King Of Kung Fu Presents: The Interview With Monkey King Producer Michael Wehrhahn
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Posted July 15, 2013 by kingofkungfu in Features
www.michaelwehrhahn.com
www.globalstarproductions.com
Michael Wehrhahn is the producer of the much anticipated Donnie yen movie “The Monkey King(大鬧天宮)”, where he has spent 4 years working on this to make it a great hit with not only Donnie Yen fans, but Monkey King fans all around the world. Donnie Yen is a Kung Fu legend and has been making great movies for a long time, but since Sha Po lang i feel Yen has stepped up 5 gears and made some incredible movies and i have no doubts that The Monkey King will be another smash hit.
The Monkey King also stars many other great stars which include Chow Yun-fat, Aaron Kwok, Joe Chen, Kelly Chen and Louis Fan, a real top star cast. In the novel, SunWukong (The Monkey King), is a monkey born from a stone who gathers supernatural powers through Taoist practices. After going against heaven and being captured under a mountain he later goes with the monk Xuanzang on a journey to retrieve Buddhist sutras from India. But in the first movie of the three scheduled, it shows the birth of SunWukong and how he was born and taught to use his special abilities during a time good and evil were at war on a distant Earth.
New technology in recent years like 3D should really bring out the characters in The Monkey King and capture the essence of the movie for the audience to experience the best Monkey King project to date. There has always been a big following of this character with many comics, TV series, movies, stage plays, manga cartoons, games which shows the power of The Monkey King and how highly regarded he is to audiences all over the world.
The movie has everything, a superb cast and crew, a world wide fan base which will support the movie and i have every faith this will live up to the hype that people have been talking about for a long time. Not only will this be a hit with Asian audiences, but a hit around the world and i am very excited that this is coming as a trilogy. This will deliver for audiences on the big screen, so when this is released, be sure to head down to your local cinema, grab your 3D glasses and sit back and enjoy the ride.
Background Information
Born in Northern New Jersey, Michael was introduced to the spotlight by his parents, highly regarded film archivists for networks such ABC ,NBC News and Republic Pictures. After several years of exposure to the bright lights of Hollywood, Michael began to act through his youth as a teen.
By his late Teens Michael has appeared in over a dozen motion pictures a half dozen television shows and directed his own exercise series. His first major appearance in a feature film was alongside World Renown Rapper Fat Joe playing “Alex Hunter” in Blazin’, one of the more popular Hong Kong orientated action Martial Art American made films’ of all time hitting the Billboard charts for six consecutive weeks in a row.
In CBS’s Now & Again, as “Busker” his portrayal of a strung out homeless street entertainer on the streets of New York marked a dramatic evolution in his career. Then, in 1998, he appeared in the Kasuri Production Pocket Full Of Dreams, which established him on the big screen in selected countries in foreign countries.
After numerous extensive appearances on NBC’s Late Night with Conan O’ Brien Show with Water World’s William Preston as an actor Michael proved he could perform his own stunts as well as act to entertain live audience around the world on national television for three seasons.
In late 1999 he has undertaken his most ambitious project ever: playing Billy Stevens in The Image Factory’s What’s Eating You?, a comedy horror film filled with Science fiction and virtual reality sets of mass proportion.
Other film projects include Treasure of the Seven Mummies, alongside Matt Schultz (Fast and the Furious), Billy Drago (The untouchables), Cerina Vincent (Cabin Fever) and Danny trejo (Once Upon a time In Mexico) The Secret War alongside KC Armstrong and Jim Florentine (Howard Stern Show).
At this point i would like to turn your intentions to the interview with Michael Wehrhahn, i would also like to thank him greatly for agreeing to do this and for also letting me use one of the first posters released for the movie. Also id like to say a big thanks to Robert Samuels for making this happen in the first place. I hope you guys enjoy the interview and take in what Michael has to say about the movie.
1.How did you first get involved with this movie and how did you feel before heading for the first day of shooting?
In 2007 after some successful co productions I was looking for new projects I was packaging several other films with good friends of mine in Hong Kong and a good friend asked me if Im interested in doing The Monkey King as a co production for the US. Originally since they already started production before joining them Global Star was just doing US distribution but due to the extreme special effects we came aboard as a co-production partnership to do all post production in the film and then designed two other films to make it a trilogy.
2.How familiar was you with the Monkey King character prior to filming?
I Always new The Monkey King (Sun WuKong) character because of my travels to China throughout the years. I actually attempted a pitch to the US studios in 2004 but they thought it was too risky and believed its only market was Art Houses. So if this was the market there was very little money to make the movie.
3.The Monkey King has such an all star cast, how did you find working with such amazing talent?
All the talent was amazing. I was really impressed by how fast the actors got into the characters. In the US actors prepare and prepare and prepare. Then they prep a lot to stay in character. The Monkey King Crew cast was like a light switch becoming there characters in a matter of a second. Donnie Yen was out of this world. Donnie came directly from another set the first day of The Monkey King and already was conditioned to play Sun Wu Kong and was flipping around and acting like a Monkey in which in the US there’s weeks of training then conditioning to perform the character. Just amazing talent.
4.How do you think the take on the film will be different to the novel and did the technical challenges take over or away from the plot or script?
Well first of all there’s three Movies. The first one we are releasing is the birth of SunWukong, how he was born and learned to use his special abilities during a time good and evil were at war on a distant Earth. This is not Journey to the West story of the Pilgrimage to India. The first Film is called “The Monkey King” The legend Begins. There are also two versions of this both have similar footage both from the traditional writings. We have added 1 or 2 characters to make it more marketable for a feature film.
The First China Version is in Mandarin keeping authentic to Chinese culture and Chinese style of film making. The second version or what we call the international US version is in English with a special guest well known US Celebrity appearing with extra characters and more scenes and special effects to market it on a broader market that’s not is as aware as china of the story therefore introducing it to the US Markets.
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Originally Posted by GeneChing
This film is going to make Yen, Chow Yun Fat and Aaron Kwok IMMORTAL! Now Yen is ready for his role in CTHD!
