New Kung Fu movie by Olympia native to show at international festivals starting Friday
A new film shot in Washington state is premiering at film festivals this weekend.
It is an action-comedy called “The Paper Tigers,” which tells the story of three former Kung Fu prodigies now facing down middle age who must come together to get revenge for a fallen friend. The film premiered in August at the 2020 Fantasia Film Festival and will be shown virtually at a series of festivals starting Friday.
Bao Tran, writer and director of the film, was born in Olympia after his parents immigrated to the area. In talking with The News Tribune, Tran shared how that background and breadth of cultural influences helped shape his film.
“Growing up, I was first generation of Vietnamese immigrants,” Tran said. “We grew up watching a lot of Asian cinema, Asian TV but also Hollywood movies. It was a mix of all these different types of entertainment and seeing different types of storytelling.”
Tran has made a variety of shorts and also did stunt work on another Washington production, 2018’s science fiction film “Prospect.”
“This is my first feature film as a director, but I have done shorts and worked on some other films that have action elements. That was something we were really comfortable with especially with our action team,” Tran said. “We all worked well together. It was just on a longer scale with a feature film but it’s a lot of the stuff we had done before.”
The story came from a personal place for Tran as he found himself reflecting on his own life and situation as he grew older.
“I was approaching middle age myself, so I was just trying to understand these different seasons of life but also be intrigued by these themes of growing up with something you thought was valuable then growing apart from it,” Tran said.
The film is both comedic and dramatic, which Tran said was all about finding balance from scene to scene.
That balance also extended to navigating the world of independent production which involved both a successful Kickstarter campaign and additional private funding.
“Independent filmmaking is never straightforward,” Tran said. “It’s always a balance of time, quality and money.”
Striking that balance didn’t take away from the end product as the film is able to create strong sequences reminiscent of past genre films.
“It’s a bit of an homage to these rooftop, Kung Fu fights that were very famous in the 1960s. Bruce Lee had famously participated in a lot of them and got in trouble,” Tran said. “In terms of Kung Fu history and lore, we definitely wanted to find something paying tribute to that with a rooftop. Luckily we were able to find and scout a location that fit for that.”
The locations were close to home for the director and benefited from the community rallying around the project.
“Washington has a lot of great locations that haven’t been filmed since there is not a lot of film here,” Tran said. “We shot all around the Seattle International District. The community really showed up. They provided snacks, they gave us locations to use. In terms of just what you see in the film, you definitely will see the heart of Seattle and the Pacific Northwest.”
When it came down to casting, there was an emphasis on finding multi-talented performers. One cast member is Ron Yuan, who was most recently in Disney’s live action Mulan.
“What we wanted to do with the main cast was a challenge in terms of finding actors that were great actors but could also do martial arts or at least were physically able to do that. Ron was that perfect combination,” Tran said.
Tran said the film has gotten “rave reviews from friends and family.”
Well Go USA, known for distributing recent films such as “Train to Busan,” acquired the rights to the film in September. Tran found the company to be a good fit and is excited to see what the future holds even with a pandemic.
“We have a lot of expectations and hope, just give a fighting chance and we’re ready to take it,” Tran said.
“The Paper Tigers” is available on VOD at the San Diego Asian American Film Festival Oct. 23-31, Boston Asian American Film Festival Oct. 24-25, Philadelphia Asian American Film Festival on Nov. 5 and Hawaii International Film Festival Nov. 5-29.
This story was originally published October 21, 2020 at 5:05 AM with the headline "New Kung Fu movie by Olympia native to show at international festivals starting Friday."
