Jackie Chan, Sammo Hung, Panna Rittikrai “Three of my main influences are Jackie Chan, Sammo Hung and Panna Rittikrai in Thailand. Those guys have pioneered martial arts cinema from the ’70s through the ’80s and up until now. “What we borrowed from Jackie Chan was the idea that there’s a certain vulnerability in the lead role. That’s something that we really wanted to bring to Iko’s character – we wanted the audience to feel like he wasn’t just a killing machine. There are moments in the film when he’s so beaten and bruised, if anyone attacked him that’d be the end for him. We didn’t want him doing anything too fantastical; we had to keep our action scenes and our character grounded in a certain sort of heightened reality so the audience can relate to him. “In terms of choreography, the level of brutality and aggression came from Sammo Hung and from Panna because their work is hard-edged and tough and aggressive but what I really love is that there’s a certain roughness to it as well. You’ll get these complex pieces of choreography, but also these takedowns or throws that look like they’ve come out of sheer desperation. That was one of the things that we really wanted to do: have these graceful moments of choreography, but every now and then just get savage.”
Videogames “Some people have told me the film feels like a videogame, but the weird thing is they add ‘I don’t mean it as disrespect.’ I never take it as disrespect because it absolutely feels like a videogame.
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