All language subtitles for In Search Of The Last Action Heroes

I think the '80s and '90s
films were golden eras of film.

These movies just jumped off
the screen in an epic way.

People wanted bigger and better.

The Road Warrior was
everything was in camera.

Arnie and Sly came in perfect timing.

And suddenly we had those movies
whose action was dominant.

And that was what they wanted
and after Rambo was an explosion.

That's all they wanted.

Rambo was actually a
Saturday morning cartoon.

When I see it now just the technical, the
practical effects...

Unbelievable how those stand up.

I do think that Die Hard still
to my mind is one of the top five

if not the best action films ever made.

I was very lucky as a composer to come at
a time where things were really exciting.

It felt like the lowest low
budget film I've ever made.

Fuck you

Don't be modest.

Arnold put his stamp on the movie so much,
I've never seen that.

I'll be back.

"I'll be back" -That's cool.

You saw Schwarzenegger for the first time
ever express fear.

Everybody was renting John Woo movies.

The beauty about action is that you don't
need translation.

Watch this guy.

That's what I'm going to do in my life.

I want to do what he does.

In thirty-five-millimeter on a big screen,
slow motion.

Yeah, that's Van Damme.

He's really doing that.

It was how you looked, physical and buff.

You looked buff.

By 1988 they were making
movies for the video shelf.

I think once they realized how tough I was
and I could fight just as strong as a man

I gained a lot of respect that day.

That's what people want to live vicariously
through and they had that.

But it's full on pulls no punches

gory, violent.

I miss those movies man.

If you look at a list of film genres in any
kind of book or publication about Hollywood

you won't see action movies listed
as a genre until really the '80s.

I grew up watching Westerns.

Red Ryder, Lash LaRue, Roy Rogers.

Gene Autry, Johnny "Mack" Brown.

That was the time that I really
started to go to the theaters.

That was after the war.

I went to the theater basically three times
a week.

I was addicted to American action films.

The chases, the horse chases, the action,
the gun shooting.

A lot of movies from the '60s that I
grew up watching in movie theaters.

The Great Escape.

Professionals.

Fantastic movie.

I suppose I begin like many sort of people
of my era with Bond. As a small boy

the idea of a Bond movie coming on television
was extraordinarily important in my life.

My father said,"
we're going to see this new action movie."

And then we watched the film and he said,
"This is like the greatest film ever."

James Bond - 007

License to kill whom he
pleases, when he pleases.

It was released as a kind of generic action
picture but it caught on quickly.

We also watched also a lot of urban
detective movies.

Private Eye movies.

So, they included sometimes also some bits
of action movies.

I prefer '70s action films.

The French Connection.

Bullitt.

There's a very strong director focus about
the character what they should be doing and

the believability of it.

Yes, Steve McQueen's golden years.

Steve McQueen was a great action hero.

He was not a physical specimen of beefcake
but he was a cool guy.

He was probably the coolest guy.

One of the coolest action
heroes of all time.

He did ride his own motorcycle.

He did a lot of his own stunts.

Action heroes of the '60s and '70s they
were ambivalent about what they were doing.

Charles Bronson had to go out in the street
and look for justice.

Charles Bronson's vigilantism it was a huge
thing in movies during that period.

So that kind of switched it there I think with
Death Wish where the good guy became like a killer.

In some of the sort of violent action movies
of that time, obviously the Clint Eastwood

movies and Death Wish and others.

Those guys were the heroes and they were just
going around shooting everyone that people

at home didn't like.

It's always believable of course a good
actor as well is believable doing the action

which makes a huge difference.

You've got to ask yourself a question
Do I feel lucky?

Well, do you punk?

It was introducing me to a level of intensity,
emotional intensity in action films in adventure

films and a heightening of stakes.

Here's a guy who just lives for whatever reason he
continues, he survives but he doesn't really thrive.

He just does his job.

The action film stars that I grew up watching
first was Jim Brown and Fred Williamson.

They really had an effect on me growing up
and they were images that I wanted to grow

up and look like basically.

If you were an actor or a young person it
gave you hope in the sense that you saw

somebody that looked like
you that was an action hero.

Many of us had never seen that before.

Those are my heroes first
because I identified with them.

Luckily, I'm in a place where I start to resonate
with youngsters who were very much like me

at the time.

They have a lot of bang for their buck because
you want to live vicariously through these people.

Of course, number one is Bruce Lee.

I was very much influenced by Bruce.

I was inspired by Bruce Lee.

He was a badass. You know what I'm saying?

When he came onto the screen, he was very
dynamic.

He was a completely different character.

Really it was Bruce Lee that inspired me to
take up martial arts.

And he throughout my whole life still now
is a huge inspiration.

I got hip to Bruce Lee
as a kid and loved him.

For me growing up martial arts was a thing.

Bruce Lee, '70s Kung-Fu films.

When Bruce Lee's movies were popular, they
weren't popular in the mainstream.

You could see them in some small theaters
and only fans would know them.

It was a while before I started seeing action
pictures but I guess the first one that

I saw was Enter the Dragon.

This is Enter the Dragon.

The first martial arts film produced
by a major Hollywood studio.

Action is something...

It's deep within people.

It's the same way that I was inspired
by watching Enter the Dragon.

Roper, Williams

And Lee

The Deadly Three

penetrate the secret chambers
of an evil island empire.

He went out and proved himself
in a worldwide audience.

An audience that didn't look at him
as someone who was not bankable.

But he did not appeal to a wide audience.

And this was something...

This was also foreign.

In Hollywood traditionally they like to do
what works in America.

Especially in those days.

There's an obvious transition from the '70s
into the blockbuster era that started with...

It really started with Godfather but then
Jaws really cemented it.

In terms of action-adventure
Jaws was a huge influence.

That sort of everyman hero that didn't have
abilities, that just had pluck, just had guts

and a little bit of savvy and was good at
a job he did but was out of his depth with

this thing that he'd never encountered.

Jaws changed the movie industry.

Suddenly you could have a movie that could
make that much money that quickly.

So, people started leaning towards and the
studio started leaning towards films that

were going to do that.

That was kind of the gradual evolution and
then came Star Wars and that whole

side of it.

What changes is there's a level in
which the action films are made.

A lot of action films, the '70s you say
were serious times politically and so forth.

And that it's true but there were a lot of
action films in the '70s.

But in terms of I suppose action films as
a genre as an idea that came in the '80s.

Better and more complicated action scenes.

That's what the public wanted.

Less dialogue, bigger body count.

The '80s action films were actually shock
value because that kind of excitement had never

been done before.

And then of course, you start off the '80s and
you have Raiders of the Lost Ark and boom, boom

one after another.

I remember seeing the adverts of Raiders of
the Lost Ark and honestly, I pretended

to be ill until my parents took me.

I saved up to buy the VHS of.

It was like $100 for the VHS and I
saved and scrimped and it was Raiders.

I memorized that soundtrack and now since then
I've conducted that score live in concert.

Huge influence on me.

I think the '80s as an era that really was
the golden era of action films.

The music I think rose to the challenge and it's
kind of one of those chicken or the egg things.

You have great scores for the great action
movies of the '80s.

And are those movies great
partially because of the scores?

And I say yes.

If you have strong visuals and you put a dominant
a really strong theme there then basically

the whole film gets lifted up.

With Raiders you get something that is a huge
hit and has a flawed hero but he's a good guy.

He's a grave-robber.

Good guy and it didn't
always get away clean.

He got hurt.

Whatever it was.

He was not always perfect.

Action was the thing.

Everybody wanted action.

And you know what?

Also, today it's the same thing.

Films from the '60s, '70s, '80s when they were
really doing real stunts. If you saw a car

flip over five times

somebody was in that car and it was real.

Yeah, Road Warrior,
everything was in camera.

I mean nobody had a clue
what a computer was.

And suddenly we had those movies whose
action was dominant and within 90 minutes

we had at least 45 minutes of action.

Action films are always getting revolutionized
when a true genius comes into the fold.

George Miller redefined what
you can do with an action film.

This is a land that prays for a hero.

His films were epic,

mythological.

They had underpinnings.

They had a great hero in Mad Max.

I think that Miller sort of took the things
he liked most about Mad Max but certainly

couldn't afford.

It didn't have the either probably the
cinematic expertise yet or the money to realize

his vision and said okay, great that's kind
of detritus or effluvium and I'm going

to use that as fertilizer and make this thing
that's The Road Warrior which is a masterpiece.

I was seen by Sandy Gore who was George Miller's
girlfriend at the time and she contacted George

and said you've got to
come and see this guy.

He came down and saw me, we had a cup of coffee
and we chatted about all kinds of dumb crap

and nothing about the film.

And about a month later my manager rang me
and said they need you to fly up to Sydney for

wardrobe, fittings and makeup.

And I went, "For what?"

And she said, "George Miller's
using you in Mad Max 2 - Road Warrior."

And I went, "What's a Mad Max 2?"

Road Warrior which has got to be one of the
most successful movies in history because

this movie costs very little but yet it resonates
worldwide and you could watch it over and over.

It was a renowned success throughout the
world because action speaks louder than words.

Road Warrior started a whole genre.

It was like a Gone with the Wind of its own
time and its own genre.

Road Warrior today is more
relevant than when we shot it.

George Miller had made Mad Max and Mad Max 2
and they were having huge amounts of influence

on what the action directors of the '80s were
about to do and he made them on these kind

of dirt-poor budgets but yet they arrived
and became this cult phenomenon.

That idea of a bunch of macho dudes or a macho
guy running around with guns and crime and

things blowing up, kind of turned into its
own genre.

In the '80s there was an opportunity for many
independent producers and directors to produce

a lot of so-called genre independent
low-budget genre movies or B-movies.

Although they did very well people wanted
bigger and better and that's when Arnie and

Sly came in at perfect timing.

They were much stronger and bigger and full
of muscles and it became the standard.

First Blood is a key action movie.

I mean that might be the
progenitor of a lot of this.

John Rambo was just passing through town

but they had nothing better to do.

John Rambo is this wounded vet with PTSD.

They knew he was innocent.

He's hiding out in the woods.

He wants nothing to do with people.

Sylvester Stallone in First Blood.

First Blood - the original movie was
kind of a somber and kind of gritty.

It had big action sequences but it was very kind of
real and then it became this larger-than-life thing.

It was a good story, very well acted,
wonderfully directed.

When we did First Blood, we were not
thinking we're making an action movie.

We were making a real drama, a real story
but it became such an iconic movie because

I'm watching him with all those bullets and
big machine guns and his body and all that.

It was a huge hit overnight
spread like wild fire.

It took actually two foreigners to make a
real American story.

It's funny.

Without Sylvester Stallone
it all falls apart.

I mean sometimes he gets or used to get a
bad rap because of Rocky.

They all thought he was Rocky.

I mean Sly is a very bright man.

People want to write things off like oh,
yeah, they talk about the voice and the tough

guy thing like he's not an intelligent,

He's probably the most intelligent person
in every room that he freaking walks into.

Sly is the real deal in many, many ways.

How do you do that?

Well, the big bold risk on Rocky and he was
able to deliver on that.

You just realize, this guy wrote Rocky.

The first Rocky was
fantastic and well written

and I much admired the fact that Stallone wouldn't
sell the script unless he was playing Rocky

which I thought that took a lot of courage
for a young guy to say no.

I play the part or you
don't buy the script.

It was that sort of emergence of the
Stallone-Schwarzenegger era

and then cinema was about going out with

your mates and sort of joining in some kind
of collective experience.

Barbarian...

Warrior

Thief

Conan

I really miss many title sequences.

Conan is a perfect example.

You go into the film knowing it's Arnold
Schwarzenegger and you know it's Conan The

Barbarian but when you hear that
brass and the music, it sets the tone.

You have a prologue with music.

Very rare, it established the themes but when
it is it makes it feel like a saga, it makes

it feel like you're
stepping into another world.

It kind of gives the audience a second
to just sink into the movie theater.

I think the arrival of Arnold
Schwarzenegger was very significant.

Someone who had a name that was hard to
pronounce, who had a very thick accent, who had

this body that was just massive.

I mean we are a society, especially the female
part of it, we are a society that likes to

look at things like that.

It was like oh, look at those muscles.

And I saw Pumping Iron the documentary when
I was in high school and I thought that was

really cool.

Although I did think that Arnold was a bit
of a dick.

Hey Arnold!

He just tells the truth but it's like and he
says things he has no filter and so he just says

what he feels like and it's great working with
him because you always know where you stand.

Everything has its timing.

So, for instance Arnold Schwarzenegger he
was laughed at in the beginning.

This big Austrian guy with an accent who
can barely speak English but luck has it

if there is something at the right time, at the
right moment that works for the general audience

like Conan.

And if someone has a specific style
that can actually create a trend.

I think the difference between a movie that works
and people really like is having that story.

And I think also having that story that the
star really fits into.

One day I got a phone call, we want you to
read and look at the script.

We need to rewrite which is 48 Hours.

Nick Nolte is a cop.

Eddie Murphy is a con.

They couldn't like each other less.
They couldn't need each other more.

So one of the reasons I was put on 48 Hours
was once we had cast Eddie Murphy was to bring

as much humor to the project as possible.

Jack,

Tell me a story.

Fuck you!

That's one of my favorites.

I thought it was a real movie by a passionate
filmmaker that was summing up a kind of genre

piece in which he scraped all the parts of
the imagery and the style and the dialogue

and the intensity of what he had grown up
with knowing as action thrillers.

So, you take all the qualities of great road
movies and great comedy duo's and then you

sort of slot that into on the whole a fairly
formulaic cop plots, you've got something new.

If you know Walter Hills, Walter Hills movies are
like 48 Hours but they're not funny... at all.

You've got that whole kind of approach to
action movies that was suddenly comedy movies

at the same time.

Don't you think you're
being kinda hard on the guy?

You go fuck yourself, convict!

Out of that we got 48 Hours
and we got Beverly Hills Cop.

Eddie Murphy is a Detroit cop

on vacation in Beverly Hills.

It was the first time that I had been involved
in a film that we sort of knew going in that

this was a huge hit.

I've been in some films that turned out to
be huge hits, don't get me wrong.

But that was one that we all knew sort of
from the get-go that it was.

And it was just such a
joy working on that film.

The film was written by Dan Petrie.

Well, Dan was my agent.

Dan had written this screenplay and
Stallone came in and he had Cobra.

And he said here's the film we're going to do
and he said no, we're not going to do that.

He said either you do
this film or I'm walking.

And so they offered it to Eddie.

When you're the best

you do things with style.

J.J. McQuade is the best.

My wife Elizabeth Stevens knew Chuck Norris
before I did actually.

Her daughter, my stepdaughter was taking
karate from one of Chuck's senior black belts.

She also knew Steve Carver who directed An
Eye for an Eye.

Steve invited her to see the screening of
the trailer for Lone Wolf McQuade.

He's a lone wolf lawman
in the lone star state.

She saw Chuck at the screening and Chuck said,
"Hey, are you still going out with that guy

James Brennan who wrote an Eye for an Eye?"

And she said, "Yes, I am."

He said, "Do you have his number
I wanted to write something."

So, I thought that it would be great to have a
guy that walks softly but carries a big stick

kind of type of concept.

A guy who tries to avoid violence.

The beauty about action is that you don't
need translation.

You can see.

And the beauty about action pictures
is something that is heroic.

There are bad guys and there are good guys
and the triumph over bad guys is basically

what the storyline is.

Chuck was actually a real-life world champion, a
martial artist and I think that really translated

to people.

We had kickboxing cops, kickboxing
soldiers, Chuck Norris rescuing POWs.

Chuck had an idea he wanted to do Missing
in Action.

Chuck Norris is James Braddock

ex-prisoner of war

I got a call one day from Chuck and he asked
me to go and have lunch with this guy in Malibu

and it was a producer named Lance Hool.

He said bring the script,
he's interested in it.

So, I went out to Malibu and met with Lance
Hool, gave him the script.

He liked it and the next thing I knew I'm going
down to this new company called Cannon Films

and they want to make the movie.

Chuck Norris worked then for Cannon for a
long time making the movies with Joe Zito

Invasion USA etc...

It was not a company that was making action
movies at the beginning.

When Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus, bought
Cannon Film, they started to flirt with actually

with horror pictures because horror pictures
are much cheaper to produce than action.

The assistant director came to me and said,
"Downstairs there is a call for you from Menahem."

He says you have to talk to him
now, right now.

And he said listen, as soon as you finish to
shoot this one, you're going to the Philippines

and you do a movie called Ninja.

I said called what?

Ninja?

And he said there are action heroes that
can kick ass and I'll explain to you later.

He didn't know more than that.

I begged him not to do the movie
so somebody else was sent to do it.

This somebody else failed in the middle and
Menahem went by himself to do it.

And this was the Enter the Ninja.

And so this was the beginning of the whole
ninja things in the movies.

They made Enter the Ninja I would say by
accident or by chance and it was working.

They were making money.

I mean they were
exploitationers definitely.

I mean Death Wish 2-3-4.

I mean I think Roger Ebert called
Death Wish 2 made by exploitationers.

Cannon Film was a small medium sized.

In the beginning was a small company became
a medium size.

At some point they used
to call them mini-studio.

That Cannon the way it would go like this
at the beginning of the movie and I thought

even to this day like
you can feel it... that clung.

So, when I came, I did not come into a
company that was making action movies.

I was one of the people who created this section
of Cannon and swaying Cannon toward action.

The ninja

So Menahem Golan came to me, he was looking
for a director to direct Revenge of the Ninja.

So, he came to me and said OK Sam,
you directed a movie, it's a drama.

I know you can put a
beginning, middle, and end.

But I want to give you an action movie.

Can you handle action?

What am I going to tell him?

I cannot handle action?

I told him don't worry Menahem,
I will handle the action.

Everything will be okay.

I didn't have a clue how
to start with action.

Of course, I have people working with me.

It's not by myself.

I had the stunt coordinator Steve Lambert,
I had Sho KOSUGI the fight choreographer.

So I had two strong action people to rely
on.

There's an enduring quality which is the basics
of these action flicks that means that many

generations can enjoy the tropes.

And it's just that they're presented in a
way that's more of their time.

When Revenge of the Ninja came out, they showed
the movie around and one of the companies

that saw it was MGM and they liked the
movie and they took it for distribution.

Now Cannon suddenly were in a different league
and this was the launch pad for Cannon to

enter the action market.

When VHS started, I believe it started
where everybody had access to it.

It was about 1976-ish.

That was when if a movie went to a VHS it's
because it failed.

It wasn't a compliment that you were on the
shelves in the video store.

But by 1982 it didn't matter anymore.

And by 1988 they're making movies for the
video shelf.

Success of the low-budget
independent company depended

solely on the explosion
of the home video market.

Going to a video store
just browsing was a wonder.

The fact that you could actually bring these
movies home and watch them unedited, uncut.

All of a sudden everybody could watch a movie
at his home and it was like the best time

ever for the independent companies.

It's just like evolution.

It's what happened.

It was like sex.

It's a no-no at certain times and then it becomes
accepted and then it's a part of your life.

Well, the same thing
with off-screen movies.

My favorite thing was
going to the VHS store.

There's my film.

You could actually hold it in your hand.

So, the VHS stores were really a place that
was so crowded every weekend.

Then we got a huge boom of...

It was like the boom under the boom because
we had the huge theatrical films come out

and of course a year later
they would be on video.

50 copies on the shelf and under that you'd
have all the guys like Cynthia Rothrock and

Richard Norton.

You'd have movies with
these B action stars.

For me it was all the same stuff.

It didn't matter about the budget.

Because of the explosion of the home video
market there was a lot of money that came

to the independent producers and it trickled
down to the directors, people like me to make

those kinds of movies.

My films were sometimes down there and then
Van Damme's films were up here, I was taking

my film and put it there and I'd put Van
Damme's down there.

For me, if you would go to the video shop
and it seemed like as a teenager there was

a new martial arts film.

Certainly, a new action film every week.

Yeah, back in the '80s I remember like the VHS
that the companies would take me to every video

store and company and
do all this promotion.

So it's interesting that we were the biggest
sellers in VHS back then but yet we never

really broke out of the
independent pictures.

I was inspired by those guys like Don Wilson
and Cynthia Rothrock and all those movies

that would come out in the early 1990s and
they were specifically made for the video

market.

But in the '80s there was born a fantastic
school of cinematic film making and storytelling

that was about special effects and
about huge amounts of personality.

Why is it we remember lines from
these films more than any others?

Come with me if you want to live.

Action is an extension of drama.

Drama is between characters.

Characters perform the action and the action
becomes a bigger manifestation than just the

human side anymore but it's always powered
by the human element.

From a future where man
must hide underground.

Has come a machine wrapped in flesh.

As a whole I think James Cameron is arguably
second only probably to Spielberg in terms

of influence on the whole of '80s culture
and especially in terms of cinema.

And Cameron, he was kind of born in the '80s
and in some ways he's more synonymous with

that era than Spielberg because
he emerged from the '70s.

It's purely happenstance of his age and his
time that he arrived in the '80s because he

just wanted to be a filmmaker and he was such
a forceful personality that it was almost

inevitable.

He's just incredibly passionate about what
he's interested in and when he sets his mind

on something, he just has a single-minded
purpose to do what he wants to do and if you

don't care that much about what is going on
or your job then there is hell to pay.

And he'll step in with this amazing intellect in
this audacity to just assume that his filmmaking

and storytelling vision is as important or
more so than what people tell him can

or can't be done.

While, stuck in this dreadful Italian hotel
with no money.

He got the flu and had this kind of great
fever dream and dreams this image of kind of

robot or half a robot sort of clambering

its way using a knife out of a burning
sort of fire behind him and thus was born

The Terminator.

I had done a lot of low-budget films and television
and often you sit with the director, we had

a little talk first and he
tells you what he's doing.

The big picture, the philosophical picture,
the picture of what's on his mind and then

you watch the film and you go where is it?

I don't see it.

And I knew this was rather low budget and
Jim told me some of the things that he wanted

to do and it sounded pretty
ambitious and it was all there.

So, we knew we had something special.

I probably would venture to say that we didn't
quite know that we have something that special

because who would have known that it would
become a household word.

It's like Frankenstein is a household word,
the Terminator is a household word.

It's important to have a theme though.

The '80s, that period of time
was a great time for film scores.

So many great scores during that time and
it's because they had themes.

In the agency that was representing me as
a composer there were the two main partners

and there was a young, younger woman.

She said there's this film and director I
really think we should try to get you there.

And the word came back that this guy wanted
to have a meeting with me and I was like fine.

So, Mr. Cameron and Gale Anne Hurd came to
my studio and showed me the rough cut of

The Terminator.

The Terminator theme, you know that Brad
Fiedel's...

It's very engrained in my mind.

The original Terminator theme.

I think the film would have suffered without
the theme but the use of it being judicious

and not to sometimes overuse of the theme can
kind of distance you from what's happening

in the moment.

But there's no doubt in the making of The
Terminator there was just the birth of a kind

of visionary and the birth of someone who would
make films with an extraordinary instinctual

propulsive form of storytelling
that we hadn't really had before.

Imagine editing the scene when Arnold says
"I'll be back" at the police station for

the first time.

I'll be back.

It became iconic.

"I'll be back" -That's cool.

If I studied something about
American cinema, it was Terminator.

And the editing of Terminator, the speed of
Terminator, the harshness of Terminator.

I mean all that stuff basically all of what
Cameron did.

It transcended the genre because it was about
ideas because it was mythic, it was a love

story, it was comic in the right places, it's
just self-deprecating when it needed to be

but it was classic and solid.

I think Arnold Schwarzenegger has got to be
one of the coolest cats on the planet.

When he wants to do
something, he gets it done.

I mean who would have ever thought Arnold
would come here and become such a star and

a governor of California?

How can you go from being Mr. Universe to movie
star to Mr. Maria to governor to divorce from

Maria to action hero again?

How do you do that, man?

Death Wish 3

Acting in Death Wish 3, especially cause I was
actually in the middle of film school at the time.

It was like a summer job I did
between sophomore and junior year.

It was really starkly in my face

that extremely right-wing reactionary mentality
of like we're going to take literally going

to take the street back, right?

That's what great about the Death Wish movies it
raises that to such a completely absurd degree.

It's probably because
it's a chain reaction.

It's like the snowball effect.

If one movie ups the violence the other one
has to overdo it.

The genre of films at the end of
the day they're not for everyone.

The people in Cannon, they were clever enough
to look for niche area -What can they do

that other don't do and maximize the profit
in this area?

If the audience don't buy,
the studios don't make it.

The studio makes what the
audience likes to see.

And then somehow, they come up
with the idea American Ninja Boy.

It makes a lot of money.

For two thousand years

the sacred art of the ninja
has been guarded in the East.

That ninja craze kicked up again and my dad
bought me a ninja suit and it was the first

black belt I ever got.

We just mail ordered it and I put this ninja
suit on and I never took it off and we would

do little missions where my dad and my brother
would be in the top room watching me out on

the street and I'm like, I'm here, can you
see me?

Yeah, we can see you.

And then I would go creeping around the gardens
they'd have to keep trying to keep me in their

view and I would disappear like a ninja.

Many, many, many people applied
for the part of American Ninja.

We definitely saw more than 300 capable
good young kids or young actors.

And Michael walked into
the room and this was it.

Before even I talked with him before I read, before
we read any lines just by talking, conversation

I knew this guy is the American Ninja that
I had in my mind.

The first few days of shooting he was very
dedicated.

He took time with Mike Stone.

Two weeks with Mike Stone to train to
prepare himself to be American Ninja.

And the first day of shooting, we were shooting,
I had a very good feeling that something is

happening here with this
character, with this guy.

Boom! It merged together and it worked.

And when the movie came out American Ninja
it was obvious, they loved him.

The audience loved it.

So, I was growing up seeing Bruce Lee, seeing
a bit of Chuck Norris, seeing American Ninja.

I'd never seen a Jackie Chan
film in my life at this point.

I'd tell a lie I had seen the Protector
but they were selling him as Bruce Lee and

he clearly wasn't.

When the Hong Kong actors started to come into
the United States it was a very good sign.

Especially for me as an Asian American.

If you're looking for that Asian action people
they had to come from over there because

it seemed like there was not
very many of them that were here.

There was no representative of action stars
globally, especially in the United States.

People like Jackie Chan, they made quite a
bit of impact.

I was training in Kung Fu.

I always looked at Jackie Chan.

I used to watch his movies every Sunday in
Chinatown

and come home and practice his movements.

And I always thought
I want to be like Jackie Chan.

I never thought I would want to do movies.

It just wasn't in my mind because
it all happened by chance.

He's the one that yeah, I looked at and said
yeah, that's how I wanted to move because

I liked the realism in the comedy.

Like he would take a telephone and start
using that as a steel whip and I loved that.

And I think in some of my films I tried to
do that like take two frying pans and try

to fight with them because I
like that because it's real.

Sometimes you're not going to be carrying a
weapon on the street and you have to use whatever

is available.

There's a reason why we know who Jackie Chan
and Jet Li and Jean-Claude Van Damme are but

yet we don't know other actors from those
regions because they do action.

No man, no law, no war can stop him.

Sylvester Stallone is back.

It took it to a new level because the stunt
work was great and we had terrific crew.

We had great set design,
we had Jack Cardiff on camera.

I mean it was Jerry Goldsmith's score.

Rambo - First Blood Part Two

Rambo's theme by Jerry Goldsmith is absolutely
the touchstone for me for '80s action.

Jerry Goldsmith is my all-time favorite composer
and he always has been ever since I was a boy.

He really created a sense of heroism and humanity
for Rambo and when I think of that it's immediate

childhood.

They've got Rambo going back
to Vietnam rescuing POWs.

In other words, he's atoning for the
mistakes that were made beforehand.

Yeah, there's a big difference in that we see
that sort of evolution to a branded character

as opposed to an actor playing a character.

First Blood was an actor's role, the other
was a Stallone vehicle.

So, why complicate your life and make those
art movies and then go see how where you go,

who buys it, whether you release it?

You make something that people
want and that's what they wanted.

After the Rambo movies, it was an
explosion. So that's all they wanted.

There's a Vietnamese officer and he's got his
pistol out and he's nervous and he's firing.

He's firing at Rambo and
he was trying to hit him.

He can't hit him.

Rambo meanwhile is just calmly pulling back
on his bow, he's got a grenade tip arrow,

he's pulling back on the bow and they keep
cutting to this and he's got shaking and firing

he can't hit him.

Rambo let's go of the bow and the grenade
hits this guy.

There's an explosion and there's like human
tissue flying.

The audience went nuts.

And I'm sure Stallone and the guys from Carolco,
Mario and Andy were in audiences watching

this also and they realized you know what?

We got to take a completely different direction
with these Rambo films because they're loving this.

We didn't want the outgoing crowd to clash
with the people coming in and we put them out

the exits and immediately they joined the
queue for a ticket for the next show.

My parents took me to see Rambo I think
three or four times in the theater.

I mean we just went over and over again.

I believe it was the most successful movie
the year that it came out.

Also, it had the most negative reviews of
any movie.

The fact that Rambo 2,
biggest success of the year.

Rambo 2 most negative reviews of the year.

Here's a guy who went against the grain in
everything that he ever did.

Here's a guy who transformed himself, literally
he chiseled his own body into this statuesque

muscular specimen.

But he was very toned, the way he eats, how he
exercised meticulously every day, every day.

I don't know how many times a day, how many
hours.

This guy lives at the gym.

Have you ever seen a body weigh that much
and be that lean at the same time?

How does a person do that?

He does not eat and only
does juice and works out.

America needed a boost of confidence and what
could be more confidence boosting than a muscular

physical specimen?

The American audience with the help of Hollywood
was looking to kind of elevate the feeling,

the good feeling of being American but we
are talking about the subtext.

We are not talking about the movies.

The movies were action movies except First
Blood maybe.

Stallone goes off on this rant.

He's got a handicap; He's
got a mental handicap.

This was an image that people had of
Vietnam veterans throughout the '70s.

In First Blood you had a guy in a big baggy
army coat come back looking for his compadres

and found they've all died of Agent Orange,
basically.

He's the last one left.

And the most of that movie is him in that
big jacket acting scared, vulnerable, angry

and at the end getting
arrested and put away.

It was a real movie and it was really good.

Then you have the sequel.

Do we get to win this time?

This time it's up to you.

Now it's about the muscles. Now it's the
superhero realm where it's almost like a fantasy

the first John Rambo had.

He gets to go back and
save all these buddies.

He's a powerful superhero.

It's no longer about losing the Vietnam
War; It's about winning the Vietnam War.

And guess who loves it?

Ronald Reagan.

I'm reminded of a recent very popular movie
and in the spirit of Rambo let me tell you

we're going to win this time.

Ronald Reagan had this macho cowboy image
about him.

But the world should know that this administration
continues to attach the highest priority to

the problem of those missing in action.

There was this renewed sense of patriotism
in America. In terms of the response to the

times, it was the Reagan era in the U.S.,
things were getting a lot more militant

a lot more conservative,
a lot more reactionary.

He's America's hero.

It's a good feeling being number one.

I have a photo of with Reagan holding
something saying Rambo is a Republican.

It became even political.

So a lot of people copied it.

And even Arnold started doing like Commando
and stuff like this.

Vietnam played a part in the Rambo series
where it was about a veteran taking revenge

for misdeeds.

So that had that whole Rambo had that whole
Vietnam parallel but I mean Commando didn't.

But I was trying to get with
the current day politics.

Now somewhere

somehow

someone's going to pay

Barry Diller said he met Arnold at a party
and was struck by how intelligent and charming

he was nothing like the
Terminator or Conan.

And he came into the studio he had just been
made head of the studio and he said to Larry

Gordon I just met Arnold Schwarzenegger, a
charming guy.

He's nothing like those
characters he plays.

If you can make a movie with him for ten
million dollars, I'll greenlight it immediately.

And a week later, we were greenlighted with
Commando.

When it came to like a Commando with
Schwarzenegger that was designed as like a hero.

Somebody takes his daughter,
he's going to be a hero.

That movie set the tone for action movies
for years to this day.

I like the script because it
had several levels of action

and comedy.

Don't disturb my friend.

He's dead tired.

So, I said we have to put all of these laughs
in the film like one liners, and the producer

Joel Silver, he said, "That's fantastic
because a pure action movie won't make as"

much money."

The night before shooting I called Arnold
and I said tomorrow's shooting you're going

to walk across the street holding this guy
with your two arms and then you hang him over

the cliff as you're talking
to him and you drop him.

And he goes, I can't do that.

I said what do you mean?

You're like the strongest man in the world.

You lift 400-pound weights and he says, "That's
weights. Those are balanced I cannot carry"

a man across the street and then hold him
over a cliff and do a whole scene.

That's crazy.

Remember Sully,
when I promised to kill you last?

That's right, Matrix. You did.

I lied.

To be honest, I don't think anybody knew that
this would create the trend that it created.

You scared, motherfucker?

Well you should be, because this Green
Beret is going to kick your big ass!

I was doing the next film
that the producers were doing.

Joel Silver was Commando.

And he actually took me and introduced me
to the director and the director said no,

I've got somebody else I want.

The producer wanted him always because of
Road Warrior and then he had done some Weird

Science and other films with Joel Silver but
then we found this other guy and then I never

shot him but we did rehearsal one day and
he was like oh, man we need somebody else.

And then it came well,
we got to use that Road Warrior guy.

Vernon Wells is like the only one that could
have played against him and it was odd because

he was like in love with
him but he hated him too.

He wanted to kill him but
he was in love with him.

This character,
this man wanted to be Arnold.

That was the whole premise.

He wanted to be number one.

When we did the scene I just had jumped on
him and did that whole scene and when it was

over Joel Silver said,
"So what do you think?"

And he went, "Never give him a real knife."

He always says in all these interviews, he
says he's the sweetest human being but say

action and he turns into
the biggest raving monster.

When that movie again out performed its domestic
box office overseas that kind of woke up

20th Century Fox to this kind of movie
and all the other majors as well.

It's so famous today.

Everywhere you go everyone
has seen this film.

And so I think it did
set off a whole genre.

A whole genre of this type of movies.

And I remember at the time Stallone and
Schwarzenegger

they had this rivalry.

Stallone was bragging on how Rambo made more
money at the box office but Arnold said, quite

wisely he said in the long run people are
going to remember mine more.

Now they are very good friends but I'm sure
in the old days there was some competition.

It was all about the muscles.

Arnold Schwarzenegger was the
reigning champ of action movies.

Maybe it was Stallone, they were competing.

So, Stallone definitely upped the old...

I mean definitely that was because of
Schwarzenegger.

Would he have gone to those lengths to get
as big as he was if not for Schwarzenegger?

Maybe not but that was the way it was back
then.

They grew together.

I made movies with both of them
so I was happy with both of them.

Actually, I was going to make a movie with
both of them in the same movie and it almost

got made but then for
somehow it didn't happen.

Can you imagine the stress
on the set having this?

I remember quite vividly driving down I
think it was Hollywood or Sunset Boulevard

when I was six years old and seeing the largest
billboard I've ever seen in my life for Cobra.

And that was a Warner Brothers pickup of a
Cannon Film.

I remember my dad pointed it out.

He's like look at that,
just look at that thing.

During my days younger people than the age
that's supposed to be sneaked into theaters.

They bought, they got in.

I mean somehow they found a way to get in.

This is where the law stops...

And I start.

My co-writer Lenny Macaluso and I, we originally
wrote The Touch with the movie Cobra in mind.

And it didn't get in the Cobra movie but the
record label at the time Scottie Brothers

they said we got The Touch in this movie
called Transformers about these cartoon robots.

And we're like, what?

You watch any film from the '80s and the
music is a big part of it, the soundtrack.

They worked out great so it turned out to
be a real phenomenon.

This was a more innocent time.

We didn't have all these
choices on your TV.

I think when the record labels realized what
a lucrative potential promotional vehicle

this would be first for music to get them in
films, there was more of a scramble to get

those slots.

And I think it became more competitive as
time went on to get that big soundtrack cut.

The inspirational rock anthem kind of thing
it started with The Touch and it became after

that it seemed to be a good fit for me.

That whole like upbeat sort of believe in
yourself thing to me is just great.

Kids need sort of, they need to
have positive things in their lives.

It was a beautiful time to be a boy and to
grow up during that period.

These movies were made for us.

The kind of aura that grew up around those
films began to invent the whole geek culture.

We always kind of lay that at the door of
Star Wars and that created it all.

But I think there was a kind of following
certainly around the personalities of

Stallone, Schwarzenegger, Kurt Russell and
their like that invented a kind of film fan

and film cult.

That was a sort of kin to following a rock star
and in that sense, you'd wear t-shirts and you

had posters and you've got collectibles because
that's what you did when he followed bands.

Shortly after Rambo 2 came out there were
Rambo toys for an R rated film.

It makes sense to me.

What was the difference between Rambo and
GI Joe?

Same thing basically.

We had more toys on that movie between the
arrows, bandana, whatever was in the movie

we had the figure of Stallone or the other
characters.

They were selling like pancakes.

Rambo was actually a Saturday morning cartoon
which was the craziest thing in my mind.

The fact that these toys were a little bit
edgier as a kid and I was a kid when that

was happening. I was psyched, I was
like good, I can play with this stuff.

It's not too scary for me.

I don't need to play with
a Smurf or something.

As someone who lived through that I found
it very exciting and I didn't care at all

that it was being marketed to me because I
bought what I wanted.

It started in the '80s,
there's the whole sense of high concept.

You're going out there
to destroy them, right?

Not to study. Not to bring
back, but to wipe them out?

I think in the beginning of Cameron's career
there was something of a kind of surge.

As soon as The Terminator became a box-office
sensation when it was really thought of it

was going to be a horror movie that would
last one weekend and suddenly everybody wanted

to have lunch with him.

Suddenly he was kind of like,
he got the clout to make Aliens.

He'd already written Aliens but now he got
the clout to direct it.

He realized that it's the story of Ripley.
It's not the story of an alien.

That's kind of almost coincidental.

It's not about these creatures at all.

It's about a woman and her journey.

This is kind of a theory
about Cameron is that

all of his films are really about
the creation of the nuclear family.

All these films kind of end or with the kind of
family sort of being put back together because

I think he's kind of quite, sort of
conservative about family life in that sense.

Hicks and Ripley and Newt as the daughter,
you have a nuclear family again.

And that's inspired in the sense that everyone
going in and watching these films can relate

to that.

When I see it now just the technical, the
practical effects, that's what's unbelievable

how those stand up.

But it really comes back to the story and Jim's
script and the actors and the ensemble work.

When she falls with the loader down into that
sort of airlock and lands on top of the alien

there's a moment where you see it under her
and they didn't have the CG then that was

a practical effect and it's just perfect, it
makes it real when you see it in the airlock

in that stark environment for the first
time just exposed without flashing light.

It is squirming under her and because it's so
starkly presented you go, "Get out of there!"

That's real."

I love it.

It's one of my favorite moments in Aliens
is the point where the guys have gone into

the nest and

it's just going wrong.

Shit is going down in
the middle of this nest.

It's just fantastically directed.

Because you always can't figure it out if you
see it on different screens and he's dropping

out the heavens on these poor guys and Ripley
takes over because Gorman can't deal with it.

There he's kind of flaking out and she just
goes right and that's the moment she takes

charge of the movie.

Do something!

From now on I'm the only one who could deal
with this.

That's brilliant but you
don't even question it.

It's just about how brilliant the character is
in that moment and how great the storytelling is.

With RoboCop I don't think that I wanted to
do anything let's say innovating.

I didn't even think about
American action movies.

I mean it was my jump from Soldier of Orange,
Turkish Delight and Spetters into RoboCop

was the adventure,
shot completely different.

And on top of that I was very inspired
by a movie that was one year earlier that

was Terminator.

Ronny we have this film called RoboCop.

RoboCop -The Future of Law Enforcement

But the script was kind
of considered a joke and

was not considered a really serious film.

I'd spent 15 years playing nothing but Mr.
Super Nice Guy, good guy.

So if a role had any balls I never got it.

So I found it intriguing.

So, I went in and met with Paul and meeting
with Paul then I realized that he had a vision

for this film that made it the
absolute special film that it became.

It was not to do something different.

I think the script was already different and
the producer Jon Davison was already different

than say a normal producer.

The script invited you to be different. It's
not that I wanted to be different, the script

ordered you to be different.

In retrospect yes, I can see that is different than
other movies out at that time but I didn't know.

I exaggerated perhaps because I thought that
you'd have a different style than American

action movie.

That it should be partially light-hearted,
that it should be a bit funny.

Paul grew up in World War 2.

He saw real violence.

And his whole concept of the violence in RoboCop
is he wanted it to be so over the top that

you got the joke immediately.

Violence is underestimated.

If you look at the paintings of the very famous
English artist Turner, he has these battles,

sea battles with explosions in them.

Then you could say violence
close-up is horrible.

Violence from a distance is beautiful.

There is something like that into violence.

In the original concept it was so bloody in
the first couple of frames that as an audience

you'd say I get it. I get it.

This is where we are.

Because they had to go back to the censors
God knows how many times.

They cut it back so much so that it finally
got to where it was right on the edge of what

you could stand and they made it the
violence more egregious by doing it that way.

That's non artistic people trying to make
decisions that they have no business making.

One of the most inspired movies perhaps
together is a dutch movie like Turkish Delight.

The most inspired let's say shooting that
I ever had.

That film to me is a
triumph of Paul Verhoeven.

Thank you for your cooperation.

Good night.

In 1987 they released The Predator and
it was remarkable for a number of reasons.

One, it was at the height of the Rambo craze
and the height of the craze over Alien.

Nothing like it has ever
been on Earth before.

What kind of works about the Predator was
just the brilliance of its high concept.

Yeah, it wasn't just an alien.

It was this chameleon alien.

We cannot see it.

But it sees the heat of our bodies.

Arnold Schwarzenegger in Predator

We've got this kind of gang of macho idiots
that were all kind of rivals to one another.

Carl Weathers and Jesse Ventura.

All these kind of ridiculous people
who were more ridiculous than Arnold.

They made Arnold look
like the straight guy.

But then you saw a film
where Schwarzenegger

actually went beyond and tried
in that movie to really act.

And the result was a guy who was scared.

You saw Schwarzenegger for the first time
ever express fear.

When we got to Puerto Vallarta which is where
we shot most of it and went down to Palenque

down by the pyramids, Arnold I think it was
two ballrooms and he had two tractors and

trailers bring gyms to those ballrooms.

They would get up at 3 o'clock run miles then
come back to the gym, work out for an hour,

an hour and a half, eat breakfast
after that and go to the set.

I did it for a week and after that I just
went to the set.

Rather than becoming just a daft film like Raw
Deal or Commando even which I kind of cherished

for their nonsense,
Predator was kind of exciting.

I think that had a lot to do
with McTiernan as a director.

Filmically I don't think there is anybody
that tells stories better with a camera than

John McTiernan.

He understands actors and
brings the best out of you.

So, we were in good company.

He had a skill with taking the tenets of '80s
action movies but giving them a kind of robustness.

Die Hard is great because there's something
just robust about its storytelling.

It's kind of Cameron's skills in a way where
he's so good at keeping a film going, going

and going yet the story has a shape.

It just comes together as a thrill ride.

There's the humor in it, there's the strangeness
of it, there's occasional moments where it

breaks out and doesn't work like when he says
stick around, at that point, it was not appropriate

to do the traditionally
branded Schwarzenegger lines.

It was also a good science fiction movie that
you felt created a kind of world and a franchise

that could be invested in its own right.

And so, it is kind of again mixed the kind
of pleasures, the idle pleasures of the great

'80s movie.

With something a bit more Alien-like and
a bit more Star Wars even.

It had just a bit more weight to it.

You've got a movie that brings up the best
and worst of the '80s.

It's a perfect slice of '80s, of what pulp
does best.

It manages to avoid the pitfalls and it avoids
the cheesy movies that it could have been.

What's interesting about Lethal Weapon was it
kind of sort of swung the pendulum back slightly.

It took the basic tenets of comedy but did
it with two sensibly straight actors.

The archetypes for me, the ones I draw from
there more often something I read than something

I saw in a movie which is good because it
gives me this sort of little-known advantage.

It's a little knowing.

I mean anyone can read
but so few actually do.

It's all there.

All the influences which are always two steps
ahead of what movies are currently portraying.

All the sort of complex action-adventure
private-eye.

All these sort of genre heroes.

You make those, you put those shapes in your
head much more effectively when you combine

movies with a library of stuff.

And since I was a kid I have been addicted
to the retreat and the sort of isolation that

books provide.

I look at Lethal Weapon as Dirty Harry, 48
Hours but it's more Ed McBain's 87th Precinct.

And what was fun about it knowing about it
was that one of them was Mad Max.

I think thinking of Lethal Weapon is you could
bring something of Mad Max, the spirit of

Mad Max and in the presence of Mel Gibson
it kind of just carried over.

I think we hadn't quite realized that Mel
Gibson that he's a bit nuts, that he was

quite highly strung and
that it kind of works.

He's kind of cool as Mad Max but once you
kind of let him off the leash a bit he's a

bit odd and a bit edgy and discomforting.

But it was guys who were very vulnerable
and the best ones even the toughest ones,

the best parts of the films for me even Dirty
Harry was where they were sort of in-between

and vulnerable.

Where you saw that they're really good at their
job but they're really fractured as people.

And that's what influenced me the most.

I think that's what encouraged me to make
the Mel Gibson character in Lethal Weapon

not just a really good
cop but a fractured cop.

And you put him up opposite a weary aging kind
of black cop in the brilliant Danny Glover

and you have kind of everything would work.

Opposites, comedy, straight man, comedian.

I look back on it.

Do I remember the action scenes persay?

No, I can't bring them absolutely to mind.

There are great action sequences but I just
remember their interaction and the way they

played off each other more than anything.

And that's I think is just a great recalibration
of the grand tradition of The Odd Couple.

Have you ever met anybody you didn't kill?

Well, I haven't killed you yet.

The Lethal Weapon franchise is interesting.

I did work with Donner on the first one.

The second one, I wrote a draft.

It was good, it was a fairly depressing draft
and needed a bit of work but the work it needed

was not so much the issue
as the somberness of it.

That second one was very much in the realm of
sort of the Dirty Harry of tough '70s driven

more like Bullitt than Animal House.

They wanted like the Joe Pesci of it.

They wanted a lot more humor and I didn't
dig that.

I thought it was going to be a feel-good fun
ass movie and I thought well, it's not so

much way kind of like a
taut suspenseful thriller.

And that was where it parted.

It was part of it was I
killed Riggs at the end.

I didn't have to do that.

They call that sending away the bread truck
basically but in retrospect I was probably

being a little too somber
and too pretentious about it.

But it was enough for me to say look,
I don't want to do this anymore.

I don't want a comedy.
I'd rather do something different.

Die Hard is based on a novel called Nothing
Lasts Forever which itself is a sequel to

another novel by the same author called The
Detective.

Interestingly enough, The Detective was a movie
made, was Frank Sinatra produced and starred

in I think in the late "60s."

Curiously enough because it was the same author
and the same book series Fox had to offer

Die Hard but under the title of
Nothing Lasts Forever to Sinatra.

Fortunately, he said I'm too old and too rich
to do this which is good because otherwise

the chases in the building
would be on Rascal Scooters.

Willis, that was an interesting choice.

He was a funny guy, there was a TV show,
Moonlighting.

Casting him in Die Hard was brilliant.

I tried to make Bruce
as grounded as possible.

I was already aware of the overworked overbuilt
steroid muscular hero which becomes problematic

who do you have to fight him?

After Schwarzenegger, Willis sort of started
the more regular sized human being kind of

action hero.

So, when I construct an action movie, the
first thing I think of is the villain.

So, the protagonist of Die Hard is really Hans
Gruber and the antagonist is John McClane.

And if you think about it that way in your
mind you end up getting the cat and mouse

chess game.

I do think that Die Hard still to my mind is
one of the top five if not the best action

films ever made.

It's exciting. The big sequences are great.

It's incredibly well plotted.

They have great characters, great actors.

McTiernan was the perfect director, Jan de
Bont was the perfect cinematographer.

One of the best bad guys in film
history which is incredibly important.

Alan Rickman which I
thought was incredible.

But I talked about him many times
saying this guy's talking too slow.

This is not going to work.

And it comes out on film
and he's incredible.

Due to the Nakatomi Corporation's
legacy of greed around the globe

they are about to be taught a
lesson in the real use of power.

And I also loved that sense
of it being contained.

There is something about that if it's just
all taking place in this one building.

You get the logic of it.

You get the sense of the challenge for the bad
guy, the good guy and in the back of your mind

for the writers and the filmmakers.

It's just how are they
going to make this work?

Well, I think what happened post Die Hard
is a lot of people did this Die Hard in it

and it became shorthand for a movie pitch.

Not everybody did what we did
which was have an ordinary guy.

So for example, Under Siege all you think he's
an ordinary guy but it turns out he actually

was a Navy SEAL who got demoted because he
punched an officer.

Die Hard is one that if I'm flipping channels
and it's on I'll say I'll wait, I'm just going

to wait to the scene which they put in late
in the game which is Hans Gruber going up

and looking around and
running into McClane.

Hi there.

And going oh, no, no, don't shoot me.

Oh, my God that scene.

I love that scene so much.

And then I end up watching the whole film.

In the late '80s I remember how huge some
of these R rated films like Terminator 2

and Rambo 3.

I remember how big those movies
were and how expensive they were.

Rambo is never looking for a fight.

You've got to force him to fight.

And that was one discussion that Stallone
and I had about Rambo 3.

We've got this war going on in Afghanistan.

It's Russia's version of Vietnam.

There are bad Russians in Rambo 2.

Rambo 3?

Let's have Russians again.

But where are they
causing a lot of trouble?

Where are they killing people?

Afghanistan.

Rambo's got to go to Afghanistan.

We had less luck I think on Rambo 3 because
the political climate had changed.

I did mention to them when we were shooting
Rambo 3 that Glasnost was happening and people

were shaking hands and not killing each other
but I was a little bit ignored about that.

First of all, Peter McDonald
was not the director initially.

It was Russell Mulcahy.

Russell actually directed the film for I think
the first couple of weeks before he got fired.

Sly was not very happy.

Rushes were dark or something.

Maybe the guy was intimidated by Sly.

I have no idea, I wasn't there.

I just came when the
things started to happen.

And then we all got together and said okay,
well, unfortunately he's not working with

him but we're making the movie.

So, we have the second unit director which
is Peter.

On Rambo 3 I was directing and photographing
the second unit as I had done on Rambo 2.

During that period, I took over photographing
the first unit for two or three days and they

were quite well behind schedule.

Stallone asked me into his trailer which
was big as a normal house and then asked me

about taking over the film.

And I really was very dubious because I knew
I was going to inherit the first film I was

going to direct, was

a totally out of control film.

So, I looked outside and saw all these
people who were now going to be sacked.

So, I said well, I'd do it.

It's a pretty damn good movie and in retrospect
so many people are saying that Rambo 3 is

their favorite of all the Rambo movies.

Personally, I like Rambo 2 but back then
they just felt that they had to hate it.

Sly did say to me do you realize this is going
to change your life? And I said for better

or for worse? And I'm still trying to work
out whether it was for better or for worse.

It's been a while since there's
been any good martial arts movies.

Sooner or later they're
going to make a resurgence.

And then bang, Bloodsport.

Jean-Claude Van Damme came to our office
and he just wanted a part in a movie.

Whoever came out any of the executives he
would start doing his splits and somersaults

and stuff.

And then Menahem Golan was the head of the
company.

He said okay, we'll do Bloodsport.

I had been introduced to
Frank Dux a few years earlier.

He was telling me these stories about this
Kumite tournament that he participated in

and he had an article that
was in Black Belt magazine.

That's when he told me this
competition used to get very bloody.

So, we had a nickname for
it which is Bloodsport.

Somebody had suggested you should go check
out this movie No Retreat No Surrender in

which Jean-Claude played a villain.

He played Ivan the Russian was the name of
his character.

And we were just blown away by the guy.

Frank Dux met Jean-Claude.

According to Frank they had some training
sessions, he showed Jean-Claude a bunch of stuff.

I doubt it.

Jean-Claude knew far more
than Frank ever knew.

In fact, Bloodsport sat on the shelf for
about two years if I'm not mistaken before

they finally released it because
Menahem thought it was a terrible movie.

And actually, the first cut was really bad.

It was bad.

I saw the first cut with Jean-Claude.

We all saw it.

We all thought this movie's a mess.

And they brought in a guy they have like a
film doctor but he basically recut the movie.

He allowed Jean-Claude to
come in the editing room.

Jean-Claude helped a lot with the action
scenes but until all that work was done

the movie looked pretty bad and Menahem
thought it was a piece of shit.

I'm quoting,"It's a piece of shit.

Jean-Claude is a loser.

"He's Poison."

Poison was his word for Jean-Claude.

This is before Bloodsport
had been released.

It gets released and suddenly he does a
complete 180 and now he wants to put Jean-Claude

in as many movies as he can but he's only
got a three-picture deal with him.

When I saw Bloodsport when I was 12-13 and
that's an age where you kind of can work out

between 12 and 16, you could kind of work
out what you want to be like I think for the

most part.

And for me it was seeing Bloodsport and
realizing that that's what I wanted to do.

I was so inspired by Bloodsport and Van Damme
I remember calling my mom in and saying look,

watch this guy.

That's what I want to do in my life.

I want to do what he does.

A team is not a team if you don't
give a damn about one another.

The reason that I made Best of the Best was
something that was very close to my heart.

I represented USA in the
1980 Olympics in Korea.

There was five guys who made it and that
experience was phenomenal for me.

I wanted to share that story into a movie.

And that's how Best of the Best was made.

I accepted that job in Best of the Best
part one because I loved the script.

We choreographed those fights
before we shot anything.

And Simon Rhee was basically the fight
choreographer on all the movies.

And you did what Simon told you to do.

Simon says do this, do this, do this.

Wait, do this, just like that.

For me I wanted to be grounded.

Let's do our actions wide-shots so we can see
the technique rather than go boom-boom-boom

and keep it really tight and you don't see
what the heck is going on.

I have never been more surprised to being
a hit that big.

That was a giant smash of a hit.

Part 1 did really well.

Part 2 did phenomenally well.

Part 2 is okay.

Part 3 and 4 aren't very great.

I got a call from the Bob and
Harvey Weinstein's company.

We want to do Best of the Best 3 and after
that they called me back again and said,

we want to do Best 4.

You write it, you direct it, you produce it
and you star in it and we'll write you a check.

I am the only Asian American to ever write,
produce, direct and star in a movie in America.

And that's a shame.

In the beginning at first, I was like there
was always the guy that would come in and

save the day and I would fight and then he
would come in and save the day.

That was a little bit different as
being the lead in the American pictures.

And it took until I think China O'Brien but
then Lady Dragon and then when they realized

that those movies were really successful and
made a lot of money, I was the lead pretty

much after that.

For me it was a glorious
time as a teenager.

Every week go to the video shop and there
would be a new China O'Brien or Blood Fist

or whatever it was.

When we were shooting China O'Brien, I did
find a big difference in shooting with Robert

Clouse then shooting in the Hong Kong because
remember, that's all I had was Hong Kong experience.

He wanted to do everything in one long shot
and one long take and I was used to them doing

that but coming in for close-ups.

Close-up of the foot to the head and this
and that and we'd be like no, but wait, you

have to come in and do the close-up of it.

And he'd go, "Bruce Lee didn't do that."

At that time, I think I was just
as up there with everybody else.

My movies were making top money so I never
I never felt inferior in the market.

Any Hong Kong movie that I did
that's my favorite fight scenes.

On my films I think what I'm really proud of
is actually Righting Wrongs or Above the Law.

The fight scenes were phenomenal.

Yes, Madam!

The Chinese people really embraced me because
they weren't used to seeing a white woman

that could fight so hard.

And I remember the first day of filming we had
an all-night shoot and it was in the airport

scene of Yes, Madam! And it was very tough
and it was brutal and I didn't know what to

do so I just said I'm
just going to do my best.

If I get hurt, I get hurt.

So, I gave it all and I think that first day
it impressed everybody and the stunt people

because they could hit me hard and I wasn't
going to complain.

And they weren't oh, no, it's just that we
don't have to put on the delicate gloves for

her because she's a girl.

I think once they realized how tough I was
and I could fight just as strong as the men

I gained a lot of respect that day.

The idea of the female action hero I don't
think quite took hold.

There's an interesting sort of like almost
through sub-genre within the '80s which was

created I think ostensibly by a decision Ridley
Scott made in 1978 when he was filming Alien

where someone said why don't we just make
Ripley a female?

And they did this and this
is really the key bit.

Obviously, Sigourney Weaver is amazing and the
casting of her is important but I think what's

really important is they didn't
change a line of dialogue.

So, nothing about Ripley's dialogue
was changed to make her female.

We know it's using the air shafts...

Will you listen to me, Parker?

Shut up!

She was pretty fierce.

I think it was a very empowering thing even
for me to see a woman in a movie just be that

effortlessly cool, intense and effective.

Never gave up.

Cameron drew a lot from that.

Yeah, he loved Alien.

I think he loved that idea
that females could be tough.

Really it's her arc as she becomes Ripley.

She finds the facility to survive.

The transformation of Linda Hamilton from
the victim to the hero was really shocking.

It's a chance to do the suspense genre but
to channel something that was a little more

rare going into the '80s or '90s which was
a woman who was lethal, a woman who had the

same sort of admirable yet frightening skills
that we found in previously male heroes.

Being Vasquez was really
an incredible opportunity.

When I was discussing with Jim about how I
wanted to play her and I said well, she's

not going to be likable.

There was this thing also like in the '80s
especially in television where you had to

relate to the character.

They had to be relatable and likable.

And I was like I'm going to play her who she
is and how she is and I'm not going to be

that way.

He said that's great.

I've got your back.

Don't worry about it.

There's of course, the situation of the male
dominance that has been there for thousands

of years, in fact.

When I grew up, when I went to elementary
school, the women in the class were as clever or

mostly better than I.

So, I have never seen a difference.

I thought basically yeah, they look different and
of course, there is a certain bit biologically

there is a difference clearly
but here there is no difference.

For a long time in Holland by coincidence
because how I started there were a lot of

male parts because I like
to work with Rutger Hauer.

And here in the United States at a certain
moment basically there were female parts like

the one of Sharon Stone and
it moved to that direction.

So, I don't see the difference.

I think the pickings are slim as far as female
action stars is because there's a stigma I

think and it's that same old thing.

Well, women don't sell as good as the men
or something like that.

There was a lot of pressure when we did the
Long Kiss Goodnight and halfway through

I had told some people what I was
doing including various producers.

They'd say what are you working on?

I said this thing with
a female protagonist.

And across the board they said dude, that's
not...

If you want that to sell, can't you make
them a man?

Why does it have to be a woman?

And I would explain sort of dichotomy of the
woman who's desperately living that sort of

housewife mentality to shield herself from
the memory of the things that she can't abide.

They say well, just do it with a guy.

No... it didn't feel interesting if you put
a man in there.

It had to be this woman.

As I got more into it,
we got Gina involved.

It became a really powerful film that ultimately
the critics who had said use a man, box-office

wise they were probably right.

Story-wise they were wrong.

It didn't work with a man.

It was a perfect woman role.

It didn't sell.

Tango & Cash was an interesting experience
because you had this diverse group.

Jon Peters producing Sly, Kurt and Andrei
Konchalovsky directing who Andrei had directed

a couple of good films but they were very
different to what we were making.

And I had an office next to Andrei and I was
sitting there with my assistant we heard Jon

Peters outside the carpark shouting out to Andrei,
don't forget you're making a buddy-buddy film.

And at the time Andrei's English wasn't that good
at the time and he came to his Romanian assistant

and said what is buddy-buddy?

Look up buddy-buddy.

And I thought well, we're probably in a bit
of trouble here because it's a genre that

the director didn't understand.

They went way behind schedule.

I mean I was the executive producer
and directed the second unit.

The studio should've said
after week two or three

This is not working.

Instead of that they waited till week
14 just to say this isn't working.

And I said that we've only got two weeks to
go I mean you're sacking Andrei with two

weeks to go that's fairly stupid.

But they did and it was fairly stupid.

It was Jon Peters that made a suggestion
about the end action sequence.

We had these great big earthmovers because
he'd drive into the studio, he passed this

earthmover working down the road and he said
I want to hold a sequence with 12 of these.

I said but it cost five hundred thousand
each maybe we can do it with less.

He had the idea of making it bigger.

Sly and Kurt wanted to make it a more thoughtful
film and I think it was Jon that wanted to

make it a more kind of wow this is
a biggest action film in history.

The film worked okay.

It could have been better but
what film couldn't be better?

And I think it made them money.

And there was always talk about making another
one which in a way is quite good because there

is a good chemistry between Kurt and Sly and
I must say Kurt's a charming guy and very

easy to work with.

He made life so much easier.

Early '80s Arnold wanted
to do Total Recall.

But Dino refused.

Company of Dino there went, let's say, bankrupt
or something like that, Arnold's basically

called Mario Kassar and
said buy the script.

I took that movie because of the ambiguity.

Quaid.

Catch!

Get ready for a surprise.

I think the idea that you don't know if Arnold
is dreaming or if it's true, it felt postmodern.

You know?

There is two realities and they don't even
compete with each other.

They are next to each other.

That was a funny thing about Total Recall.

It felt like the lowest
low-budget film I've ever made.

They cut so many corners.

At one point they called me up and they
said Ronny this is an expensive film.

I said everybody's agreed to
fly down to Mexico in coach.

Are you telling me that Arnold
Schwarzenegger is flying coach?

They said well, no, not Arnold.

So, I said well, no, not Ronny.

Obviously, they were spending a lot of money
on the screen and those are the biggest most

wonderful sets at that time.

The technology was not nearly what it is
today so it can take you a day to get a shot.

We were really very hard trying to make the
script true both ways.

That it would be a dream and he is still in
the factory and at the end of the movies he

is basically wiped out or he is a really a
wonderful guy that basically is abused by

Cohaagen the bad guy.

But finds out his humanity and at the end
save the world, the world of Mars.

These two things they're true too.

You never know if it's real or not.

Arnold put his stamp on the movie so much
I've never seen that basically.

And all for the good.

Always on my side, always preparing.

If production was basically difficult and
that they didn't want to pay because the scene

was too expensive, Arnold would say-I
want the scene.

Paul Verhoeven was making Total Recall then I
thought which was the most exciting Schwarzenegger

movie ever and Cameron was going to turn up
and make one that was twice as good and twice

as expensive and twice as
Schwarzenegger than ever before.

When I decided to go ahead with Terminator
2, I got so much flack from you name it.

The Hollywood Reporter, Variety, CNN, I'm going
to bankrupt Caralco, I'm crazy, I'm overspending

you name it all...

Success has many fathers.

At the end it was a big hit

they all said of course.

Terminator 2 was a classic example where
that felt like a great use of money.

When you went to see T2 you felt like okay,
they took what was already a great movie and

made something that was so much bigger
they're both great movies but arguably better.

That never felt like a
waste of money to me.

Everyone expected a sequel sooner and then
after a while people started to learn about

Mr. Cameron and he takes
time between things.

And then he had this inspired idea of can I
get one better than the T-800 the Arnold one?

How do I make a worse one?

Then he created this idea of the liquid metal
and then he had to figure out how to make

the liquid metal.

James did something very,
very smart and very expensive.

He perfected the special effects and showed
me a reel of the special effect that you see

in the movie before we
start really shooting.

So, we spend I don't know how many millions
of dollars in doing the chrome guy, the finger

that goes like this.

Then the guy that comes out from the floor
and when you start seeing all this you say

oh, my God this is going somewhere amazing.

What expanded with Terminator 2 was not just
the level of action and the level of excitement

there's also going to be a
special-effects revolution as well.

And when I saw the T-1000 and I came up with
this stuff that kind of almost made you nauseous

when you listen to it because I felt like
the visual was so groundbreaking that the

music had to meet that bar and not be any
cliché of music that we know because we're

now seeing something
we've never seen before.

Which is I wanted to disorient the audience
somewhat.

It was like these weird samples of brass sections
backward and upside down that I was stretching

out and playing with.

So that you kind of got this woo because
like all of the sudden reality isn't reality.

It's like you go to do something and you go
right through it but it's not a ghost

it's a thing that can kill you.

What I love about Terminator 2
is the characters and the humor.

The idea of Arnold Schwarzenegger sort of
being a good terminator.

It's definitely you.

If I ever sat alone in a room with Cameron and
say Avatar is great and all that and you're

doing such amazing things but you're the guy
who flew a helicopter under a freeway bridge

and you've not bettered that.

In some ways Terminator it's kind of like
the cusp, isn't it?

It's the kind of culmination of the great
'80s era.

It was '91, I know that.

Yeah, it's the point where all the '80s stuff
had done as much as it could possibly do and

you can feel the kind of the move toward CGI and
Jurassic Park or things that were just around

the corner.

So it's a film almost to be celebrated

as the last great hurrah but at the same
time it's just another wonderful piece of

storytelling.

There was a period of time where the John
Woo style was very prevalent.

I think John Woo had a huge
impact on me and Adam Leff.

I remember watching The Killer and just thinking
oh, my God, this is better than any Hollywood

action movie because we thought
this is really the kind of action,

this is just better. In terms of the stylization
of the action and the way it was shot.

Everyone I knew in Hollywood was watching
those movies.

One of the executives at Warner Brothers
they said why do you want to use this guy?

They don't even shoot sync sound and they
kind of disrespected John at that time.

So, then Universal swooped John Woo
and he made Hard Target with Van Damme.

So, Van Damme, he went through this period
where he was the guy bringing in these

Hong Kong directors right?

John Woo, Ringo Lam, Tsui Hark.

He was sort of the guy to bring them to Hollywood
and it made perfect sense because obviously

martial arts is a big part of it.

Not so much with John Woo funnily enough.

But that style, it stuck around.

It really did influence
Hollywood for a period of time.

I kind of discovered Roland Emmerich when
he was down in my building, he did a movie

called...

a very small movie, I don't remember.

It's a very futuristic movie
that cost nothing that he did.

And I wanted to meet him after I saw the
movie and I met him and he's a wonderful guy

very, very smart and very creative.

I had this screenplay called Universal Soldier
where I managed to put Van Damme who came

to Canne and said Mario I want to make a
movie with you at the right time, right?

So, I get the screenplay with I needed two guys
they were all presented by the same lawyer.

Jake Bloom who was our lawyer at that time.

He was very nice and very helpful.

I said look I want to try to put Jean-Claude
and Dolph together in this movie and I'm going

to have this German director
Roland Emmerich do it.

And it was actually the first big hit of Van
Damme that costs a certain amount and from

then on of course, he became more and more
famous and more expensive and it worked.

So, that I did it not because I wanted to be
in the sci-fi movies but that was the story

that I liked about it.

I am in the original Universal Soldier but
you need the pause button to see me.

It's in the early part.

It's in the Vietnam flashback.

It's Jean-Claude and I in the foxhole and I
run off and I guess I get blown up and put

on ice and come back eight years later as
the bad guy, as Seth.

I guess you can look at it like that.

Studios are making pictures for the largest
common denominator of people.

They want to get as many seats in that
theater and paid seats as they can.

Now they need the date crowd, they need the
women to come with them into the theater.

Maybe younger audience.

The original cornucopia the studios were chasing
was the foreign box office which liked the

R rated hard action movie.

Bloodshed, action, mayhem and a plot
that is not dependent on dialogue.

They saw what happened with the Ninja
Turtles that appealed to everybody.

Hey, there's toys and hamburgers to be had
here but they have to feature PG-13.

Let's rein that back in.

And there were the franchise elements, there
were the books and hats and t-shirts and cups

and mugs and in some of the cases almost
made as much money sometimes as the movies.

I mean it started as me saying
to my writing partner Adam

we should do a reverse
Purple Rose of Cairo.

Where a kid goes into a movie and it's an
action movie and we get to live out

all of our fantasies as fans.

And the idea that you as a fan by knowing the
genre would actually have a huge advantage

just seemed to me who wouldn't want to see
that movie that just seems like exactly what

I would have wanted to
see when I was younger?

I mean I was only 22 at the time.

I think you could definitely say that Last
Action Hero turned into the classic snake

that eats its own tail.

It definitely was a weird moment to be parodying
certain people and then have those people

take over the movie.

It was a chance for us to step in and take
this sort of basic idea of lampooning the

current action genre.

But I wanted to take it
a little further now.

Eventually the writers of that script that
originated, they didn't like what we did.

And they were pretty vocal about not liking
what we did and that's fine.

Then something fun happened which is someone
did what Zack thought we did to his script

that got done to our script.

Then we said hey we don't like it because
it got taken away from us.

It became less about suspense, adventure,
detective stuff, cop stuff and more just about

a big world of movies with
dinosaurs and things like that.

In other words, the spectacle of just movie
world as opposed to cop movie world.

Sort of overwhelmed.

I think a lot of problems probably came out
later in the process too but I do think there's

something to be said for two total movie buffs
writing this movie where we love that genre.

We thought we didn't sit there and say
Commando this is so stupid.

We thought it was awesome.

Whereas I think for McTiernan and then for Shane
and for a lot of those people they had kind of

gotten tired of this stupid version of what
they...

I mean Shane writes the smart
version of those movies, right?

I mean Lethal Weapon
is the smart buddy cop.

It's the better buddy cop movie.

There's a lot of crappy ones, he writes the
good ones.

I think with Last Action Hero even when I
first saw it, it's not like there aren't

a whole bunch of great
moments in the movie.

I mean there's a couple left over from our
draft but there's also the dogs that form

a pyramid and everything with Charles Dance
is great.

I've just shot somebody,
I did it on purpose!

It is very hard for me to watch it at the
time because I really had no idea what I was

getting into.

I was at the premiere and afterwards there
was this bubble of silence and...

It was the only time I went to a premiere
back then of something I'd written

and I just went I'm not that excited.

I'm glad I did it but... great party.

We went into there they had Kiss playing and
they had like giant statues and all the food

you can eat but this is good food.

I'm glad we made that movie because I'm having
a great snack but meanwhile no one's talking

about the movie, no one liked it.

There's so many people who love the movie and
there's so many people who at least acknowledge

one thing that I even felt at the time was
this is a deeply weird movie.

This is one of the weirdest big-budget movies
that anyone's ever made and the fact that

people appreciate that
now is hard for me to...

I'm not going to dissuade
someone from feeling that way.

And I do think it's aged much better than
people expected.

If my twenty billion dollars are not
delivered, the hostages will die.

I don't think so.

Capcom executives are coming to Hollywood.

They're having a round of meetings with producers
all over town looking for someone to make

a movie out of their successful game,
Street Fighter 2.

Do you understand?

Do you know this?

I said yeah, my kids have put like their
college fund into that coin-op machine.

Can you have a story to tell them,
an approach to this movie in three days?

With this like crazy schedule stuff like that
I'll only take this assignment if I can direct

the movie as well.

So, I don't want to do another tournament
movie.

So, I came up with more of a G.I. Joe

In other words, people have said to me since
then you actually made the first G.I. Joe movie.

I just decided that General Bison was the
ideal person to be the villain.

I'm looking at the cast of characters and
since the characters were all international

fighters, I thought they'd come together because
the UN goes too and then it rolls for everybody.

So, I pitched this to them in the meeting
and they go crazy.

And they were on the same wavelength.

They showed me a sketch of Bison's
underground base with missiles and stuff.

So, I inadvertently pitch them
something they were thinking of doing.

But anyway, they had a budget in mind,
so the first couple names on their

list Stallone, Schwarzenegger, the obvious
choices, they were unaffordable.

And then they said Van Damme and can we
afford Van Damme?

We go well, probably but he has his accent.

And they go, what accent?
Because they're only hearing him dubbed.

Isn't there a danger putting Van Damme in
the movie that people are going to expect

an R-rated movie?

Because you wanted it PG-13.

So, that was nagging me but
they were adamant about that.

I mean I completely understand why
Van Damme did Street Fighter at the time.

It was a massive payday
and it was a big property.

It was a big film.

Everyone's going to go and watch it.

For General Bison our first choice was
Stephen Lang who was the wonderful villain

in Avatar and he came in and read for us.

He was phenomenal but the Japanese they were
really into this marquee value and Raul Julia

was a much bigger name and as it turned out
his children played the video game.

So, he knew it and he said all right I'll
do a popcorn movie for my kids.

Game over!

Right before the movie came out the censorship
board even though I without doubt had done

a PG-13 movie they rated it R. You cannot
advertise toys for an R-rated movie on

Saturday morning television.

I had to start cutting back on the fights
on the impact on any blood.

We turned it in again.

It was rated R again.

So, now we cut deeper into the fights and
we turn it in and they rated it G.

Like oh, my God, that's the kiss of death
in another way because no teenager is going

to want to see a G-rated movie.

That's a Disney rating.

So, I had Jean-Claude come back in and give
me one wild line.

Where he said...

Four years of ROTC for this shit.

And then we submitted again and they go we have
to give you a PG-13 now with that curse word.

It was a very profitable movie and
made over a hundred million dollars.

It's only one of two Van Damme movies that
broke a hundred million dollars.

That and Time Cop.

It wasn't the best film.

I think most people agree especially as a
fan of Street Fighter.

It's very different to what the original concept
is for Van Damme to do that it didn't put it

past him at all.

He's like yeah, you got to go for it.

It's a big payday, big film.

It's a bit more for the kids.

Go for it.

You've made me a happy man.

Next, I make you a dead one.

True Lies is almost the exception that
proves the rule I think in Cameron's films.

I'm sure it was sold in as what if James Cameron
directed a Bond movie with Schwarzenegger in?

What would it be like?

It's the one he didn't originate.

So, it came through Schwarzenegger.

It was a Schwarzenegger project and I think
he persuaded Cameron to do it.

I think he came into it almost like a director
for hire and I think that kind of interested him.

So, it's a slight anomaly in terms of his
career as a whole.

I think that counts tonally as well that
it's got this sort of comic spy edge to it.

It has this kind of really interesting Jamie Lee
Curtis sort of subplot or you could say plot.

Obviously, she's the wife of Schwarzenegger
secret agent,

there's no idea what he does.

So, it's a domestic problem.

Again, we come back to Cameron's sort of
fascination with the family unit.

True Lies I think it was, I had to pitch.

I had to really sell him on it.

He did hire me before I
presented any of the music.

He and I had never done an orchestra score
together.

We thought about orchestra on T2 but we didn't
have the time and we decided that we liked what

we were getting on True Lies
ironically going back one notch.

I think what got me that job was Striking
Distance.

The orchestra sounded really good. I said,

well, yeah, okay. So I now realized
okay, he needed a solid thing.

So, it's kind of an unusual
pleasure I think True Lies.

It's sort of you come back to it and think
I forgot about this one.

And it's got that slightly sort of buoyant
silliness about it.

It's the kind of, it was that period where
Schwarzenegger began to get lines and he kind

of thought himself as more of an actor and
you kind of have to come and go with that.

And he's alright, he's fine... we have
problems with contractions again and you know?

It's got horses riding into elevators, we've got
stuff blowing up, it's got Harrier Jump Jets.

He doesn't stint on any
of the Cameron stuff.

You got to be totally
sold on what you're doing.

You can't be a step back kind of going ha
ha about it.

Even though there's James Bond-ish things
it wasn't a spoof.

It was his movie True Lies with that story
and he was having fun with it.

The studios decided rather than getting these
bodybuilders and martial artists like Seagal

and Van Damme and trying to turn them into
actors, why don't we hire actors and teach

them how to do some of this
action stuff and use doubles?

They called me in at 20th Century Fox
to talk about a movie called Speed.

Why are they messing with me?

Do they think I'm doing this for fun?!

Speed's script first went around the sort of
nickname for it was Die Hard on a Bus and to

which I said fantastic.

Once the bus goes 50 miles an
hour, the bomb is armed.

If it drops below 50, it blows up.

And so, it was an inspiration for Speed.

That said, I had been playing with that idea
for years even before Die Hard came out.

And it was something that my father had told
me about that there was a script that Kurosawa

had written about a train that
couldn't slow down or blow up.

That became Runaway Train.

I saw that movie.

Andrei Konchalovsky's movie.

It's pretty good but I thought hey, it would be
better if there was a bomb because in Runaway Train

they just can't get to the brakes.

If it was a bomb and if it was a bus.

We were trying to find a lead for Speed and
then someone at the studio said what about

Keanu Reeves?

And he was very young.

We didn't know for sure
and then we met him.

He's like 6'2".

He was lean,
he already had the cool haircut.

He hadn't bulked up yet but he was riding
a motorcycle.

I was like he's cool and he had done Point
Break.

So, we knew he could run around with a weapon
and do stuff like that and hopefully we could

make it a little less sort of over the top.

I was speechless like you're talking about the guy
that was in Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure...

I am the Duke of Ted!

Is going to play a cop
in this action movie.

Is that the best we can do?

Keanu Reeves?

Well, how wrong was I, OK?

In the first drafts of Speed there was a
whole thing I tried where you find out that

his partner who was eventually played by Jeff
Daniels is actually the one who's doing things

and it's a big twisty twist thing
and it ultimately didn't work.

The reason I done that is because I didn't
think having Jack go up against someone who

and if they had no contact really except on
the phone if there was no personal thing

it wouldn't be that interesting and I just neglected
to think that if you cast Dennis Hopper it's

going to work great.

I think Speed showed that you could have a
cast that didn't have big stars in it but

that the movie itself would be the star.

I think when Hollywood realized that they could
cast somebody like Nicholas Cage in something

like The Rock. I think when that happened
around that that time the Jerry Bruckheimer type

film the Simpson Bruckheimer movies, these
movies forsook the action stars, the real

action stars, the bodybuilders the guys whose
acting was a little rougher around the edges.

Maybe we can do, we can have Nick Cage
in The Rock which is one of my favorite

I'm not always a huge fan of Michael Bay films
but that one I love and it's got Nic Cage

and Sean Connery and it's
like this is pretty awesome.

One thing you'll notice with a lot of those
characters and those actors is they've got

a sense of humor.

And Nic Cage oh, my God. He was a
comic actor, he knew how to do that.

So, you get that guy in the lead and I think
you're probably rooting for him more than

you are for someone who's huge.

I was called in by Jake Bloom who I had a
three-picture deal with.

He told me,
Matthias you might as well give up.

And I said, what do you mean?

It's over.

What do you mean it's over?

It hasn't even started.

Oh, no, I told the same to Schwarzenegger,
Stallone.

It's over.

You guys are done.

It's the Keanu Reeves, it's the Brad
Pitt's, it's the other guys now.

It's not you anymore.

It did seem like the very specific tropes
of the kind of loosely cop or military based

action movie were starting
to wear themselves out.

These guys weren't able to sustain a career
in theaters.

Arnold's movies didn't make any more money.

Stallone's movies didn't make any more money
because they were too expensive to make.

I remember seeing a test screening of Eye
See You years before it came out.

It had a disastrous test screening.

Disaster.

It was Stallone's big
comeback after Copland.

People cheered when he came on screen.

By the time that movie was over people were
cursing in the lobby. Just a handful of years

before with stuff like Rambo 3 the biggest
movie of all time at that that period just

a few years later he was in this movie that
it was junk.

Stallone and Van Damme started using stunt doubles
a lot once they moved into that straight-to-video

era just because they didn't feel that what
they were doing on-screen was appreciated

as much as it used to be when you'd see it

in thirty-five-millimeter on a big screen,
slow motion.

Yeah, that's Van Damme.

He's really doing that.

Remember digital effects have it big.

That's a very important part of the story.

Because what you saw was a transition from
a time where the best that Hollywood could

deliver in terms of spectacle was makeup
and stunts and certain types of action to

we can do anything.

I remember when the Matrix came out and thinking
to myself okay finally Hollywood have figured

out how to do it right.

This is how you shoot a fight sequence.

You do it the Hong Kong way and here we're
seeing it in the Matrix.

And it's glorious.

But now we've found a way to especially with all
the comic-book movies to take an Oscar-winning

actor, a top actor in the game and give him
enough skills to look believable as an action

star whether that's putting a stuntman in a
superhero suit or whether it's taking them

for six months, three months and putting them
in a grueling training regimen to get them

up to standard to be able to do stuff in
camera like Keanu Reeves does Charlize Theron.

They figured out how to make anyone look
competent.

Even Arnold when he came back after Batman
and Robin and Jingle All the Way.

What the heck was he doing in those movies?

His big comeback was End of Days.

It was just such a grim time to be a real
action star because all these actors were

coming in and starring in action movies.

And how far could the Schwarzenegger thing
go without it becoming self-parody to a point

where it was sort of self-damaging?

Maybe we just got tired of that testosterone
massive bulging chests period that we celebrated

for such a long time.

I always say it's the
death of the superstars.

There aren't that many anymore
because there's too many nothing's.

There are too many TV
shows, too many nothing's.

How do you stand out?

There's something about being on a big screen
and your eyes are this big and people can see

the soul of you.

You can't hide that from people.

So, you're either real or you're not.

That's the problem with
a lot of these new guys.

They can't stand up to that.

I mean the Bourne movies.

I think Doug Liman had a lot to do with the
changes in action movies.

That he was going to do handheld action.

I remember him, he actually told me that
and I thought he was crazy but then I saw

the movie was like okay,
you were totally right

and I was wrong.

This is what's sad.

Bourne which was echoing Bond, there was the
new version of Bond was so successful that

Bond started emulating Bourne.

That whole thing with the shaky cam which
I hated with a passion but that was a way

of disguising the shortcomings of the performer
and saying okay this is your new action star.

You just can't see what they're doing.

And Expendables was the first time and done
so cleverly where it made sense to have like

a Chuck Norris and an Arnold because their
personalities come with it.

I remember at that point maybe
he'd done three films with...

No, four films with Jean-Claude and I was
his henchmen on Expendables 2 and we're there

with Stallone and Schwarzenegger and Bruce
Willis.

And I remember looking at Van Damme and I
could see that he was more nervous than me.

It was nice to see that
from him to be honest.

A little bit of vulnerability and that sort
of in that moment because it was a big deal

for everyone to be on those films.

Even Stallone and Arnold you know?

It was not lost on them the fact that all
these action stars had to come together for

one film.

When the Expendables came out and I
was like, "How come I'm not in there?"

I should be in there.

You have all these guys in there.

Are you kidding me?

Why am I not in there?

Because I was the top female
then in the '80s and '90s.

Executives are going to hire somebody for
their popularity and it's just going to be

like oh come on, we're not buying that.

There's a lot of movies with names that did
not make it.

So, there's no more the star system
that was in the '70s and '80s.

I think that's done.

Well, the big change has been you don't do
the stunts for real anymore and the CGI has

changed them entirely.

I think they can almost cut the stunts out
because the fact is special effects can do

so much stuff,
they can make nothing look great.

Yes, we can do anything now with the computer
but in the back of your mind you know when

it's real and when it isn't.

The Fast and Furious franchise is the most
surprising franchise of all time.

There's just no way anyone
could have predicted.

Every like last hope of classic '80s action
movies to me is in the Fast and Furious because

all of these things of the countdown and
the thing and the missiles going to go.

All that stuff you don't
see that in other films.

That pretty much is gone.

I'm glad that we're getting the last gasp
of the vitality that guys like Stallone and

Schwarzenegger still have
and possess a little bit.

I mean look at Arnold if you're smart enough
he's 70 some years old and he's still involved

in The Terminator series.

You somehow have to find an
angle how you fit into it.

I would argue that Terminator is one of those
like the Matrix and like X-Men, the nature

of the idea allows the
universe to keep expanding.

Bruce in these Die Hard sequels is getting
more formidable.

You know Die Hard, what's tough about it is it's
a premise about a character who finds himself

in an unlikely situation.

If he keeps finding himself in that unlikely
situation it becomes increasingly difficult

to keep that premise going.

So, the character is getting older but he's
getting more indestructible.

I was at one point approached and I wrote
a very extensive treatment with my friend

Chuck Mondry of Lethal Weapon 5.

Never really kicked off but I like it.

I still keep it.

Some people ask to see how would you do it?

I said well look at this it's 63 pages as
a treatment read it God damn it.

If someone right comes along and tomorrow
comes and knows how to do Aikido it could

be another Steven Seagal being born.

It always has to be that guy that knows how
to capture the audience.

People are finally aware
of who Scott Adkins is.

Scott Adkins for example is a great martial
artist.

One of the best I've seen.

And I think that's the allure about Scott
is that he can get up and do entirely all

of his stunts and do some incredible kicks
and fight sequences, choreography that make

people watch the film and
tell their friends about it.

When I first started, I'm talking about
independent lower-budget sort of action movies

but when I first started you had
about seven weeks to make a film.

It was difficult but you could do it and now
that seven weeks is shrunk to about four weeks,

sometimes three.

And that for me is the most difficult part about
being an action star as it is in today's world.

Scott Adkins, myself, Tony
Jaa, we're finding our way.

Well, Scott and Tony are like my brothers
and I'm very connected to Scott.

I'm just super proud every time I see him
doing stuff and I'm glad that he's producing

and getting involved more
in front and behind camera.

He's kind of like my big brother really.

Someone I look up to and can ask advice.

He's very wise guy.

He's been in the industry a long time.

Smart guy.

Tony is such a beautiful spirit.

He's probably the most person that's closest to
the exemplary idea of what a martial artist is

then anyone else I know.

The things that I love about Jason Statham and
Gerard Butler are again their charm because

both of those guys can kick ass and do
great stunts but they also are funny.

The Rock is incredible.

I mean he's a guy that you'd think that
this guy is so big and whatever he can do

whatever you want to do.

But he's like one of the
nicest guys you will ever meet.

Somebody should have had a word with the Rock
about ten years ago when he'd lost all of

his muscle because he was obviously thinking
maybe this muscle thing is not good anymore

Maybe I'm too big to make it in Hollywood.

Well, he has changed is his tune
now, hasn't he?

When he did Pain and Gain
wow, he went big again

and he stayed that way ever since.

I want Dwayne Johnson to
just make his R-rated movie.

I want to see him make his
Commando, his Rambo.

He doesn't have a touchstone movie.

I mean present-day there's the Deadpool's
which cost a lot of money.

They don't cost probably as much as an Avengers
does but they cost a lot to make and they are

are as R as you can get.

I like The Raid.

I like The Raid 2.

Again, these movies are not for everybody
though.

Raid movies are borderline horror films.

I mean there's so bloody and just taxing on
your spirit after a while.

Like Commando you can watch with your dad,
your grandfather, your son and your wife or

your girlfriend.

You can't watch The Raid with those people.

You got to watch The Raid by yourself
or with your like your buddy.

I think you are seeing a return to R-rated
action movies.

I think obviously Taken was one of them but
John Wick...

I mean John Wick is I would argue kind of a
better version of an '80s action movie in that

you could pitch the first 30 minutes of
John Wick and grab somebody's attention.

And the action is so different
than the action in other movies.

I look at Keanu Reeves and what he does in
the John Wick films and the Matrix and other

movies, action films, and because I'm someone
that does it, I understand how hard it is.

And I can see the hard
work that he puts into it.

If Keanu Reeves can pull off John Wick other
people can pull this off too but why can

Keanu Reeves pull it off?

It's not that Keanu Reeves even has a
muscle but Keanu Reeves is so super cool.

The true action stars of today are something
like Keanu Reeves and Tom Cruise and he's

literally putting his
life on the line, Cruise.

I mean, you got to respect that.

He might not be as physically capable as Jet
Li or Van Damme but man, he is hanging off

the side of planes, right?

It's amazing.

A couple of the big action directors
nowadays started out being stunt doubles.

Chad Stahelski who's directed the John Wick
movies he was a stunt double for Keanu Reeves.

Also, David Leitch was Brad Pitt's stunt double
for years and he was also the stunt double

for Van Damme.

They're both directing huge movies now.

David's did the Deadpool sequel and
they basically know how this shit works.

It's not clear to me what
the kids think about this.

What a teenager now thinks about Stallone
and the Rocky's and the Rambo's and Arnold

Schwarzenegger, The Terminator that's about
to come out, the new one.

For you and I, we remember the glory days
of action cinema.

It's full on, pulls no
punches, gory, violent.

I miss those movies man.

It's because I fell in love with
these guys the first time we saw them.

Above the Law.

He came out of nowhere.

Steven Seagal.

What a beautiful talent he had and he was
different than anybody else.

And even though over time their skills or
their appearance may have degraded a bit,

I mean we look at Steven Seagal today he's
not the same guy we remember but he still

has that skill and it's
still worth watching.

It is.

The action movies of the '80s the ones that
are memorable they had a little more plotting,

more twists, more plausible villains and nowadays
I think people are emulating just the stunts

and not looking at the underlying material.

Well, I think the films of the '80s I think
they came from old-school heads who they knew

story arc, they knew character arc and
built on that, they put action there

that was organically
motivated by the story.

I find more today that the action motivates
the story, not the story motivates the action.

The question is do you care about anybody
that got shot?

That's the real question.

But today I don't know if you get shot...

I like that special effect. That was great
but do I care about you?

Today's generation just seem like
they don't care what's out there.

I'm going to go see it.

We're still hopefully grasping to that feeling
we have when we watch those movies for the

first time as kids.

I can't compare anybody nowadays
to Stallone and Schwarzenegger.

These guys aren't meatheads even though the
people seemingly, one of the sophisticatos

want to like kind of downgrade someone.

No, these are the smartest dudes in
the room and they will whoop your ass.

They're fun.

That's why they're cool.

That's why they'll always be around.

That's why those guys will be in
wheelchairs and still doing it.