MEET THE REAL IRON MIKE : Jai White brings his best to east and west.
Within minutes of meeting Michael Jai White (in the elegant confines of the Beverly Wilshire AKA the ‘Pretty Woman’ hotel), I established that I had nearly met him a dozen times and that we knew virtually all the same people.
The actual introduction came about due to our mutual friend Marcus Aurelius. Marcus is a talented actor-writer-director who happens to have the most uncanny Ali impersonation on the planet. (I do a pretty mean Bruce Lee myself, and we’re both available for prank phone calls.) The indefatigable Marcus shot his own film, Almost Related, on location in Thailand, and is currently prepping a bigger budget version.
Here’s how Michael and I kept passing like ships in the night: he had worked with action queen Michelle Yeoh and mainland Chinese star Li Bing Bing on the Asian superhero misfire Silver Hawk, but this was after I stopped working with its producer, Thomas Chung. He stars in a deleted fight scene (with my mentor David Carradine) in Kill Bill (soon be subject of an NC-17 re-release), but this was at Miramax and before I joined the Weinstein Clan. He’s currently shooting a film with my old friend Julian Sands, but Julian left LA just before I arrived. You get the picture…
In his dapper suit, the actor looks pretty much camera ready for his dream project, The Paul Robeson Story. Accompanying Michael is his urbane manager, Craig Baumgarten (whose name I also knew, as he produced, among other films, the Van Damme-Dolph Lundgren vehicle Universal Soldier). We’re meeting to discuss a China project he is developing, and marvel how our paths have somehow failed to cross over the years. Though he has an impressive, eclectic martial arts background, Michael made the smart move of establishing himself as a dramatic actor before showing off his martial arts moves on screen. I first became aware of his work back when I still lived in the UK, and saw the Mike Tyson tele-feature in which he starred.
Though based in LA, he’s always maintained strong connections with Asia. He had early bad guys roles opposite Van Damme, in Universal Soldier: The Return and Steven Seagal, in Exit Wounds. The former was choreographed, in part, by Yuen Tak AKA Richard Hung (a former Shaw Brothers star and Opera school brother of Jackie Chan) and the latter by Hong Kong action veteran Dion Lam. Michael flew to Shanghai to shoot his scenes for Silver Hawk, alongside my girl Li Bing-bing (with whom I worked on the Dragon Dynasty release Dragon Heat).
I was taken by surprise by a film in which he starred, Undisputed 2, a straight-to-video actioner in which he starred with Birmingham native Scott Adkins. (For a start, it’s a surprise that someone from Birmingham should be co-starring in an action film!) With Isaac Florentine directing and Alpha Stunts providing the action, I knew the martial arts would be there, but the dramatic beats were equally impressive. (Isaac is someone else I’ve narrowly, and unintentionally, avoided meeting over the years, so it was good to finally catch up with him in LA on the same trip.)
Though Michael’s Dark Knight scenes didn’t bring him to Hong Kong (where some of the film was shot), he plays a key role in the new Batman flick, as does Edison Chen, star of our recent DD release Dog Bite Dog. Michael did get to return to China to clash with another movie icon, though, when he dueled Bruce Lee (or, at least, Chan Kwok-kwan, the goalie from Shaolin Soccer) in CCTV’s new Little Dragon TV series.
As mentioned above, we are painstakingly working our way towards the eventual release of the long-awaited Kill Bill NC-17 which will (QT willing) feature Michael’s fight scene incorporated into the film itself. I was happy to at least get to screen the scene on the earlier DVD, as it was the audience’s only chance to see Bill himself in action. It also features Quentin’s most obvious homage to kung fu cinema, with Michael addressing Carradine (and Uma Thurman) in ‘dub speak’ before going into combat.
His most recent mission to China saw him shooting a promotional film for The Moor, a period actioner that he’s planning. It’s a testament to Michael’s energy and commitment that he is overseeing every aspect of the production. (He must be one of the very few action idols in the industry who can both write his own scripts and choreograph his own fights.) The images he showed me look amazing, and we discussed ways we could cooperate on this exciting venture. Dragon Dynasty’s mission statement is to bring the finest from east and west together, and Michael Jai White seems to exemplify this.
Comments
- Matt Stockton, Vienna | 2007-12-01 10:20:34
- bouch, brum | 2007-12-02 14:13:57
- Sgt. T. Gushiniere, Jackson, MS. | 2007-12-04 15:16:08
- Marcus Aurelius, Santa Monica, Ca. | 2007-12-08 19:03:40
- LoBo, Norway | 2007-12-01 09:54:30