lt.brannigan wrote:I was considering getting it anyway, just cause I could use a new copy of Bridge of Dragons.
Cool, keep me posted then!
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lt.brannigan wrote:I was considering getting it anyway, just cause I could use a new copy of Bridge of Dragons.
Very pleasantly surprised to find this Dolph Lundgren collection in the dump bin at Walmart. I usually stay far away from these crummy dvds from Echo Bridge, but in this collection are widescreen transfers of SWEEPERS and BRIDGE OF DRAGONS, which have never been available before in 1:85:1. The quality isn’t great, though. They cram four movies to a disc. But still. $5!
The soundtrack by Serge Colbert is fairly memorable, as is the music of Angolan musician Waldemar Bastos that’s used throughout the movie. The song “Sofrimento” that plays over the end credits is haunting and beautiful. How the hell did the production get Bastos involved in this movie?
Sweepers is a terrific action movie. Filled with multiple explosions and copious amounts of gunplay, it’s one of the star Lundgren’s best of the 1990’s. It has an odd opening, sure, but even when the movie is awkward it’s still quite good. If you’re a Dolph Lundgren fan and you haven’t seen Sweepers, do yourself a favor and track it down and check it out. I think you’ll like it.
AR: Three years after your directional debut you got the opportunity to work with Dolph Lundgren in the actioner ‘Sweepers’. This was your debut solid action movie, how did you find the challenge?
KW: ‘Sweepers’ was around 1997 and back then Dolph was the greatest guy you could ever meet on an action set. Really smart and cool guy. I remember being excited shooting with him every day. We shot in South Africa so I was out of my element but Dolph was super cool and made me feel at home. I ended up doing ‘Sweepers’ because I had a deal with a company that optioned a script I wrote about Hollywood pool hustlers and asked me to do a couple of action films for them. Other side of the world, huge sets, tons of things to blow up, amazing animals to film and a budget bigger than all my previous films combined. Okay, done. I was shooting for weeks upon weeks and meeting people who became lifelong friends. The coolest thing was lining five boxcars with det-cord and attaching them to a classic “Thomas the Tank Engine”-style engine, then running the train across an old water bridge with my friend Wade Eastwood doubling for Dolph and leaping off of the moving train as it exploded and pitching into the water. Talk about heaven. Then we set the entire side of the mountain on fire and it took our whole crew running around with branches to put it out. Perfection, right? Anyway, that was the kick-ass part of ‘Sweepers’. The not-so-kick-ass part was when I wrapped and got back to LA to post the film. And I’ve said this before, but that’s when the cliches happen in Hollywood they aren’t as in the movies – they just happen and you deal with it; Producers wanting more action and more explosions, demanding things being cut into the film that are terrible or don’t work all for the sake of a bigger, louder trailer – anyway you’ve heard the stories. Short of it is – ‘Sweepers’ was an amazing experience that turned into about 2/3 of a good film and 1/3 of a learning experience. So after almost two years of fighting, I decided to take a break from action and go back to the quiet moments in films.
The year was 1998... (yes, to the surprise of many, I'm not le2000 or a born-free)
I went for an audition for a Shaka Zulu movie. As I got out of that, a stranger lures me into the casting next door. So like a well trained child I followed them into a room and auditioned. That was my first time meeting an American (Keoni Waxman, best known for his work with Steven Seagal).
Anyway, I get both gigs, but the shooting schedules clash. So I chose to work with Keoni. This meant I wouldn't work with Grace Jones, Henry Cele and David Hasselhoff, but I got to work with @dolphlundgren and @jacobmoshokoa
So everyday on set, I would punch Dolph 1000 times (sidenote: I want this audited because I'm not really certain I could count to 1000 at that age). That man's abs were hard, but I'm sure if he posted about this experience, he'd let everyone know how much harder my fists were.
On this particular day, we were in Haarties and the most epic stunt I remember from it was a train being blown up and people jumping out of it and into the dam. We worked with a lot of explosives on this set.
So, the real point here was that this movie was initially released on 2 December 1998. It was the only movie I ever featured in and I wanted to see how much name-dropping can be done in a single post.
As you were...
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