Editor's Note
12-year-old can do explosives, 16-year-old learn taekwondo, 17-year-old as a coach, 18-year-old won the Hong Kong taekwondo black belt championship, played a variety of exciting sports in his youth, fate will meet Jackie Chan's "Police Story" crew to recruit flying drivers, as a stunt actor "electrocuted" into the industry, since then all the way to the car, blasting, challenging the limit, really turning interest into a lifelong career. Luo Lixian's life itself is like a movie legend.
At that time, the action directors of the Hong Kong film industry were mostly known for martial arts kung fu, and Luo Lixian was different from most people's research, cool, foreign, and technological. Soon after entering the industry, he became famous, and those thrilling and dangerous moves were dared to be done by no one but him, and no one could do them except him. At that time, he worked with Hong Kong directors such as Wu Yusen and other Well-known Hong Kong directors, and more than two decades later, they had new cooperation in the mainland. When Luo Lixian helped Jackie Chan shoot "Zodiac", Jackie Chan sighed that the hairy boy of the year has now become a master.
About ten years ago, the mainland film market began to take off, and mainland filmmakers became more and more pursuing action stunts and live special effects, and they often contacted their Hong Kong counterparts and said, "I want the best action stunts in Hong Kong", and they recommended Luo Lixian. His fame is not limited to China, Hollywood also asked him to do action direction or live special effects, "Transformers 4", "Mission Impossible 3", "Raid 2" and so on have Luo Lixian involved. In 2014, he was selected as one of the "50 Film Behind-the-Scenes Elites" of American Variety Magazine worldwide. Tiger father no dog, Luo Lixian's son Luo Yimin, who has followed his father into the industry for ten years and has grown into a mature action director. Their Raptor stunt team is recognized as an industry leader. The movies released this year, such as "The Burning Heart of the Sun", "Taoist Descending the Mountain", "Rescue Mr. Wu", "Old Cannon", etc., all have the amazing handwriting of this team. Recently, Dugu interviewed Mr. Lo LiXian.
1 explosion, flying car, master stunt improvement
Monogatari: How many films have you made this year, and which one has been the longest?
Luo Lixian: I have nine parts, Luo Yimin's three parts, adding up to twelve. The longest time to shoot is "The Great Bombing", there are different explosion scenes in the movie, we are mainly responsible for the design and shooting of the action and the explosion scene scene on the scene.
Luo Lixian on the set of "The Great Bombardment"
Monologue: Are we doing explosion effects at a higher level now than in the past?
Luo Lixian: The explosion technology has been improved, such as the "Taiping Wheel" and "Hundred Regiments War" in recent years, and now the sense of reality is stronger, and the accuracy and safety of the explosion point design have been improved.
Monologue: Flying is also your specialty, is the level of flying car stunts also improved now?
Luo Lixian: In the past, people were generally used to drive, such as I had to drive first to turn, then fly down, crash on the roof, but at that speed it was difficult to fall into the ideal position, and the effect was still there, but it was definitely not good enough compared to now. Now I use a launch pad directly, adjust the air pressure to an exact value, and the car reaches the corner position and whizzes out like a cannonball, landing very accurately in the position I want.
Monolingual: If you use people to drive, is it impossible to do the effect of blowing up people with cars?
Luo Lixian: There is also a way. I used to do it in "Heaven and Earth Ambition", and I drove out by myself and blew it up. In advance, make a bulletproof and explosion-proof device around the seat to protect, and then put on the fireproof jacket and fireproof hood, only this small piece of the car is safe, the other parts will be blown up, from the outside it looks like it is even a person with the car to explode, and you can't see the middle after the explosion is on fire. Before I went in, I experimented with chicken feathers and balloons, chicken feathers are like human hair, the most likely to catch fire, dusted the chicken feathers on the seat, fried once the chicken feathers did not catch fire; then put the balloon in, the balloon did not explode; then I went in.
From left, Guo Tao, Luo Lixian, deng chao
Monologue: It's a great sense of accomplishment after it's done, isn't it?
Luo Lixian: Yes, because others couldn't do it at that time.
Monologue: When was the first time you did a rollover stunt?
Luo Lixian: The first time I did a rollover stunt was when "Predator" flipped a BMW car to the bottom of the mountain, and the producer said it was only 11 meters high, and I said I was going to see the scene, and I went to a quantity of 45 meters. This must be measured, to calculate a lot of data, to judge how many weeks the car rolled over to the end, how to complete a thing that I had not done before. The producer really couldn't find anyone to do it, if it was 45 meters, no one did it; I heard that there was a fool who dared to do anything (laughs), so he came to me. At that time, my salary was only enough to buy a seat belt to use for that stunt, which was my first seat belt to save my life.
Monogatari: How much of your regular gear do you have now?
Luo Lixian: I haven't made any specific statistics, but there may be dozens of tons. Every time the scene was filmed, it was transported in containers and large trucks, and how much was transported according to the needs of the play, like the recent "Big Bombing", went to three containers and a large truck and several 17-meter flatbeds.
2 Algorithms and experience are indispensable
Discuss with Ding Sheng to rescue Mr. Wu from a street crash
Monologue: The audience felt very shocked when they saw the explosion and the overturning scene, but in fact, many times they did not realize it, where are the difficulties and mysteries of your filming this scene?
Luo Lixian: To make the overall perspective effect have the greatest impact on the audience, such as overturning, not letting it flip over, some cars are flipped but not good-looking, such as looking too small in the picture, or half-cut out of the painting, so this is the need to accurately calculate its landing point, put the camera in advance to the most suitable place, adjust to the most visual impact angle. For example, after the car flies up and explodes, all the time points and landing points must be stuck. There's a scene in "Taoist Down the Mountain" where the car flips over and falls into the water, which is to shoot the car out of the launch pad, and then we have to detonate it in the exact location.
Monolingual: When should it be fried?
Luo Lixian: I made two versions, one is more reasonable and the other is more beautiful. The front of the car plunged into the water and was impacted before it exploded, which is more reasonable; when the car is flying in the air, it explodes, which is more beautiful. It seems that the better version was used in the end.
Monologue: Is the secret of these rollover stunts calculated by formulas or experience?
Luo Lixian: Actually, both are needed. Because we have done so many years, we have accumulated both data and methods and experience. In fact, if you take this physics problem to Peking University Tsinghua university and let people calculate it, they can all be calculated. We will use the formula first, but also have to judge it with our own eyes, I have encountered the results given to me by engineers are wrong, I look at it, I always feel as if it is not right; so it can not all rely on calculation.
Luo Lixian was filmed on the scene of "Burning Heart in the Sun"
Monologue: This year's release of "The Burning Heart of the Sun", drag racing and the last chase on the skyscraper are also what you did, how was it filmed?
Luo Lixian: This scene is a drama film, and we took a particularly realistic approach to the entire action design and live special effects, speeding up the pace and making the audience look more thrilling. The building is real, but we can't let the actors really walk around the edge of the building, so we chose to shoot with the method of setting up the scene, if you build a scene on the ground, many effects can't come out. We built a fake façade and platform several meters high on the top floor of the building, which I had experience in when filming "Plan B", and the actors moved on this set up platform, and there was no danger of falling down, and there would be thick cushions under the height. But using this higher perspective and the reflection of the glass wall in all directions, and then letting the photographer use some shooting techniques, there is a very high, very dangerous feeling.
3 Drama films also need action direction
Luo Lixian and Guan Hu were on the shooting scene of "Old Cannon"
Dugu: The movie "Old Cannon", which will be released at the end of this month, are you also involved?
Luo Lixian: Yes, "Old Cannon" is a drama film, mainly literary drama, there are some drag racing scenes, and there are some small fights. Some play scenes do not need to be substituted for the actor to play, but more need to know how to play people to show them, so that the actors can learn which kind of play to use.
Monologue: Is it sometimes that the action director in the film does some of the work that the audience is completely unaware of?
Luo Lixian: For example, in "Jinling Thirteen Chao", a woman goes over the wall, and we will all be present in small actions like this, because in addition to designing the actions, the action director will also take care of the actor's shooting safety measures. Speaking of climbing over the wall, let the actor's movements feel like people. A person who does not know how to climb over the wall to go over the wall, and a person who knows how to climb the wall to go over the wall, the whole body movement is not the same. To teach her to turn over, she must perform the feeling of not going over the wall, and can not turn it badly, or too slowly, a shot over the wall, it is impossible to turn over for several minutes, which is actually not easy for the actor.
There was a previous "Half Sea, Half Fire", and you probably wouldn't have thought that such an art film would also require action instruction. How does a woman, standing on a large reef by the sea, with her eyes closed and her back to the side, know where the last step is? The actor who stopped one step slowly fell into the sea. She didn't wear clothes, because she could wear gangs, so she couldn't wear a wire rope in a weyer suit; we thought of planting a few steel pillars on the edge of that stone, and pulling a few steel ropes horizontally, like the rope of a boxing ring, and when she arrived, she touched her back, and she knew that she was going to stop; later, the computer special effects wiped the steel pole wire off. With this protective measure, the actor will act easier, otherwise it is difficult for a person who is obviously very afraid to perform without fear. Something like this is very useful, but you won't realize it when you watch a movie.
"Zodiac" Jackie Chan pulley suit modification and shooting support
Monologue: You've worked with a lot of directors, how do you work with each other in general?
Luo Lixian: Everyone's personality is different, the work style is different, and the cooperation is different. Some will talk to you a lot about their direction for us to design, and some will simply finish a concept and let us imagine and realize. I like to talk a lot and can express what he wants more clearly. But to be simple, it is actually very challenging, and it will be very satisfying to complete.
Monologue: How did the style of the director and the whole film influence you?
Luo Lixian: Some of them are taking a very plain route, so we can't do it fancy, we have to be real. The criterion for whether the action design is good or not is whether it is suitable for the whole movie. It is not okay to get less, it is not okay to get more, to make everything very integrated and unified.
4 Raptors team, industry leader
Monologue: Now that your Raptor stunt team is the most powerful in the field, will you find too many people and too many jobs?
Luo Lixian: Sometimes it happens that the schedule is the same, and there is a play, there is no way to pick up the later one at the same time, and the time problem is not possible. In fact, I want to do it, different directors have different styles, and more cooperation can be more progressive.
Luo Lixian and "Raid 2" star Iko Uas communicate
Monologue: Would it be more inclined to work with young directors or?
Luo Lixian: Young directors have new ideas, old directors have new ideas, and every script will have something special about it. Even if you are familiar with people, there is something to learn by cooperating. Because every play is new, the content of the chat is different from the last time. Like many years ago, I followed Wu Yusen to do four plays in a row, "Blood Double Male", "Blood Street", "Across the Sea", "Hot Hand Detective"; last year, I cooperated with him in "Taiping Wheel", you see his way of handling things, how to communicate with actors, see where the focus of the problem is, there is still something to learn. He lamented that I was a child when he knew me; I felt that it would be better for me to be a child now (laughs) and to do more.
Monologue: How many people did your stunt team have back, how many people are there now, and how was the division of labor?
Luo Lixian: Originally five or six people, now twenty or thirty people, relatively fixed. The most basic things are done by those of us, and some work will be done by others. These twenty or thirty people have different functions, and each few people are responsible for one piece, and the film needs at home and abroad can be met. For example, we have a mechanical group, some equipment is not even provided by the equipment company, we do it ourselves, some can be rented from the equipment company I basically do not manufacture it myself, because the equipment has no uniqueness; there are also flying car groups, special effects groups, do on-site special effects, such as doing explosions, wind and fire effects, etc.; there are action groups, such as pat fights, there are also a number of different divisions of labor within the action group.
Luo Lixian and Luo Yimin on the set of "No Man's Land"
Monogatari: Are there many such teams in your field?
Luo Lixian: Basically, whether in the mainland or Hong Kong, several departments do it, can do the action and be responsible for the on-site special effects, and can also do the equipment, as if only we are the only ones. If a crew finds three teams to work with, it's normal for them to sit down and have a lot of meetings; but I'll communicate with myself.
DuGu: Are your team full of Hong Kongers?
Luo Lixian: I have been filming in China for more than ten years, and now many of the team are mainlanders, and they have been with me for almost ten years, around 2006, when the mainland film market was just starting, I began to follow me when I came to do Ning Hao's "Crazy Stone" and Li Shaohong's "Door".
5 Observations on the current Chinese film market
Luo Lixian and Jackie Chan discussed filming a car chase scene in "Police Story 2013"
Monologue: What are the plans for the future?
Luo Lixian: I most want to do a good job of what is in front of me, I don't think I need to think too far, make each play different from the previous one, and make progress. The same is the flying car, each time even if it is only a little more advanced than the last time, after three years it will look very different. I don't suddenly venture into something that I don't see viable, only to improve the new effect little by little. For example, it is easy to go from 0 to 100 yards, slower from 100 to 200 yards, and breaking through 240 yards is a cutting-edge technology. We have reached a certain height, and every small breakthrough is not easy.
DuGu: What state do you think Chinese films are in now?
Luo Lixian: I think it is in a period of rapid growth. The demand for each link is growing, the number of actors, crew, screens... You may notice that there are not enough actors, but in fact, there are not enough people behind the scenes. It was not easy to get all the good staff together, in the past, there were more than a dozen departments in a crew, and the head of each department could be the best in that field; now the former deputy who was the deputy was pulled to be the leader, and the deputy's deputy was also pulled to be the leader. Maybe the students have not yet learned all the skills of the teacher, and they have gone out to do things, so the power may be dispersed. Of course, after a while they will grow up in practice, like when I was in Hong Kong, they also slowly groped out, and it took decades to achieve what they are today; but if the market grows too fast, the growth rate of talent may not be able to keep up with the growth rate.
Monologue: What do you want to say to your film peers in the end?
Luo Lixian: Let's work together and make progress together!
【Text/Palm Flower Case】
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