Thursday, August 25, 2022

[2022.08.25] LOUIS KOO HAS A "STIFF NECK" WITH TWO TITANIUM CERVICAL VERTABRAE

Louis Koo has metal in his neck and Sean Lau jokes that he now has a stiff neck

Despite the enormous investment and difficult production, Louis Koo still feels this attempt has been a worthy experience.
courtesy of on.cc

Sean Lau and Louis Koo have injuries all over from working on WARRIORS OF FUTURE 
courtesy of singtao.com


Sean Lau and Louis Koo wear 33 pound of armor for the shoot
courtesy of mingpao.com

The HK$ 450 million science fiction film WARRIORS OF FUTURE (MING YUT JIN GEI) today opens in Hong Kong. Two leads Louis Koo Tin Lok and Sean Lau Ching Wan talked about the joy and the pain of the performance. They both were injured due to the shoot, but they still felt the film was worth it.

In the film Goo Jai and Ching Wan both needed to wear 33 pound armors for the shoot. In the scorching heat they performed a series of action performance. Goo Jai said that the armor took half a hour to put on, so he did not even dare to go to the bathroom. In addition he wore wires along with the armor, after completing the shoot he lost almost 10 pounds. Ching Wan said that the tough shoot made him thinner as well, but the worst was being injured early in the shoot. "It was a scene in which I jumped around the wires in an armor, my right leg landed a little faster and caused the bottom of my foot to be injured. Because after the injury I still had to continue to shoot, it took 9 months to heal."

As for Goo Jai he said that during the shoot he did not notice, but two years later he went to the U.S. for a major operation to put titanium on his cervical vertebrae. He recalled when the doctor found out he was an actor he was asked he suffered impact from constantly working on fight scenes, because in the U.S. most cases were from Super Bowl athletes.

Goo Jai said, "As people get older the cervical vertebrae could easily be dislocated without the 'jelly' in the space between them. I am not 60 or 70 yet, usually it is because of great impact. So I could only think of two years ago when wearing the armor everyday constantly put pressure on the nerves!" Was the sacrifice enormous? Goo Jai said, "It could happen to anyone, the difference is how serious it is. The doctor once asked me my pain level between 1 to 10, mine is at a 10. Even I slept I couldn't turn. I could only sleep in one position. At first it hurts, but it hurt for awhile then not. Later the hurt was long term and I had to take morphine to stop it!" Ching Wan after a few "wow" said, "No wonder at the time your face were frowning, I didn't know what you were worrying about!" Goo Jai said, "Nothing, after the operation I have recovered. The funniest is before the operation when I lay in the bed the anesthesiologist asked me to sign a document, when I was almost out the anesthesiologist said I had another to sign. I thought I was signing my will so I was very scared, but actually it said that during the operation they found another vertebrae that needed to done and I had to give them permission to do it. Finally I had two titanium on two cervical vertebra." Ching Wan joked that his neck was now properly very "stiff", and like a robot he would not need to sleep.

Would Goo Jai no longer dare to make this type of movies again? Goo Jai said that next time with the sequel it would be drawn with special effects like in foreign films, I wouldn't even need to wear clothes. This time he only wanted to let the actor feel how the exosuit felt. Ching Wan joked, "That suit itself was said to motion assistance, but currently it doesn't actually have motion assistance. However when I made DETECTIVE VS. SLEUTHS (SUN TAM DAI JIN) I wore 7 layers of clothes. The difficulty level of the two films didn't just soaked my underwear, but this time was a new experience. There were a lot I haven't seen before, very different from what I imagined and I gained more knowledge. After watching the film I finally realized what the monster looked like, so I think I would make another science fiction film."

Goo Jai this time completed his romance with science fiction. He admitted that the production took a lot out of him, because from preparation, production to post production the film took 6 years time. In it many large scale sets used trailers to build, the shoot once even ran out of green screen. Another time the wind knocked off the trailers and they had to be built anew, which gave him quite a "headache" and almost split his mind. "Big productions can't have the slightest mishap, but I never thought about giving up. You have to take the first step before you can easily take the second." Goo Jai also hinted that he liked aliens. This time near the end they actually shot a scenes in which he and Ching Wan flew to the moon and they fought a big group of attack robots outside the ship, which were elements of the WARRIORS' sequel.

Hong Kong film took the first step in making a science fiction film. Goo Jai felt that the Hong Kong market could further develop to be closer to Hollywood. "We learned a lot from doing it once. Our quality already got a very high score, but it could be improve further. We could keep learn something else new. The next science fiction film I am planning is 10 times harder to make than this time!" Goo Jai said that he would still insist on domestic Hong Kong production team with the latest LED format production. In the future they would have even greater space to make movies. He explained that actually it was not just with science fiction films, gun fight films could also use LED format to shoot. Then they would not need to block off the entire Nathan Road to be able to achieve the gun fight effect. This new technology in the future could have great development space in small places like Hong Kong. The science fiction film would become a film foundation and industry, but Goo Jai felt that the greatest difficulty that really needed improvement was still in design and not technology. "Because designs would depend on whether the technology would be coordinate with them, perhaps we would have to wait for us to create more technology."

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