AsianConnections
Jim Ferguson interivews "Romeo Must Die" Producter Joel
Silver
Jim
Ferguson: Joel and Jet, good to see you. Congratulations
to both of you for turning out a real fast paced action thriller
that I really enjoyed. Would you both agree that it does follow
the story, Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet?" To a degree,
with the two families.
Joel
Silver: �the essence of the piece is the two warring
families with star crossed lovers. There is a taste of [Shakespeare],
but it really is just a jumping off point. It really goes
from there to a very, fresh and original story that has a lot of
twists and turns, and really is a new movie.
Jim
Ferguson: Well, I caught myself at times thinking, this is
a little bit like Shakespeare, you know what I mean? When
you had the uncles who were the bad guys, and there's some elements
of it. I was amazed, hard to believe, Aaliyah, her film debut.
She's beautiful, and very very good.
Joel
Silver: Just great. She really is a natural.
She really is a natural. And they [Jet and Aaliyah] work so
great together too.
Jim
Ferguson: Did you enjoy working with her?
Jet
Li: Yeah. She's very talented. (laughter)
Jim
Ferguson: Extremely talented. Right, right. Joel, tell
me a little bit about Delroy [Lindo's] gang.
Joel
Silver: the idea was that, again it is an urban story,
an African American gang, a Chinese gang, and Delroy's aesthetic
is that he wants to get out of it. He wants to be in a new
arena to work with, and he has the aspirations of a legitimate business
empire, �there are conflicts within his own group. And the other
side, the Chinese gang, the Asians have a similar kind of conflict,
but they are just both interested in raising the bar of their own
businesses, and of course, Jet's character comes in the middle of
it, and screws everything up.
Jim
Ferguson: (Laughter) But some of the actors in the gang are
just, I think they are funny, and they add a lot to it.
Joel
Silver: Well, it's great?Delroy is fantastic. Isaiah
Washington, who plays his second in command and enforcer is just
fantastic. Anthony Anderson who plays Maurice, who is just
a very funny character, and [Delroy's character's] son played by
D. B. Woodside. And then of course his daughter's Aaliyah. So there's
great people to work with. On the other side you have Russell Wong,
who's just terrific�Jet, and Russell have a great fight together
at the end. So it really works in many levels. The picture,
is a very surprisingly good and effective movie.
Jim
Ferguson: Are you amazed at the choreography that goes into
their fight scenes?
Joel
Silver: �Working with Jet, I mean, the first time I really
experienced it was with "Lethal Weapon 4," and then of course in
the Matrix we went a little further, but this was full on
which I can do. And I mean, he even feels that he can go so
much further if we had more time and more effort to do it.
So, I hope on the other movies we are planning, that he can go even
further. Absolutely.
--
End of Interview --
More
Jim Ferguson Interviews
|
