Heads Up: ‘Johnny Tao’ And ‘Red Heroine’

ADVENTURES OF JOHNNY TAO (2007). Directed by Kenn Scott. Starring Matt Mullins, Matthew Twining, Chris Yen, James Hong, and Kelly Perine.

Some of my readers may remember that I posted a series of articles a while back during the production of this film. One of the stars, Chris Yen, is the daughter of my sifu (and the sister of action star Donnie Yen). Chris graciously arranged for me to visit the JOHNNY TAO set during the shooting of some of the fight scenes, which were produced by Marcus Young (SERENITY, SPIDERMAN 2, THE MATRIX RELOADED), with Mike Gunther (XXX: STATE OF THE UNION, UNDERWORLD EVOLUTION) as stunt coordinator.

Director Kenn Scott, who played Raphael in the second TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLE movie, has an extensive background in martial arts. He made JOHNNY TAO for the family market, but this is a kid’s movie with topnotch action. All the leads have combat and stunt training (Matt Mullins is slated to star in the CW series KAMEN RIDER: DRAGON KNIGHT next year). The DVD is finally available from MTI Video (get it here from Amazon). I’ll be re-posting the set visit article and interviews with Chris Yen and Marcus Young soon.

Here’s the trailer:

In an earlier series of posts, I researched the origins of kung fu cinema, which go back a lot farther than I had ever realized. Shanghai was the center of early Chinese filmmaking, and the first action films and swordplay movies (wuxia pian) were made there in the 1920s. These films were incredibly popular, to the point that the government moved to suppress them. Very few of the silent martial arts films have survived. The earliest existing complete film, RED HEROINE (1929), was most recently seen as part of the “Heroic Grace” series put together by UCLA in 2003.

I was lucky enough to catch it at Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts. It’s been unavailable since then – the Beijing Film Archive owns the only copy. Now a Boston-based new music group, Devil Music Ensemble, has received permission to tour with a tape of the film. They will be presenting an original soundtrack composed for RED HEROINE and played live during the screenings. I’m pleased to announce that this newly scored RED HEROINE will be premiered as part of this year’s Films at the Gate series in Boston’s Chinatown on September 5. I’ve worked on this free outdoor film series for the past two years, and it looks like this year’s event will be the most fun ever! We’re also showing 36TH CHAMBER OF SHAOLIN, POLICE STORY, and MY YOUNG AUNTIE (courtesy of Bey Logan at Dragon Dynasty), and there will be live kung fu demos, trivia contests, and plenty of delicious Chinese food!

And here’s the trailer for RED HEROINE, with a sampling of the new score:

Tags: Adventures of Johnny Tao (2007), Chris Yen, kung fu movie history, Matt Mullins, Red Heroine (1929)