field with guns blasting away through explosions. Boy, oh boy, we had the guys training for three hard weeks running in the dark dodging objects. The boys on the day had to go through smoke from explosions in the cold and one of the guys fell into a wombat hole and got sent to hospital…
Maximum Choppage was also in 2015. I honestly think that the Australian film industry doesn’t quite understand fight and martial arts action that well as yet… there is a belief that it has to be done in a certain way. There is a tendency to go with lazy static camera angles – the wrong angles make for a different feel and I was only allowed to help, not to fully direct the action. Camera movement and lighting affects the action story, but wasn’t understood. Training non-action actors is hard and requires stunt-doubling, which takes longer to shoot and requires a lot more careful editing. I wasn’t able to sit down with the editor, so I think the action cut was weak and sometimes disjointed because they didn’t understand the choreography or the way it needed to be cut.
Death Mist was a Chinese feature film that we worked on… that was quite a unique experience. I was on as a consultant initially but ended up doing the choreography for all the main fights and also ended up being the action cameraman for a lot of it, bringing a very dynamic cinematic feel to the action. That would be unheard of in Australia!
IMPACT: How did you first get involved in the Truy Sat/Tracer project?
Trung: I got introduced to the team and heard there was a potential project, so I flew over for a meeting to see what it was all about. I hadn’t met them before and they had only heard of me through word-of-mouth, so it was a very pleasant surprise to me that when we met, they gave me a very warm welcome. It was almost like meeting family, we all seemed to click on that level.
Truog Ngoc-anh’s production company was making this big action film and wanted to handle the fights and stunts as Action Director, I was over the moon as, despite being born in Vietnam, it was going to be the first time I’d worked there and a great opportunity. So we began doing pre-production right away, with me working on pre-viz (pre-visualise) choreography and flying back and forth for meetings.
IMPACT: How did it feel to be taking control of the fights and stunts for such a big project? How much pep time did yo have with your cast and crew and did you pre-viz all the fights and stunts? Can you describe your process of choreography?
Trung: It was a very ambitious project, especially for the budget we had and I was very happy to be able to create the action story for each fight and action sequence for the film, but also to make it happen in the most feasible way possible. We have a system that I developed for action… I know to keep on top of things you must prioritise with regards to getting the most important things first, not necessarily the most immediate things. We only had two people,, Maria Tran and Thien Nguyen who are also from our Australian team, so it was quite a challenge when none of the other actors really knew that much about screen fighting… especially the way we wanted the action to be presented. So we started off by meeting with the best ‘Cascadeurs’ (stunt people) in the country, so we could retrain them to suit the requirements of our movie. Then, with the action story that was added to the script, we made pre-visualizations, action shots, and the shot list. All the action was originally planned this way, but with the script changing as we shot, we had to change our choreography too, so that we could accommodate the changes, so it was challenging at times.
To create the story within the action and build the character through non-verbal means, it’s usually done not only for one action sequence, but to help build the character throughout the whole film. So the character’s ‘action continuity’ is very important for me. Devising safe and exciting action requires training in a way that has an assessment and reassessment component that needs to be regularly updated. Also, maintaining the flexibility to change choreography at certain times so it still looks credible and achievable by the non-action actors. Training non-action actors can be difficult and time consuming, so sometimes you end up having to use doubles and change camera-angles to hide the fact its not that person performing a certain move which can detract from both the action and dramatic element of the fight. Ideally, in future, I would like to involve more skilled, specialist talents as well as having more time to train people, which makes for great action sequences with more of that ‘WOW’ factor!
IMPACT: How did you find working with the cast?
Trung: Our leading lady Truong Ngoc-anh…she is a powerhouse of energy, she looks great and trains as if she is training for war! She would do things that some of the bigger, stronger actors couldn’t do, the ones who come from a much more physical background, yet complain about the smallest things and constantly make excuses for their short comings, I never heard her complain once! She went through the wars on this movie, she got bumped and bruised, had to fight in the cold rain, in the mud, and battle through a lot of night shoots, stuff that would break most people! Much respect to Trung Ngoc-anh, she is an inspiration to work with!
Thien Nguyen is a very solid fighting action actor, he was born in Australia and he has to work at his Vietnamese, but he really works on the action and it was easy to pump out the fights with him as he is very action capable. Maria Tran was a pleasure to work with, her strength is her emotional improvisation through her facial expressions. She knows how to make her action look real as well as in the drama scenes, you end up feeling for her character. Lamou had prior injuries before the film so it was fitting he had awesome actions scenes but didn’t need to pull off martial arts fights. The choreography aided him and made him look good even when injured. He’s acting was solid.
Cuong Seven is really outstanding in the film, he’s quite new as an actor but he really worked to improve his performance and he nailed all the scenes as the Big Boss, and his hard work and perseverance put him in a class of his own in the action scenes.
IMPACT: How would you describe your working relationship with the film’s director Cuong Ngo?
Trung: Cuong Ngo is a lovable character, a very charming guy. He knows what he wants from the cast performance wise and he would let me run the action scenes. He would tell me what he wanted, and then I would set up the shots and direct the action.
For me, directing action the right way is just as important as the work of a director for drama, I am an ACTION DIRECTOR, I know how to make action work and come alive, to be dynamic and exciting, I can find the dramatic beats in an action scene. Sometimes you have to use camera angles to hide bad action acting, and non action actors movements as they are too stuff, I would direct the action scenes, the fights and the stunts. I would also edit the fights so that they fit the story of the action in a way that its then easy to cut into the drama. I know how to shoot out of sequence so we can move the lighting a lot less. Due to time restraints it makes the action story far more achievable, when you are shooting, you never seen to have enough time, no matter how many days you have for a scene, so if there’s a way to save time I like to find it, save time for when you really need it don’t waste it, bad time management can really throw you off schedule in action and drama!
The film’s Cinematographer was the so-called ‘Man with the Deadly Lens’ Ross Clarkson from the Undisputed and Ninja series. How did you find working with him… and how important is it to have a cinematographer who understands action?
Trung: Ross has a very good eye for things. He knows his lighting and is very experienced in action. He could understand what’s going on before it happens and he works very efficiently and drives his team to do the same. The thing I like most about Ross, beside his Aussie sense of humour, is his work ethic, he’s a very dependable character.
IMPACT: What were some of the biggest challenges for you on this movie?
Trung: One of the biggest challenges on this film was the weather! It was so bad that we lost a lot of time to sporadic showers or constant, very heavy rain. Also, with a lot of long night shoots and sometimes not a lot turn around time, it makes the crew slow and the actors sleepy, which can be a recipe for errors and injury. Sometimes locations weren’t as locked down as we wanted. The ‘Container Yard’, for instance, where we shot a big action scene… the giant container movers were still operating. So we lost several hours a day and it also affected the continuity as we’d be shooting against a wall of red containers only for them to be removed and replaced with blue ones! It was a functioning container port, it looks great on camera but it was hard.
The script kept changing as we shot and what people don’t understand is that when the script changes it affects the characters as the story (also) changes. So I also have to adjust the choreography, as the effects of a certain scene might change the way a character behaves later on in the movie.
IMPACT: What’s next for Trung Ly and for Vietnamese Action Cinema?
Trung: I hope to do more action films in Vietnam. I like working there… there’s a lot of challenges and opportunities which is very exciting for me. We do have something in the pipeline and I really would love to work with talent to create something that is different and entertaining. The Vietnamese action film industry is still very new and is only exclusive to a small bunch of film makers. I hope to be a part of the small group that is making a difference in that genre.
