Joe Taslim Talks Fighting Styles and On-Set Chemistry With ‘The Furious’ [Interview]

As far as action movies go, Kenji Tanigaki’s The Furious hits every mark. Though it is undeniably brutal in its violence, it possesses a soft undercurrent that anchors these characters in such a way that the violence is almost celebrated. The Furious follows Wang Wei (Miao Xie) after his daughter is kidnapped by a crime network. His only ally is Navin (Joe Taslim), a journalist whose wife was kidnapped by the same network.

Tanigaki has first-hand experience as a stunt performer and choreographer, and The Furious marks his first time sitting in the director’s chair. And you can tell that he knows what he’s doing: The film employs grand, sweeping shots of impressively complex martial arts moves. Taslim, who has made a name for himself with The Raid franchise as well as Mortal Kombat, knew going in that this would be a challenging film.

Sitting down to talk with Taslim, we asked what the process was of learning this choreography and making sure it was as realistic as possible. Taslim stressed that the training was difficult, but that it also served very specific storytelling purposes.

It was not easy. It was hard, especially [because] we do it in Hong Kong style. We shot in Bangkok. And then we got to embrace all the exhaustion and pain, agony during the trainings and then the shooting process. And I remember, I think not just me, I think each one of us, the first 2 weeks that our body is trying to adapt that we’re in a war mode … you know, sometimes when you work so hard and train so hard, you get up in the morning, your body aches for like a week. And all of us experienced that. And then during the training sessions. And after that, we jumped to shooting days. I had a training session for all of it. It was quite intense because not just physical, but also trying to understand the storytelling Kenji and [choreographer Kensuke] Sonomura injected in the choreography they designed. That’s also equally hard with the physicalities. And then because if we just fight, that doesn’t understand our character’s purpose during that fight and the fight becomes a pointless. So, collaboration is key, chemistry is key.

Taslim was also emphatic on the give-and-take nature of stunt choreography. There is a level of trust you have to build with your co-stars, and in cases like The Furious, this action has to also tell a story. Much of that relies heavily on bonding with co-stars, as Taslim said. The Furious also blends action and storytelling in ways that sets it out from others of the genre. Taslim compares it to music, each actor having their own integral role to the fights that they are participating in.

We have to become family like Band of Brothers. We know for sure that it’s impossible to deliver this mission, this very ambitious mission, this movie, without surrendering to each other, that we’re really trying to help each other. So, ego is our enemy in that situation because it’s an ensemble, you know, it’s not ‘everybody has their own thing to deliver and then we just make sure we perform the best way possible according to our character that we’re playing.’ So, I like to say it’s just music. You know, I bring my instrument, I’m good with my instrument. Brian (Le) is good with their own instrument. And then Kenji and Sonomura wrote a beautiful music sheet, a piece of art that all of us in our differences…we just have to play together and make it work. So, that’s the final five way fight.

The Furious is out in theaters now. You can check out our full interview with Taslim below.