My First Kungfu Scene

by: Jonathan 'Cao Cao' Kos-Read

Every cool job I ever got, I lied my way into.

A perfect example of this was a few weeks ago when I was sitting in this director’s office on a movie I was trying to get into and he said, “How’s your kungfu?” and I said, “I’m like totally good at kungfu.”

And I know, right now you’re chuckling and thinking, “bet that was a disaster.” But this month’s column is not another story of how I failed at something and embarrassed myself. No, this month’s column is all about how I am so fucking cool. I mean sure, I’ve never done a kungfu scene before, never studied (never even considered studying) kungfu and sure, of course, I sucked. But think about it. What dude didn’t grow up watching TV shows like ‘Kung Fu’ and dreaming, literally salivating, at the thought of one day getting to do that shit, to throw punches, stand over defeated enemies, to bust out a smokin’, wicked kungfu pose and then say some line like, ‘prepare yourself for defeat grasshopper.’? So this month: flashes from behind the silver screen at how a good fight crew can make a guy like me, a guy who hasn’t exercised in six years and who throws a punch like a sissy girl, look like a God.

* * *

My fist glints in the sunlight as, in slow motion, it arcs across the distance to Yudeshui’s chest. And you can tell it’s a massive, bone crushing punch because as it connects, the impact throws dust exploding out from the pile driver center like a missile impact in the Iraqi desert. And the dust, in that beautiful moment of hyper-velocity that only slo-mo can catch, shudders itself outward into insubstantiability, dissipating in glistening eddies, whorls and vortices. I’ve seen that shot in like every kungfu movie I ever watched and this time it’s my fist.

It’s day one of my first fight scene. I’m playing this bad ass dude during the Boxer Rebellion. Yudeshui is the hero, trying to save China from my evil machinations, but he’s fighting injured so I’m kicking his ass. The dust, the beautiful dust that accentuates the power of my sledgehammer fists is ‘Yinger Chanpin Tender Butt’ baby powder. They shake it onto my hands before every take.

* * *

Across the square I do three back flips. Yudeshui wrenches out a spear-thrust kick at me, I leap back, run up the side of a tree, back flip behind him. He grabs at me, and flips over my head. I wrench his arm behind his back. He spins out of it. Then, like an explosion, we throw a cataclysmic blur of hundreds of punches and kicks as we spin around each other. Finally he cracks one in my face. I leap back, teeth bared in a nasty grin. “Is that the best you’ve got?” I snarl, then with a roar, leap back into the fight for another round.

Or to be technically correct, my double does all that.

* * *

Yudeshui is raining hammer blows on me but, Matrix style, I’m looking him dead in the eyes as my arms, a blur, move in a coordinated and amazing dance that’s like a light speed brick wall against each of his blows. My eyes never leave his. My steely glare is menacing, intimidating, manly.

We do a million takes of this shot. Each time he hits me, a) it fucking hurts and so b) I react like a sissy. The director comes over and says, “Cao Cao come look at the playback,” and there’s me, flinching and blinking like a girl every time he hits me. Shit, I think and do it again, glaring at Yudeshui the whole time. The director shows me the playback again. Again, there’s me still scrunching up my face and shutting my eyes like a pussy. Shit, I think. I mean, this is a real problem - I think I’m keeping my eyes open but I’m not. It’s like an involuntary wimp reaction that I can’t control. And it’s a close up. But clearly they have lots of experience with wimpy actors. They have a clever solution. They have us move at half speed: Yudeshui’s arms lazily looping around into mine. Me slowly moving to block them. At the time I think this is weird but then they show me the playback in slow motion - it looks super cool like ‘ultra slow motion’. My glare is solid as a rock.

* * *

The last shot of the day: I’m standing over a beaten Yudeshui - not like humiliated with clever repartee, but rocked. Through sheer manly power in a deeply meaningful, primeval, violent way, defeated. I’m towering over him, slitted eyes glinting steel as he squirms helpless below me. The camera is on the ground. I’m up on a stool. They’re using a wide-angle, fish-eye lens so I seem to stretch up into the very sky itself like a God. They’ve got a big fan next to me blowing my hair as if I’m standing rock solid against the gale of a storm. In the sky above me they CGI the clouds so they race by, freighted with menace and despair. I say, “Shenshochang is waiting for you in hell.” I raise my arm and bring it shuddering down with the weight of a freight train and crush him into oblivion.

I lose my balance and fall off the stool. This happens several times while the crew stands around smoking and laughing at me. Each time I say, “Sorry guys, I’ll get it right this time,” then I do the punch again and my arms swing out and I go pin wheeling off the stool.

But only the last take matters.

* * *

I go to the editing room a week later to see the scene cut together. I look, devastatingly, deeply, mind-blowingly, profoundly, eight year old kids will measure themselves by my standard, cool. Me, the kungfu master.

I fucking love being an actor.