This week sees the release of Agent Recon which stars Chuck Norris, Marc Singer and Derek Ting (who also wrote and directed the picture). In case you didn’t know this is the third movie in a franchise that started with Agent Intelligence (initially just called Agent) and Agent Revelation. I had a great chat with Derek about the franchise which you can check out below.
You wrote, directed and star in Agent Recon which is the third entry in the Agent franchise (Agent Intelligence and Agent Revelation came first); I’ve seen all 3 and really enjoyed them. Where did the idea come from for this series initially?
Well, thanks so much. I mean, I’m so happy that you saw all three now. It started very small. I wanted to do action films. It’s always been a passion of mine. I grew up on Schwarzenegger, Stallone, Jean-Claude and Bruce Lee. You name it, and, of course, Chuck Norris. I had done two movies prior, and it was focusing on plot and character. So, I felt like the next step was really to tackle the genre that I love. I came up with this idea when I was in Arizona, and a friend of mine took me out to the desert and we shot weapons. And I wondered, at that point in time, I was like, “Oh, this is a beautiful place, what would happen if something happened, and we were stuck out here?” And it just went from there. I had so many iterations, but then ultimately, I felt if I could give this an edge, then I think something sci fi, to elevate the story would be interesting. And so Agent Intelligence was born; it was just called Agent and we went out to the desert on a really small budget, and shot the film, and it came out on Hulu. Then from there, it’s like, okay, we’ve got some traction. Well, what now? What can we do? And how do we continue the story? Let’s tell them more and then with Agent Revelation I wrote the script for that. Michael Dorn was in it and that went well and it was on Showtime. Right now, currently, it’s on Paramount and now here we are. It’s been a progression of my skills as a filmmaker, as an actor, with Agent Recon and Chuck Norris and Mark Singer. So, that’s how it came out; it came from an idea, but then I had support from different areas. It was really about putting in and creating the things that I love in film and having the autonomy and having the choices to create a new world. I’ve just been very fortunate. That’s really what I wanted to do is create something from scratch and tell a good story, because honestly, I do flip around these days and there’s a lot of content out there. But I don’t know, there’s something about it that a lot of it doesn’t interest me anymore and I don’t know why. This is kind of like my entry to say, “hey, this is what I want to see”. I want to see new worlds. I love zombie movies. I love them, but there needs to be new rules and so how do you make that different? I love action. I love martial arts. So how do I make it my own and make it original and different?
All three films are different. They’re unlike anything I’ve seen before and that’s what I liked most. Something fresh and new. It’s not a superhero movie… or is it?
Yeah, it is and it isn’t, right? Certainly the character of Jim is discovering his powers very slowly, but I’m going to give this to you.
I haven’t told this story, but I’m Asian so I figure I’ll never get a chance to play Superman. But James Gunn or anybody who’s out there if you if you’re listening, Superman is my favorite superhero. Why? Because he has all the powers. How do you make this guy interesting? I think a lot of that inherently is who Jim is. He’s an orphan. He’s discovering who he is. He’s discovering his powers. He’s discovering all these different things. How does he navigate this? How does he navigate his powers? I think that at the crux is what keeps me going is, how does he deal with these situations? Because ultimately, when watching movies, you can be like “how’s this guy gonna get out of this?” If I’m not creating that in a story, then why am I watching? I know what’s gonna happen; this guy is gonna fight the baddie, and that’s gonna be it.
Going back, just to the first movie Agent Intelligence has probably one of the best stunts I’ve seen in some time. The solider falling on the rock during the shoot-out. Is he ok? (laughs)
(laughs) Wow. Oh Tim Garris he was my stunt coordinator. So, in Agent Intelligence, we have the smallest budget, but the story is that I went out to Action Factory. Most people probably don’t know who Actually Factory are, but they’re the ones that light people on fire, like in Universal Studios. During Daredevil when they lit my friend Peter Shinkoda on fire. Not him. But one of the stunt guys, his character. That’s them. My stunt coordinator now, Joe Fidler. He did Punisher. So, those are those types of action I like so I pitched Tim and I said, “Look, I’ve done two movies, I want to do action”. Most people thought I was crazy, by the way, because it’s hard to do action, especially on a budget. But Joe Ross, he’s one of the stunt guys out there, really great guy, is one of the owners. I went to him and said, “what do you think?” And he said, “You know what? we started doing videos with this guy on YouTube and it turned out to be awesome; we just started helping him out. Then it turned out to be the next thing and the next thing and he got bigger and bigger. I like you; you write stuff, you’re making things; we’re going to help you out”. Then they all came out. All the action as you know, is at the last third so, we just put it all there. Tim has been all around the world, like in Bulgaria for Halo, but Tim is who that soldier is. He’s like, “Oh, I found this rock. I’m gonna chip off the rock. And then I’m gonna fall here”. And I’m like, “Is that safe?” He’s like, “Yeah, it’s fine. It’s fine. It’s fine”. Then he padded up and then he did it. He’s an amazing guy to work with. I mean all the pulls. By the way, Anthony Oh doubled for me and I love seeing his career. So, in that movie, he doubled for me; he didn’t for Agent Recon. I’ve done a lot of this stuff now. But Anthony Oh did John Wick 4; he doubled for Keanu. But at that time, he was just starting, and they came up with this stunt where my character gets kicked across the desert and they drag him. They came up with that idea. Tim is just showing me he’s pounding a gigantic nail into the ground and they attach this line in his truck. They said “Okay, when he kicks I’m gonna drive and then Anthony Oh’s gonna get pulled across.
That’s awesome.
Yeah, so cool. The thing is they are having fun because they are experimenting, right? So, the way I work is I let people who are heroes take the lead; if they’re enjoying and having creative input. I think that’s why a lot of us are in it, for the creative input; it’s certainly not for the struggle and the hardship. That’s when people thrive and so that’s worked well and then that’s why we’re three movies in together working with a lot of the same people. The best in the industry too.
You brought the legend himself, Chuck Norris out of retirement. How did you manage that and what’s he like to work with?
Just so blessed. They specifically told me that Chuck read the script. They put a laptop in front of him flying back from Hawaii; he reads the script and does not put it down for five hours. And at the end he says “we have to do this movie”. His wife who’s amazing, by the way, she just said, “I just want you to know, Chuck doesn’t leave the ranch for many people”. I was just blown away. I mean, like the character Jim sometimes I’m like, why me? I always feel like I’m nothing special or anything, but maybe just through hard work and intention that’s why I’m here still standing (laughs).
The thing is, if you’re going to bring Chuck Norris out of retirement, you’ve got to do something awesome, and you did. You did absolutely everything I would want to see Chuck Norris do. He gets to beat people up, and fire various guns.
Thank you. It means a lot coming from you specifically, because I’m an action fan and I read your stuff too, by the way. So, I’m a fan as well. I want to let you know that and I love the action community. I love the stunt guys. I grew up watching action films like Stallone and Schwarzenegger. I mean, those are the movies that I go to the theater for and Van Damme and everything on VHS. Of course, Chuck Norris – Silent Rage is one of my favorite movies, and The Octagon too. So, it means a lot to me. We know that he’s not in his prime. Right? So, he’s coming back for me, and I wanted to really showcase the different aspects of who he is. I had my ideas like what I want to see if Chuck Norris were to come back for me (which he does come back for me), this is what I would want to see as an action fan. That’s basically the answer. But on top of that, when we’re having the call Dakota, who choreographs his hand-to-hand fight scenes, they said “hey, look, if we’re going to do this, then we’re gonna do this.” So, Dakota asked so nicely – “I choreographed something for my dad; would you mind if I show it to you?” I’m like, “yeah, absolutely”. So, he sends me this whole previz video and I’m like, “Oh, this is so awesome. We have to make this work”.
So, then from there, we were working together; I put him with Joe Fidler who’s amazing and I put him with the entire stunt team. We integrated it into the film. There are things that I wanted to do, like obviously I wanted to give him as big a gun as possible (laughs). But I certainly wanted to see him kick some butt essentially. That’s what I was going for and hearing it from you it means a lot to me.
But it’s not just him the kicks butt in this movie. You do as well; what’s your training regime to prepare for these roles?
Oh, yeah, of course, we don’t have these huge budgets so it’s not like we’re doing extensive pre-viz. Sometimes I don’t even know which stunt guys I’m gonna get; I have a core team because they’re in demand especially in California. The best guys that can really do their stuff. They’re in demand. We were lucky to get Nathan People who’s been in a lot of stuff and Joe came out for me; he was working with Daniel Radcliffe. So, I’m super fortunate. But the way I work out because I’m wearing many hats is I do a lot of bodyweight exercises, like just now I was doing pull ups. I do dips. So, I take an approach where I’m not trying to work out three times a day. I think that’s quite excessive. But I’m certainly a studier; I study a lot. I started Tang Soo Do, funny enough. Which is Chuck Norris’s initial martial art, right? Then I worked on Hung Gar Kung Fu and then I was in Taekwondo. I did that, and then later on because I’m based in Hong Kong, I did Thai boxing. That’s where I think I developed my power and more of the punching skills that we see in Agent Recon. I wanted to showcase boxing. One aspect of boxing is people don’t realize how much of a chess match it is. There’s a key fight scene where we see some slips and stuff like that. I go from there, so I really just try to keep myself in shape. I don’t try to do anything crazy. I think I started weightlifting before because of Schwarzenegger. But I realized without any kind of enhancements, I would never get big. So, mobility is quite key. I can keep on going on about health and fitness (laughs); but those are those are long days, 12 hours, and then I gotta rock up and do all the moves and stuff. It’s like, oh, my gosh, I’m so pooped out.
And try not to look exhausted on camera (laughs)…
Yeah. This is what I learned in Agent Revelation; there’s a couple shots where I thought I’m a little too far away from the punch. So, one of the guys was swinging an axe at me, and I mistakenly was too close, because I’m trying to make it realistic, right? I got whacked on the head really badly. But there’s also the part of the reaction and the emotion in the face that I think is so key for the action. I hope people see that in Agent Recon; I’m still learning again, I think I’m getting better but those are things that I’m trying to bring into it. Because I’m doing the action, then you actually get to see me exert versus if I were, like an actor that is mostly doubled, then you don’t really get to see them exert. That for me when I’m watching movies takes me out of the character. It makes me feel like okay, oh, that’s not the person when we come back, so…
I loved the score to this movie. How did you work with composer Adam Bosarge in creating the right musical sound for the film?
Yeah, I think the score is so amazing. It’s so invigorating. So, this was interesting. He was recommended by the executive producer Larry Greenberg, who’s been a great collaborator. He’s been in the business for so long. He knows movies. He said, “Adam’s really awesome”. I think Adam did two movies with Neil LaBute and really brought a lot to it with the score. So, I listened to his stuff, and I wasn’t sure because he hadn’t really done action, but he and I connected really well. The things I gave him as notes were I gave him references of movies that I had seen. But I said, “oh, there is something missing about when I listened to films; I want to get excited. I want to feel as much as possible. So, those are really the only notes I gave him where I gave him movies. I wanted to see but it’s like, if I’m not feeling the music, and getting excited with it, and then there’s something off. One of the things we talked about was “how do you be original these days?” Because you know you’re competing. You hear Nolan movies and then suddenly you have a lot of replications of Nolan. Sometimes I’ve done that. I said, “for this one, we want to be quite original with the music, so it’s up to you to really put your stamp on it”. I think he delivered; I listened to it, and I was like “I have no notes. This is amazing.”
What is your process for writing scripts? How would you start off?
Typically, I have the idea, and I bounce it around until, (unless I don’t think it’s a good idea), then I toss it and I have a long list of those. For this one, I would say that I really went back to what I wanted to see in films. I think I had more time, especially because this was towards the end of the pandemic. I had more time to really search my soul of who am I as a filmmaker. What am I trying to do? What is my style and tone? And really hone in on that. I went back to the greats; I said, “Well, what did Jim Cameron do in The Terminator? What does he do in Aliens? What about John McTiernan?” I really looked at those story structures. Then I made it my own and I infused the world that I created with all those different rules. I think the aspect of the storytelling is the character arc, the character study. I don’t know if you feel this way, but I’m not really the lead. I’m the glue, but I think Mark Singer is really more the lead and I really wrote the movie more for him.
Yeah, like you said you’re the glue.
Yeah, thanks. Yeah. That’s a lot of what the lead does is they’re there to listen and react and make decisions. In my journey as a creator, I think sometimes you get so excited; sometimes you want to do all those, but if you give a lot of good dramatic moments to the other characters, then it really enriches the whole story. So yeah, that’s more the evolution of me too. Because originally, I was single arc, single character and because if you’re a filmmaker, that’s how you should start out I think, especially when you’re writing a screenplay. Don’t try to do multi character/multi arc as Robert McKee recommends single arcs, single plot, but in this case, we have multiple characters with multiple arcs, and they’re all doing things and they’re all changing the aspect and they’re all moving at the same time. I think I’m able to now at least do it much better.
Can we expect a part four? And do you know how the story will end for Jim?
Yeah, yeah, it’s been written. I think there’s a lot of opportunity for exploring and more missions now. I think they’d be fun, but I know where the character goes. I do like to joke about a TV series, or some sort of episodic show that can explore different characters and because there’s so much we could do. But I know how Jim ends up. Yeah, for sure and that’s a fun movie. Let me tell you, if you had fun watching this one, this is just the tip of the iceberg of what I could do. I promise you that.
How would you like the film to resonate with audiences?
Certainly family. I just feel like Chuck Norris and Marc Singer are both heroes and legends in the business. They’re people that we should celebrate. I call out everybody who’s enjoyed these action films that they have created and it’s a chance to watch them do their thing and see how cool they are and watch it with your kid, or watch it with a buddy; watch it with your friend that you chat about action movies with all the time. I think that’s what I wanted to create with this film is when you see them do their thing that you get that hopefully, people feel like I did it justice; that they felt good about the opportunity that I had. I put everything – my mind, my body, my soul, all my energy into just really making sure that that I’m giving back more than they gave me which is a very tall order. Because they’ve just done such great work.
Thanks so much for the chat and all the best with the film.
Thanks very much.
AGENT RECON WILL BE ON DIGITAL AND ON DEMAND: June 21, 2024