Ultimate Dolph

by **Mosquito** on 12 Jun 2006, 21:29

Sorry for the missing or additional spaces. My keyboard is giving up on me...

Production Notes

„The Mechanik“ Dolph Lundgren's second time as a director after „The Defender“. As an actor, he knows the business for more than 20 years.

The timetable for the production had been set very tightly. The production company Nu Image had allowed for only 32 days of filming. The story of a car mechanic who travels back from the USA to Russia in order to take revenge for the death of his wife and only son was just simple enough to carry out to meet this timeframe.

Filming began during winter 2004 in Bulgaria and St. Petersburg, Russia. Dolph says about the Russian Tsars' city that it has been „great and beautiful there. And working has been wonderful“.

Producer Scott Putman adds: „It was exciting to film directly infront of the famous Eremitage, one of the world's most esteemed museums and in also former domicile of theTsar.

Filming in Russia was especially interesting for the local citizens because for them Dolph is a super star. Putman observed that Dolph „wasn't able to quit signing autographs. People approached him during rehearsals and even during filming“.

Dolph Ludgren had to make fast progress and therefore tried to keep the production simple. Because of that no costly special effects have been realised at the location.

Also he selected the actors himself. He already knew Ben Cross from the movie „Chariots of Fire“ (1981) and casted him as William Burton. They came along very well from the beginning even though Dolph was behind the camera in addition to being the lead character. Putman reckonns that „there was an interesting chemistry between Dolph and Ben, even though they have rather opposite personalities. They came along extraordinarily well, whereby we had many a fun moment at the set“.

Olivia Lee and Hilda van der Muelen were the rest of the main cast, the other roles had been assigned mostly to local Bulgarian actors with stage experience. Dolph reckons that „in Europe most actors have a stage background and therefore acquit themselves very well“.

Dolph Lundgren liked the combination of acting and directing. It was much easier for him to communicate at the set what had to be done due to his double function. According to Putman there was „one filming day where Dolph tried to show the stunt coordinator how he imagined the motorbike chase. He just entered the bike and demonstrated what he meant. But the bike didn't have enough air and started to wiggle. Luckily for Dolph he managed to dismount in time because an accident with the director and lead character would have prolongued the production for weeks“. But in general the production wasn't dangerous and did only a few complicated action sequences, just real fight scenes and stunts.

In order to get a realistic appearance for the movie Ross Clarkson was hired as Director of Photography. He had his own, very concrete notion about the look of the movie. He had been working on numerous action movies before, mostly Hong Kong action movies. He gave the movie the rough, dark and slightly faded look in order to point out the tale of robbers.

The cutting process began with cutter Joe Plenys after completion of filming in Bulgaria. „After the rough filming days insuch short time I was very glad to have Joe Plenys because the cutting phase was very important with this movie“, thinks Dolph. Joe added „a sharp feeling with movement effects, fades and variations of speed, which I supported very much“, says Dolph.

The result is a solid action movie with realistic fight sequences.

by **Jox** on 13 Jun 2006, 02:06

cool! Thanks Mosquito as always!

by **BrunnenMatt** on 13 Jun 2006, 06:25

Thanks for the translation, Mosquito

. I will definitely read this after my DVD arrives next month.

...BMatt

by **bomaz** on 13 Jun 2006, 10:26

thank you ....

by **bomaz** on 01 Jul 2006, 14:42

http://www.dvdrama.net/rw_fiche-6518-.php

the movie review is the same , but .... it got an english and a french audio with DTS ( and 5.1) !
and a "featurette" making of !
yeah

by **BrunnenMatt** on 01 Jul 2006, 15:24

bomaz wrote:http://www.dvdrama.net/rw_fiche-6518-.php

the movie review is the same , but .... it got an english and a french audio with DTS ( and 5.1) !
and a "featurette" making of !
yeah

The Mechanik and The Defender both have forced French Subtitles while watching the movie with the English audio tracks

.

...BMatt

by **Angelique** on 02 Jul 2006, 12:47

well, i bought yesterday the mechanik, haven't watched, today i will. but on the dvd here, there aren't any extra's... its a pity!! The only dvd who has extra's is Universal Soldier.. well i don't have all the dvds of dolph, but i'm collecting... now i have 11 movies.. extra's and features are awesome!! i hope the next dvds have all some extras!!

by **Tom** on 13 Aug 2006, 22:18

In the last months you were involved in very good movies. I personally think your job for "The Mechanik" was top-notch. This pessimistic and gritty look is very atmospheric and especially the final showdown is shot very excellent. How much liberties did you have and could you also let in own creativity? Referring to this I want to know how was the cooperation with Dolph Lundgren and has a cinematographer normally a carte blanche or is he always bound to the instructions of the director?

Working with Dolph was another good experience. There is always an adjustment period when you work with someone for the first time and I think I relate to these people very well, I don't kiss their ass.

To work on these films I think first of all you have to be honest with yourself and the film you're making and realize that this is not going to be the best movie in the world, and it's not the best story… So now that we know that how can we make it the best we can? What does your audience want to see?

After talking about these points we started designing the movie around Dolph… If someone else was the lead actor the film would have been different. We had to make it personal. We agreed to make it look cool and different. I showed him some different styles. Dolphs' trust in me grew to where I'd ask Dolph to show me a blocking of the scene and how he imagined the final scene to look, then I'd suggest something. We used a lot of crane shots where we had time, we did some scenes as one shot, we had fun.

by **Jox** on 28 Aug 2006, 23:46

He now has his official website online, you can check out a few pics from the set of "The Mechanik"
http://www.rossclarkson.com/

by **CorinaDaniela** on 05 Nov 2006, 21:37

thanks jox your site is verry nice.thanks for the fotos and please i'm sorry for my english :cry:

by **Jox** on 22 Nov 2006, 15:34

First (and not last I hope) award for THE MECHANIK, Ross Clarkson just won GOLD in the 2006 Queensland A.C.S (Australian Cinematographers Society) Awards for it.

I hope "The Mechanik" will get at least nominated at the DVD Premiere Awards.

by **CorinaDaniela_FanDolph** on 22 Nov 2006, 16:08

I hope "The Mechanik" will get at least nominated at the DVD Premiere Awards.----->i hope too.is a very good film.i cross my fingers for this

by **Jox** on 17 Dec 2006, 12:59

This is Elia Cmiral telling how he got hired as the composer of THE MECHANIK:

You were also recently involved in the music of the movie of two action star doing their coming back, THE CUTTER (Chuck Norris) and THE MECHANIK (Dolph Lundgren). Was it just a coincidence?

Yes, just a pure coincidence. I went for the meeting with the producers for “The Cutter” to the studio lot and I saw Doplh walking around there. I asked him in Swedish if he had a composer for his movie. The next day, I sent him a CD and the next thing I knew, I had the job. It is a paradox that we finished “The Mechanik” before “The Cutter” was even ready for scoring.

from http://goldenscore.free.fr/interview.php?idinterview=2&numSite=5&langue=anglais

by **Graham** on 07 Mar 2007, 23:52

preacher wrote:that French cover is cool as hell.
Just the change of font it so much better than the others we we have seen with that picture.

love it.

Do you think so? Personally, I thought the R1 DVD, same pic, different font looks MUCH better!

The Russian Specialist is a cool movie though - a lot of Dolph's films are kind of cheesy and/or very obviously low budget "straight to video" (much as I love them) but I think The Russian Specialist could surprise a lot of people...if only they get to see it.

by **Sasha** on 10 Apr 2007, 11:17

For me-it's the best Lundgren movie for last 5-7 years. Looks like mix of Mann and Leone styles. Good job.

Ultimate Dolph

THE MECHANIK / THE RUSSIAN SPECIALIST (Dolph Lundgren, 2005)

Ross Clarkson talks breifly about working with Dolph.

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