Some of the best action films take us around the world and use the beauty of international locations to complement the eloquence (or grittiness) or their fight choreography. A new film from director George Huang (Swimming With Sharks) takes us across the world to Taiwan but features some action stars you’ll instantly recognize from one of the most successful American action franchises. Famed actorsLuke EvansandSung Kangpreviously co-starred in multipleFast & Furiousfilms, but inWeekend in Taipei— out this week — they’re not exactly portraying allies.
Evans plays John, a disgruntled DEA agent who refuses to quit a job that ultimately reconnects him with the long-lost Taiwan-set family he once left behind, while Kang plays Kwang, the villainous career criminal who has since taken John’s family under his wing. MovieWeb recently caught up with the cast to learn more about the thrills of tackling their respective roles.
“It’s a lot more fun playing a bad guy, much more fun. Like,playing the cool, brooding guy gets boring,” Kang told us. “The bad guy character can read very one-dimensional. So I knew that, you know, a director like George would be sensitive to an Asian male character in a film. Like, you’ve seen that very stereotypical bad guy. He might just do kung fu, and he’s just angry at the world, and just, that’s it, right? So we talked about, you know, how can we make this character more dimensional and relatable?” Kang continued:
“Most people can’t relate with being some druglord gangster, but they can relate with being in love. And what would you do if that love was taken away from you? And what would that trigger? So I think that was the North Star for [my character] Kwang to make him more complex. So every morning, before we would go to set, we would sit down and have breakfast and talk about the day and talk about the scene. And George was just so open to bringing different dimensions to that character.”
Related:Luke Evans & Jason Statham Spent No Time Together Before Playing Bros in Fast & Furious
Luke Evans & Wyatt Yang on Their ‘Exhausting’ Fight Scenes
And playing Kwang’s fearful stepson in the film — whom Evans' Agent John character ultimately takes in — is rising starWyatt Yang, who opened up to us about working with Sung Kang as such an imposing bad guy. “He’s definitely a method actor, so he’s very serious,” said Yang while detailing one particularly terrifying scene where Kang goes all evil-stepdad on him. “I was kind of scared of him sometimes on set because, like, he ignores everyone. He’s kind of serious. But while we were shooting, I definitely learned a lot… [Director] George told me, like, ‘He’s gonna kill you! He’s gonna kill you!’ So then I just started crying, and that definitely helped me shoot the scene better.”
And then there’s good-guy Luke Evans. Watch out for an epic face-off between him and hisFastco-star Kang in the thrilling third act, which Evans shared more about with us:
“It was quite near the end of the shoot as well, and I was broken. I mean, I was really tired. I’d been in a car crash, beaten up several times. I mean, it was an exhausting job. And then the final fight sequence was right at the end of the shoot, you know, and so that was a hard one for us to get through, for me to get through. Sung was fine, but yeah, they’re not easy fight sequences. They’re exhausting.”
From Ketchup Entertainment,Weekend in Taipeiwill be released in theaters on Friday, Nov. 8.
Weekend In Taipei
Weekend In Taipei, directed by George Huang, follows a former DEA agent and a former undercover operative as they rekindle their romance over a fateful weekend in Taipei, oblivious to the dangerous repercussions stemming from their tumultuous past.
