KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 5 — In action flick Mrs K, actor Faizal Hussein proves that age is not a barrier when it comes to doing fight scenes.
Faizal, who was 48 when the movie was shot two years ago, said he had no difficulties doing the action scenes but instead had “fun.”
“Age is only in the IC, it’s just a number, but to me, whatever stunt that I can do when I was 18, I can still do it today.
“So it’s just a matter of taking care of the body, the fitness… that makes it important, it’s not the number, no limit for me yet till today,” he told Malay Mail Online.
Faizal, a veteran actor who has over 40 movies under his belt with about half of them being action films, said he had just about two sessions of rehearsing the choreography for the fight sequences.
“I’m so used to doing this kind of thing. I can even do without the rehearsal and can even do on the spot,” he said.
Faizal said one brief fight scene in Mrs K with Hong Kong veteran actress Kara Hui took two nights of filming from 8pm to sunrise, during which he got bruised.
“The shooting for two days but the same scene, that means it’s a long scene, long beautiful fighting scene, where we got to fight at a food court and at the back with the fire burning and the pots and pans, nice work — the choreography especially — with all the Maggi falling, it was nice,” he said, adding that the producer had asked him to visit a chiropractor after finding out about the bruises.
Shrugging off the bruises and skipping the chiropractor visit, Faizal noted that shooting the film with Asian stars like Simon Yam meant that it was more than just making a movie and that his ability to do the scene was also about the country’s pride.
Mrs K director Ho Yuhang, who was also at the same interview, said: “He didn’t even tell us he was injured, he was so professional. Because he was afraid that we would get worried, that was a surprise for me.”
Doing own stunts
Faizal, who plays a non-Malaysian character in Mrs K, said he will be speaking in English for the first time in a movie.
Ho said: “In the writing of the story... the characters, we don’t want then to be very black and white. Like his character, he may play a villain but we want people to sympathise even with the villain.”
“Everybody is bad in the movie, I love this kind of movie, everybody’s got a reason and they are all bad,” he added of the movie where titular character Mrs K fights to rescue her daughter and deal with her criminal past.
Although Faizal had a few body doubles for the more dangerous stunts in the film, he said he did 90 per cent of the action scenes --- including parkour moves — himself.
The first stuntman injured his leg while standing in for Faizal during shooting.
Faizal said it was easy for him to work with Mrs K’s action choreographer Adam Chan despite the latter’s perfectionist approach, noting that he was used to working with action directors from Hong Kong and he liked how they are “fast, professional, and really take care of you.”
Working with his childhood idol Hui was like “a dream come true”, Faizal said.
“When I was in Standard Six and Form One... 1980, 1981… I always went to watch the Shaw Brothers action movies shown in Capitol, Kuala Lumpur and Kara Hui was the leading lady in almost all of the action movies that I saw in those days and each movie I would see about three or four times… that’s the first thing I told her when we met: ‘Wah, I saw all your movies.’ She said ‘OK, OK, you don’t hit me.’”
Punchy action
While there were some slight improvisation or changes to the action moves during shooting for a better look, Ho said the fight sequences were pre-planned and no modifications were needed because of the actors’ age — Hui was 55, Simon Yam was 60 when the film was shot.
“No, they can do it,” Ho said, noting that the two actors are “very tough” as they are used to a hectic and demanding schedule of back-to-back film shoots for different movies.
“Also the way we designed the action is realistic, so it’s not like suddenly ‘Faizal, can you do a Van Damme helicopter kick?’ Because people don’t do that, I mean it’s kind of fun to look like Van Damme but it’s not for this movie, it doesn’t work for this movie. So the fighting is very gritty, more natural, and hardcore.
“It’s a bit like fighting on the street but still these people know their stuff, so it’s not simply bar brawl like that, you know these people can fight,” he said.
The “punchy” moves saw Hui getting injured in a fight scene when co-star Yam kicked her, with medical attention required for what was suspected to be a hairline fracture but it turned out to be just a serious muscle strain. After a day or two of resting, she was back in action again.
Malaysian Germaine Yeap, who is a real-life Muay Thai fighter, had to learn how to hold back during filming; while local newcomer Siow Li Xuan had to go through training to learn how to move and fall properly during action scenes to avoid injury, Ho said.
Ho said Mrs K was not shot in the typical “agitated and shaky” way commonly used these days with handheld cameras and very fast and choppy editing, adding that the film features the “refreshing” choice of electronic music instead of the usual piano and strings arrangement.
“So electronic music, you think it’s a very ‘80s thing and we actually did that… because these people… their onscreen and offscreen histories goes back to the ‘80s or ‘90s, like Simon Yam or Kara they were famous actors during that time — still famous — their career peak, they are from that era, so we thought the sound should be from that era,” he said.
A gripping tale
Faizal said Ho who co-wrote the script for Mrs K has a way of telling the story in a spellbinding manner.
“When I was reading Mrs K for the first time — usually when I read the script, sometimes I will stop and drink coffee and maybe I will continue again tomorrow. But not this script, this script once I read, I have to finish it, even though I want to go to the toilet, I have to... because the people who watch the movie, who read the script… they don’t want to miss even a single scene.
“It makes people want to know what’s going to happen next. That’s what happened to me. I hope it will get to the audience,” he said.
Mrs K premieres in local cinemas on September 7 and is expected to be screened later in Hong Kong and Singapore.
