NERDSociety recently interviewed action director Isaac Florentine about his career and his latest flick, Undisputed 3. Undisputed 3 is easily the best direct to DVD movie in years and features some brutal, stylish fights, and solid storytelling. Undisputed 3 is currently available on DVD and Blu-Ray everywhere (I got my copy at Target).

NERDSociety (NS): Isaac, please tell our readers about yourself. How did you get started in directing ? What about directing action movies in particular appeals to you.

Isaac Florentine (IF): I grew up in Israel in Tel Aviv, a vibrant city. From a young age I was drawn to cinema. especially the Spaghetti westerns that were very popular. I got interested in filmmaking after watching The Good The Bad and The Ugly. It looked and felt much different then other American film I watched. I liked the fact that everyone was dirty, sweaty, unshaven and that there wasn’t such a big difference between the good and the bad… and both were ugly.  I started training in Karate around in the early 70’s but not until I saw Bruce Lee’s Fists of Fury ( Chinese Connection in the US) did I actually think that you can actually combine both arts,  cinema and martial arts. That was a revelation to me – I loved Karate with a passion (still do),so while in high school I shot with some classmates two martial arts shorts using a super 8 mm camera. After graduating high school and joining the IDF (every male and female in Israel goes through the army), I kept on with my Karate training and when I finished my service I opened my first Dojo. However my interest with action films was still inside me so I also went to Tel Aviv University to study film and television. My graduation project was an award winning short (with action of course) and later I arrived with that film to the US about twenty-one years ago. It took my a few years to do a film here in the US.  Later I stumbled into Power Rangers, which I did on and off for ten years while also doing features in between.

I love the action/martial arts genre because it stylizes aspects in our life and glorifies it – it is mannerism at its best – stylizing the style… It is a form of escapism.  Many think that the violence in it can be damaging but I think it’s the opposite, that it’s a genre that is internationally understood and can inspire people to take action, to do what is right or wrong.  To work hard to achieve goals in life, like becoming a good martial artist for instance. Now saying that, martial arts doesn’t have only physical aspect but also mental and moral values – That can be summarized by Gichin Funakoshi’s saying “The ultimate goal of the art of karate is not in victory or defeat, but rather in the perfection of the character of its participants”.

NS: How did you get involved in the Undisputed series ?

IF: Undisputed II originally was done a few years ago as filler to give the Bulgarian crew some work so they wouldn’t desert to an Italian film while production was preparing for Black Dahlia. No one in the corporate office believed in this film, besides producer Boaz Davidson, who did everything within his power to make sure we’d come up with a better film than expected. As soon as Undisputed 2 was completed, both Boaz and myself wanted to re visit the franchise… It took time to do it but the idea was to continue what UD2 did which was taking the negative character from the previous film and give him some kind of redemption. Michael Jai White did it brilliantly to George Chambers’ character in UD2 and Scott Adkins is doing it to boyka in UD3. We knew people loved both characters in UD2 so it felt organic to continue this tradition. So when we did Undisputed III, we basically did a sequel to a sequel; I honestly never thought the movie would do that great. I had fewer shooting days, however I also had total support from the producers and the crew. After the movie was completed, Tom Queen, from Magnolia Pictures, wanted to bring it to ActionFest. He never really saw the film, but based on Undisputed II, he had a good feeling about it. The movie was not a part of the competition, however once the jury saw it, they didn’t ignore it, and awarded it with best director award (for myself) and best fight choreographer award for Larnell Stovall. That was very rewarding.

NS: Undisputed 3 is easily the best action movie I’ve seen all year. What was the budget for the movie ? What is it about Scott Adkins that makes you want to continue to work with him ? He’s a great fighter and a solid actor. He gave his character Boyka surprising depth not normally associated with genre movies.

IF: The budget was very low, and the amount of shooing days very small. It was shot in thirty days total. The way I see it, Scott and myself are team members. We know each others strengths and weaknesses and we know how to bring out the best in each other in tough circumstances. But I always try to be a team player with every actor or crew member I work with. It is easier now with Scott because I know where and how much I can push him and sometimes when to stop him.  Especially in the physical scenes where we I know the limit.  I still want him to show his amazing ability but not to let him get hurt.  Scott can really do risky things and go for it if I don’t stop him.

Also, when it comes to his dramatic range I know now how good he can really be with handling the drama. However the team factor was working in this film really good, as we had a bunch of good actors in the film like Mark Ivanir, Hristo Shopov, Robert Costanzo, Vernon Dobtcheff. Not to mention Mykel Jenkins who played Turbo was such a perfectionist and Scott and he used to work on their scenes together and bounce of each other, elevating their performance level.

NS: What is your approach to filming fight scenes ? Do you prefer wire-work, more realistic fighting styles or a combination of both ? Which current action directors do you admire or enjoy ?

IF: First of all you should never forget the story and characters! The fights should work dramatically with the mental stage the characters are in the story at the given point. If there no emotional content, then the fight won’t work.

Second thing is technique. Coming from very technical karate background, I want the techniques to look clean and effective. No matter if it is in a PG Power Rangers show or R rated Undisputed films. I was never a fan of wire work though sometimes I use it if I need to. But I want it to look realistic, in Undisputed 3 no wires were used!

Third the Camera – I see many directors’ even ones that work in the studio system, when it comes to the action scenes they kind of feel uncomfortable and instead of really directing the scene they just cover the scene. There’s a big difference between coverage and directing. When I say cover a scene, I mean setting up a shot and letting the camera cover what the actors are doing, hoping to have it come together in the editing. So first I want to see the technique and second I want to move the camera and use it in a way that helps tell the story and becomes part of the fight scene, to glorify it. And what I want to try and avoid is really cutting or over cutting the scene. Because many times you go to films and the action is chopped and scattered and you don’t know what’s going on. You hear the sound effects and it creates the illusion but there is a sense of confusion. When I see that, I totally go against the film. So coming from a martial arts background, it really helps me because I know exactly how it supposed to look, how it should feel, and especially how to capture it on film. There is this cleanness of the techniques, when you look at the form of a ‘kata’, its precision and clean. I make my edits with this is mind, even in the dramatic scenes, a very precise cut.

Regarding directors I can honestly say, I only admire one – Sergio Leone. I like others but I admire him!

NS: What was it like working on the Power Rangers series ? Would you ever go back to do more if there’s a reboot ? There is talk of another series or movie.

IF: A lot of my experience came from my Power Rangers days, we used to say that Power Rangers is most well kept secret on television because every episode had action, melodrama, slapstick, special effects, green screen, CGI, etc., etc. Power Rangers was cheesy, but it was on purpose. Furthermore, the producers’ approach to Power Rangers was experimenting because it’s done everyday.  If it doesn’t work, we could shoot it again the next day. So I had the chance to go and experiment with basic cinematic tools that are sometimes lost today. Like, split screen, false perspective, matting the lens, and experimenting with screen fighting with many variations.

However, there is another series that I would like to mention that was forgotten and is more important than Power Rangers with regarding to action and it’s WMAC Masters. WMAC Masters preceded its time; I think it came ten years too early. If it was done in the mid-2000’s and not the mid-1990’s, it would have been a great hit. This is where I really experimented with moving camera, using a hot head, and shooting fights continuously using dynamic camera movements without doing cuts. Many people don’t realize that sometimes when I do a movie and I do a fight scene, I chuckle to myself and say I already did the same thing years ago in WMAC Masters or in Power Rangers. Only, the same technique in Power Rangers was PG (glittery) and in Undisputed, it’s R (Bloody) –In principle it’s the same technique and similar reaction but with more grittiness and violence.

NS: Will there be an Undisputed 4 ?

IF: I hope so ! I love the franchise a lot !

NS: You did a movie called Ninja and there was just a fairly large budget movie named Ninja Assasin that came out recently. I read another interview where you said you had difficulties with Ninja and were not completely happy with the final cut due to the story changes. I saw Ninja Assasin and thought it OD’ed on style and cgi blood and decapitations and got tired very quickly. Will we ever get a great ninja movie ?

IF: I was having the same conversation with my producer boaz Davidson a few days ago – and I think there can be a good ninja film , however it should be a period piece.  It doesn’t have to be exclusively in Japan . Did you know that the “last koga Ninja ” Seiko fujita trained during WWII, 2500 Japanese special Ops operated ninja style behind the British lines in Burma? There’s a great idea for a ninja movie….

Warner Brothers was coming out with Ninja Assassin. And Nu Image wanted to do something in the same vein, although our budget was one tenth of theirs. However I wanted to give them something that would compete with that film. This is how Ninja came about. The premise is very simple. If you remember ‘Batman Begins’, Bruce Wayne is basically becoming a ninja. My idea was to do the total reverse, in our film the ninja becomes a ‘Batman type’. So that was the idea. The movie is like a video game or a comic book. The only authentic aspect is the school he trains in, old Katori Shinto Ryu school.  It still exists today. This is why the scenes are in Japanese subtitles and why I brought in several well known Japanese martial artists headed by Sensei Fumio Demura To give the film some sense of authenticity. Other than this, the film is a comic book. I am happy with the final cut however I think the story was weak to begin with… The action is cool, but like I said it all boils to story and characters and they should be solid too!

NS: Do you have any future projects you’d like to share with our readers ?

IF: Not sure yet… there are things on the burner but nothing is fully cooked yet…

NS: Thanks so much for your time. Any final words for our readers and your fans ?

IF: THANK YOU! Thank you for being there – it is very humbling to know there are people who appreciate your work! For me to make these films was a childhood dream and I guess I am still that child after those years … I never lost the passion for this genre, I am first a fan of the action/martial genre and will always be!

Thanks to Isaac, remember to rent Undisputed 3 through netflix or buy your copy in stores now. Trailer is below:

• Tweet