This weekend, on the eve of the premiere of “”Freddy Vs. Jason,”” I had the opportunity to have a one on one chat with famed Hong Kong director Ronny Yu, about his latest project “”Freddy Vs. Jason.”” Due to his lack of experience in the horror genre – “”The Bride of Chucky,”” not withstanding, many folks thought that he may have been a strange choice to bring two legendary horror franchises together. In a wide ranging interview, we went into depth about what his feelings where toward the two characters, his views on CGI filmmaking, and keeping the franchise “”real.”” He even concluded the interview by giving the 411 on the upcoming “”Freddy Vs. Jason”” DVD and his next film project, an adaptation of the popular Japanese Anime “”Blood.””
——————————————————————————————————————————————————————EMI like to start all my interviews off with my basic, overly broad question, please tell us who you are and why we are speaking with you today?RY[Surprised] Well that’s easy. My name is Ronny Yu, I am the director of a movie that’s coming out [August 15th] called “”Freddy Vs. Jason.””EMHow did you end up getting this gig?RYI told my agent that I really wanted to work on an American movie me (I live in Australia), and last June he called me and said that he had one for me a real American movie. I asked him what was and he said, ‘Well you have two American Horror icons on your hands and their going make a movie.’ I said what movie, and when he told me I said, “”Wow!””So I flew to LA to meet with the studio heads. I told them that I thought it was a great script and very exciting, but I had to be honest and admit to them that I wasn’t very familiar with the two franchises. The only two films that I saw was the first Nightmare and Friday the 13th film. After that, I got away from that genre.The New Line executive was like “”No, no, no, you did ‘Bride of Chucky. And I know you didn’t know anything about the ‘Child’s Play’ franchise.”” They wanted someone who could give a fresh new look and take on the franchise and genre. Once I signed onto the project, I had to go back and watch all 17 films.EMWow that’s a lot of killing.RYYeah, I wanted to understand all the movies, and the rules that have been laid out. I don’t think my job was to reinvent the two franchises, just cinematically turn it up a notch and make it entertaining.EMDid your lack of knowledge prior to getting the gig enable you to look at with a fresh view, or did eventually watching them cloud that fresh look?RYI think watching the films gave me an idea of what not to do. And not to repeat what had already been done. I really wanted try new ways of doing things.EMIt’s difficult enough to come in the middle of one franchise, with this film you are coming in on two. How did you approach that?RY[laughs] Very naively. I really don’t look at this film as a sequel which was the key here. I look at it, as though it’s something totally brand new. These two monsters have been around for so many movies, that I looked at this film as its own separate thing. EMDid you feel the pressure to blend elements from both?RYAfter I signed on I realized how much expectation there was for this movie. I went on various websites and saw how much talk and anticipation for this film. People have waited for more than 10 years for this thing to come out. In away it really scared me. It made me want to go back to the basics of what made these films great; which meant going back to the first film of each franchise, because those films are where the core, and where all the emotions, and scares comes from. Don’t try to make fun of it, take it seriously. We didn’t want to be like “”Scream”” of any of those. I look at it like T-Rex Vs. Godzilla, just put these two in a ring and let them fight it out.Remember the Rocky movie? At the end where there’s a big fight where Apollo is beating the crap out of Rocky, and he couldn’t see, but he kept telling them to go on, and his eye was all bloody. When they cut him open, they showed all this blood coming out, it was real emotional, and didn’t have any CGI in it. So that gave me a lot of direction in how I wanted to approach this film.EMSo by doing it this way, you ended up cutting out all the funny elements that some people criticized the sequels for?RYThis was just my way of thinking. There is humor in this film, it’s just not as over the top as in the past.EMThere is so much expectation for this film. How do you feel, knowing that you were selected to do every horror fan’s wet dream movie?RY[Laughs] I just go with my gut. Whenever I sit in a chair to direct a movie, I don’t look at as “”Ronny Yu, The Director,”” I try and approach as “”Ronny Yu, The Audience.”” I always try and think of the audience who spend $10 or $12 to see this film. I always ask myself “”Would this entertain me?””EMHow do you do that, coming to both franchises blind?RYThat’s why I went back and watched all the other films. I don’t want to break any of the rules that the franchises have created for themselves. For instance Freddy only exists in the dream world and never comes out of it and Jason is in the real world.EMWell Freddy has come into the real world a couple of times in past films.RYRight, so that’s why I said that when he comes into the real world, it has to be dramatically and story point wise a major, major, turning point. There has to be a really significant reason this to happen. The script does a brilliant job of using this element to get Freddy and Jason into the same world. The scriptwriter actually uses one of the victims to bring them both together. The victims kind of join forces to bring Jason and Freddy to the same place and force them to fight it out.EM That’s a brilliant plan it’s the old “”Enemy of my Enemy is my friend”” method.RYI like that! It’s very simple, and something that the audience can buy. There’s no CGI, explosions or fantastic transformations. Even the way that I shot this film, I went back to the basics. Nowadays filmmakers are have gotten relaxed and rely too much on CGI. The emotional impact gets lost in all the special effects. If we can physically do it, then we tried to do it the old fashioned way.EMDo you think CGI has ruined modern filmmaking?RYSure it can make an audience go “”Wow,”” but there’s no emotional attachment that the audience feels with the characters. It makes people go “”Wow this is CG. If I had that software I could do it.”” Rather than looking at a movie as a movie, even a film like “”Frankenstein Vs. The Mummy,”” while the effects were cheesy [wow I thought I was the only one who used the word “”cheesy””] the audience could still feel an emotional connection to the two characters.EMMy current example of this is the recent “”Hulk”” film. While the original TV series was cheesy, you felt more for what he was going through. In the recent version, the CGI Hulk just seemed so lifeless and limp.RYYou are absolutely correct. I was recently watching it on TV and even though they used a body builder, you really could feel sorry for him. When he got cut, he would bleed, that didn’t happen with the big screen version. This new Hulk is a top of the line effect, but it feels like you are watching a cartoon.EMDo you think that when people do that, they did the same thing with “”Matrix Reloaded,”” that directors are just copping out and not really caring about the story or emotions?RYI think they are. Today’s filmmaker’s hands are tied. They have to answer to marketing people, and a more global market, so they are sometimes forced to rely on more and more effects to sell their films overseas. The global market is so important that they now have to have as much action as possible.If you notice this summer’s films are all like that. If you look at T3, it’s all action and none of the story that made the first two films so good. The character was so strong. I was in the theater going “”ok,”” I just felt nothing while I was watching it.EMThis summer has been so lackluster for that very reason. That while I love explosions as much as the next filmgoer, I would still like to feel like I’m attached to what is going on. The reason why X2 worked for me was it was a film that really was about characters and emotion. Sure it had a fair share of CGI shots, but it never lost sight of the characters.RYExactly! I like to give the example of if you love Sushi. If you have it every single day – breakfast, lunch, and dinner. No matter how good the Sushi is, you will eventually get sick of it, the smell of fish and it’s going to kill you. It’s the same way with CGI, every day you can do amazing new things with it, but right now there’s just too much of it.That’s why with “”Freddy Vs. Jason”” I wanted to emphasize realism. If we used fire, we wanted to have real fire. That while it’s more difficult to do it, it lends that element of realism to it, we could have someone running around with a blue screen suit on and make it easier, but then the audience wouldn’t feel the impact of the flames bouncing off of someone. We went old school, if we could make the effect work with camera tricks then we did it.EMWhen you go old school, I would think that it would make fans remember the charm and originality of the first two films.RYExactly, I totally agree with you. I hope that when fans see this film that they will get a sense of visiting an old friend.EMDo you fear the fan boy backlash?RY[Laughs] Oh yeah!!! Before the first test screening I was scared. We had all of these hardcore fans there and before the lights went out we had fans chanting “”Freddy, Freddy, Freddy!!!”” And then the Jason fans started “”Jason, Jason, Jason!!!”” Then I turned to the studio Executive was very excited and he said that he thought this was great. I told him that these people will be very, very, picky. Luckily everyone was very happy with the results, and I don’t have to hide away on some Island somewhere.EMAnd this movie is one of those films that are critic proof [he laughs hysterically]. So all you have to worry about is pleasing the fan base. Going back to studio interference, since this film isn’t a global type of movie, how much influence did the marketing departments have during the process? RYYou are absolutely correct. This isn’t a big global film like a Terminator 3. So I was lucky that the studio pretty much left me alone. The only pressure that I had was the one that I put on myself, which was to please the fans.EMWhen you are directing this stuff, does it give you nightmares?RYOh yeah! Freddy is a really frightening character because he comes into your dreams, which is when you are most vulnerable, and he finds your weak spots and attacks you there. Everyone has to dream so there’s no way of controlling him, you can’t say that “”That you won’t dream again.”” This scares the hell out of me, because you can’t control it like other things. For example if you are scared of sharks, you can simply stay out of the water. Or if you are scared of spiders, you can take a spray can with you. With dreams you can do that, you have to sleep.EMYou are absolutely right Freddy is the one character is that absolutely terrifies me. When I was in College, I used to get nightmares, strictly by watching the commercials. I started to read up on dream books and I eventually figured out how to control my nightmares and to wake myself up when I’m having one, so I would let Jason stab me, or jump off a cliff to force myself awake. Well one time I tried that with Freddy and I woke up with a bloody nose. I was totally freaked out for about two weeks.RY[He laughs at my pain] No…..That’s really freaky, I’m going to have to tell Robert that story.EMI was going to tell him today, but didn’t get a chance to. He is quite a talker!RYMan! I love to hear him talk, he knows so much about movies. He is such a wonderful movie person to work with.EMI think you already answered my question a minute ago, but which character do you like the most, and which one scares you the most?RYFreddy definitely scares me the most, but I find myself having more sympathy for Jason. He had a tragic childhood, and he seems kind of not quite there, or really be aware of what he is doing.EMWhat would your top 3 favorite kills out of all the films, and in this one in particular.RYLet’s talk about this one first, there’s a scene in the bedroom that is really good and brutal. It’s not so much that you haven’t seen this type of thing before but we really took the time to build up to the payoff that it’s really effective when it does happen. It comes as a total surprise. I tried to make all of the kills kind of surprising and jump out of nowhere.EMThat’s one of the things that I really love about Final Destination was the way the film took it’s time to set up a gag, only to twist it around at the last minute and it would really shock and surprise you when a death finally happened. RYYeah it was definitely old school. They would always play tricks with audience and make you say “”Oh, no, it’s going to happen any moment now”” and then when it doesn’t the audience let’s their guard down, then you hit them with it. That is the fun part.EMDo you subscribe to the rules and twisted morality of the horror genre.RY[Laughs] Yes, and what morality?EMWell you know the virgin always has to survive.RYYeah that’s true now that I think about it the virgin survives this one.EMAnd the rule that says “”I’ll be back.””RYYou know that’s why we have two separate endings for this movie. I didn’t like the original ending; I didn’t think either Jason or Freddy fans would be satisfied, so I changed it.EMSo this isn’t going to be one of those “”milly-mouthed”” endings where there’s no clear cut winner is it?RYI think it’s going to be one that will leave both fans happy, and make them argue back and forth over it.EMWhat do you have planned for the DVD?RYThis is going to be a big DVD. The guy who is putting it together, David Pryor he did Blade II, Pearl Harbor, and Fight Club. The DVD will be a 2 disc special edition under New Lines Infinity brand. I’m doing a commentary as well as Robert, and the producers. There will be a lot of deleted scenes, a documentary on the evolution of the two franchise, and more. I think it’s coming out in December.EM How do you like doing commentary tracks?RYI really like it, I get to talk about why certain things happen the way they did. Talk about the producers, and generally be really candid about what happened during the shoot. It’s almost like therapy for me.EMWhen you are filming movies these days, do you as a director think of the DVD rest?RYAbsolutely! Being a big fan of the format, it gives me a chance to showcase things that you can’t show in the movie. So if you have a test screening, and scenes that you really like get cut you can always add them to the DVD. It also gives you a chance to explain to the audience why certain decisions were made. I’m very conscience of DVD while making a film.EMTo be honest I’m not a big fan of deleted scenes on DVDs. Primarily because a lot of times when you watch them they are totally separate from the film and therefore have no real meaning to me as a viewer. Would you ever consider going back and totally reintegrating the missing scenes into a special directors cut version – which is the way that I personally like to see deleted scenes?RYIt depends on how much passion that I have for losing those scenes. If I agree with the reason for leaving a scene out then I’m more than happy to just leave it on the DVD.EMDid you have any of those battles on this film?RYNot really on a scale of 1 – 10, it was about a 2. I try to fight my battles during the screenwriting and preproduction stage. So usually everything that I shoot is what I’m happy with from the beginning. My experience making films in Hong Kong has taught me that you always want to give your input and fight your battles before the cameras role, that way you can be more productive, save energy and save money.EM How much input did you have on the script?RYI had total input into what the final shooting script would be. I guess I was really lucky. The only two films that I had a problem with were my first film, and Formula 51. In Formula 51 I wanted to work with Samuel L. Jackson so much that I let the producers have too much power. I just wanted to make a film with Sam EMDo you regret it now?RYYeah, I think so. As my wife said it’s better to be a [paraphrasing] beggar in the beginning than the owner of a new home. EMSo how was your first Hollywood experience?RYIt was really interesting, a lot different than making movies in Hong Kong. Here you have so many resources and dollars that you could put into the project, that it made the process so much easier and smoother than I was used to.EMTo close, what are you working on now?RYI’m going to be working on a live action version of a Japanese Animated film called “”Blood.”” It’s kind of a horror piece about Vampires on a US Military base in Japan.