AGENT RED (Damian Lee & Jim Wynorski, 2000)

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Re: AGENT RED (2000)

Postby Jox on 12 Aug 2010, 11:52

Thing is about mainstream medias is that for them to have someone like Dolph on their show or magazine like having a ghost come back from the dead. They assume they have to reintroduce him to their audience and well they don't know his career well either. So unless the interviewer grew up on these movies or does a piece for a more targeted media, they're not gonna ask about the dozens of obscure low budgets movies that Dolph made in his career. It's the shameful and sad reality.

I agree THE SHEPHERD is barely watchable (what a bore!), well Isaac hadn't done this one at the time I met him, I know lots of people love the movie and it's action but you can't deny it doesn't make much sense, it's cheap and can be seen as ludicrous at times. BOD is another one of these projects that didn't go as planed and Isaac (and Dolph) has been frustrated with the project since he arrived on location with the producers waiting for him a rewritten and worse script in hand than the one they had signed for. Then because this was the first picture Nu Image in Bulgaria, the equipment was old and the crew in-experimented there was lot of issues and unusable footage because the film stock was bad or was wrongly handled (so it had big scratches on it).
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Re: AGENT RED (2000)

Postby Mosquito on 16 Aug 2010, 19:05

Don't forget that we are serious fans and most of us know all of his movies. Journalists do interviews for the masses and Average Action Joe isn't interested in bad B movies he has never heard about before. So unfortunately it's understandable why journalists ask the same old (and to us, boring) questions again and again. There have been a few more in-depth interviews, and don't forget about the awesome Swedish radio show that changed the perspective people had on Dolph. So there's hope. But when it comes to mainstream media you will go on reading mainstream questions. And now that he's back on the public radar with The Expendables, the chance for small fan-targeted interviews is decreasing. :-(

Regarding Bridge of Dragons: Sure it's cheap but I like it, especially because we see him using his martial arts skills a bit more.
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Re: AGENT RED (2000)

Postby viendammage on 17 Aug 2010, 08:52

Nathan wrote:
Jox wrote:
Warchild wrote:No wonder Dolph took a long break from 2001 to 2003 without making a movie.

That was only due to the after effects of September 11th and projects taking time or not getting off the ground (LEGION, ALIEN AGENT and a couple others etc)


I'm glad he didn't make Alien Agent, it's not the sort of movie he should be making, it is a low-budget movie that had the same sci-fi cheesyness of Retrograde.


I enjoyed Alien Agent, it looked incredibly well made for a $3 million direct to video flick. Jesse Johnson makes solid little movies for not much coin. Have you seen The Butcher? Eric Roberts, Keith David, Michael Ironside, Robert Davi, Bokeem Woodbine et all? Johnson and Dolph would make a good pairing. Johnson would make him look good and with his background in martial arts/stunts, you know it'd have some solid action scenes.
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Re: AGENT RED / CAPTURED (Damian Lee & Jim Wynorski, 2000)

Postby Jox on 01 Aug 2012, 19:16

After a 7 year hiatus between AGENT RED & his following film in 2007, Damian Lee continues writing and directing with stars such as Christian Slater, Cuba Gooding Jr, and now Forest Whitaker, Andy Garcia and soon Brendan Fraser... I even heard his dramatic pieces are good!
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Re: AGENT RED / CAPTURED (Damian Lee & Jim Wynorski, 2000)

Postby savagesketch on 02 Aug 2012, 04:53

Hard to believe... One would think his work on AGENT RED would be enough to kill his career for good. I'm all for giving a guy a second chance, but I would have thought he'd be relegated to dtv work without a chance for redemption. Good for him though. He still holds the record for helming Dolph's worst film to date.
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Re: AGENT RED / CAPTURED (Damian Lee & Jim Wynorski, 2000)

Postby Jox on 16 Sep 2012, 00:50

French cable TV spot
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Re: AGENT RED / CAPTURED (Damian Lee & Jim Wynorski, 2000)

Postby leigh1975 on 10 Dec 2012, 22:47

Not terribly interesting, but here in the UK, Agent Red and Jill Rips has never been released for retail, even on VHS. And also, even though it's lo-fi, I really like the UK cover;

ar.jpg
ar.jpg (24.72 KiB) Viewed 12123 times
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Re: AGENT RED (Damian Lee & Jim Wynorski, 2000)

Postby Jox on 30 Apr 2015, 12:42

This artwork (made out of a SILT still) was first shown on the pre-sales artwork of CAPTURED which was the title under which AGENT RED was shot. It was then used in most territories.

Flyer front & back:
Image Image

Remember it was announced with this synopsis, which I just realized dealt with human trafficking... :wink:
http://www.dolph-ultimate.com/dolph-in/captured.html
Jim Solomen is a hired assassin, sent on a revenge mission. Bernard Abrams, a wealthy businessman, has lost his daughter Allison, to a white slave trader. Bernard wants all involved dead. The body count will determine Solomen's pay. Ten grand a head.

Once Solomen reaches the Far East, he looks up and old friend Jimmy Hickox, an American, thought to be a POW. Jimmy fills Solomen's weapons order, which reads like a shopping list for a coup d'etat. But he has little to offer in the way of information, except a warning that his mission is suicide.

Solomen must infiltrate the country using his past government connections to obtain an F14 fighter plane and a US Navy LA class submarine. As he pursues Allison's kidnappers, he hears of their systematic destruction. Each new clue leads to another notch in the body count, and the leveling of another city block. Of course, those attacked bite back. Initially, they are only local groups, but it is soon revealed that the Triad Mafia is a big part of the ugliness, and then it worsens, as the government rears its ugly head.

But Solomen keeps killing, a mutilating machine. He is being chased as hard as he chases. Now in the country, he must fight his way out. Until a final surprising conflict, in which he rights all wrongs, and puts an end to a big part of the slave trade. (from the Phoenician/Franchise Pictures' flyer)

Apart from the synopsis I'm not sure a full script was completed but then Andrew Stevens and Damian Lee made a deal, with the results we all know, for him to write it and Stevens wanted kind of Dudikoff's COUNTER MEASURES remake...
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Re: AGENT RED (Damian Lee & Jim Wynorski, 2000)

Postby Tom on 30 Apr 2015, 13:06

Captured sounded like it could have been okay. But obviously not confined largely to one set for most of the film, it would have been more costly. I would imagine Steven's reasons for remaking a Dudikoff (Dudikoff!!!) film were purely financial.
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Re: AGENT RED (Damian Lee & Jim Wynorski, 2000)

Postby Jox on 30 Apr 2015, 13:08

For sure, and more fit to his "brand" (this one sounded too ambitious!), all these productions looked the same and... based on the use of stock footage.

What Stevens told me a few years back sums it up :
I make what the buyers ask for. I don’t blindly make films that the marketplace doesn’t want or support.
Of course he's talking about "his market" in which back then he could sell his TV movies easilly to undemanding distributors and even the likes of HBO (STORM CATCHER & JILL RIPS). And he would repeatedly respond "not at liberty to discuss" when asked about things like budgets (even though I don't think anyone really cares but everyone knows they were CHEAP)...
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Re: AGENT RED (Damian Lee & Jim Wynorski, 2000)

Postby Tom on 30 Apr 2015, 13:16

That cycle of stock footage film from the last 90's, to early 2000's appears to have ceased, but I do wonder if we'll see a new wave come up soon. Some genius will figure it's been a long time since we've seen a few Submarine/fighter pilot action films.
If I see Dolph on a poster with a crappy looking Submarine behind him in the next couple of years, it wouldn't surprise me.

Though I guess now because of digital film and the ease of using CGI (even poor standard), you can shoot anything you like as cheaply as possible.
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Re: AGENT RED (Damian Lee & Jim Wynorski, 2000)

Postby Jox on 30 Apr 2015, 13:22

Tom wrote:Though I guess now because of digital film and the ease of using CGI (even poor standard), you can shoot anything you like as cheaply as possible.

Which can be worse!
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Re: AGENT RED (Damian Lee & Jim Wynorski, 2000)

Postby DRC2013 on 30 Apr 2015, 16:35

Tom wrote:That cycle of stock footage film from the last 90's, to early 2000's appears to have ceased, but I do wonder if we'll see a new wave come up soon. Some genius will figure it's been a long time since we've seen a few Submarine/fighter pilot action films.
If I see Dolph on a poster with a crappy looking Submarine behind him in the next couple of years, it wouldn't surprise me.

Though I guess now because of digital film and the ease of using CGI (even poor standard), you can shoot anything you like as cheaply as possible.


The producers of these movies, like Andrew Stevens were lucky to get the idea to use stock footage before everyone else did. As soon as studios and the stock footage companies realized there's a real demand out there for big action shots and B-roll of explosions and what not they started to charge premium fees.

Jim Wynorski, who directed a lot of them (including working on this one) along with Fred Olen Ray, said in an interview that back then when they bought stock footage, it was for them to use as many times as they liked, and in as many different movies as they wanted for the same price, and the used to get several minutes of great looking footage for not a lot of money. I think he used the same footage of an airplance action sequence is several of his movies.

Nowadays however they only sell the footage in clips that are a few seconds long, and you can only use them once in one project, and the prices you have to pay are a few thousand per clip, footage from the big studios like Sony can cost close to $10k per clip. So I guess for DTV producers it's not worth it to spend 5 figures on a few clips, when they can instead use CGI explosions or something or hire a name actor for a few days who brings more value than any car chase scene would.

You still see it sometimes though, Danny Trejo's Badass used the bus chase footage from Arnold Schwarzenegger's Red Heat, a movie that was made over 20 years prior.
Jox wrote:
What Stevens told me a few years back sums it up :
I make what the buyers ask for. I don’t blindly make films that the marketplace doesn’t want or support.
Of course he's talking about "his market" in which back then he could sell his TV movies easilly to undemanding distributors and even the likes of HBO (STORM CATCHER & JILL RIPS). And he would repeatedly respond "not at liberty to discuss" when asked about things like budgets (even though I don't think anyone really cares but everyone knows they were CHEAP)...


I have Stevens' book Foolproof Filmmaking, which is essentially another how to guide and a little bit outdated in its information since Stevens hasn't been that active in recent years which have seen a huge change in the business, but it has some very interesting stories about how they used to finance these movies.

Because they financed the movies mostly with pre-sales they would go to the biggest foreign buyers and ask what they wanted, so a Japanese buyer might say that submarine movies go over big there, give us a submarine action movie and we'll pay you $200k, then a buyer from Germany would say that martial arts movies are in demand, give us a martial arts movie with lots of hand to hand fight scenes and we'll pay you $300k, then they would go to the US buyer who would say they need a name, give us an action movie with a name and we'll give you $500k.
So they took all these pre-sales and would make a submarine movie with martial arts action starring Michael Dudikoff for like $1M-$2M or less. Something for everyone. And because they have to please all these different buyers, the movies often were a big mess with all these different elements that don't necessarily make sense.
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Re: AGENT RED (Damian Lee & Jim Wynorski, 2000)

Postby Jox on 30 Apr 2015, 17:13

I think stock footage has been there for a long time but usually for big establishing shots like aerial shots you couldn't get or afford to shoot and some institutional companies are just specialiszed in that but the use of studio movies is something else, even though in some instances movies have used left overs before.

DRC2013 wrote:I have Stevens' book Foolproof Filmmaking

I didn't know about that one, thanks!

DRC2013 wrote:a little bit outdated in its information since Stevens hasn't been that active in recent years

Probably how he got time to write it and why he seems to be branching out in doing seminars, consulting ($450–$850 per session), DVDs (8 discs for $395) and stuff:
http://foolprooffilmmaking.com/
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Re: AGENT RED (Damian Lee & Jim Wynorski, 2000)

Postby Dida on 12 May 2015, 13:03

I have never seen Agent Red (although I hear it's one of Dolph's worse movies). Is this movie available on Region 2 with the English version? Just to make my Dolph collection completer...
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