Bret Ratner Photo: Li Jingjing/GT

A promotional poster for Hercules starring Dwayne Johnson (right) and Irina Shayk Photo: CFP

 

The Rush Hour series, X-Men: The Last Stand, Red Dragon and Prison Break, each of these critically acclaimed films and TV series have one man in common: American director Brett Ratner.

Years ago, the success of the Rush Hour series starring Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker established a special bond between Ratner and China. Now, Ratner has come back to China with his brand new film, Hercules, together with lead actor Dwayne Johnson and producer Beau Flynn.

With Johnson starring as the legendary hero from Greek mythology, Hercules is Ratner's attempt to redefine this mythological figure for modern audiences. Now that the film is scheduled to hit screens in China on Tuesday, he also hopes to introduce the ancient superhero to Chinese audiences.

"All the superheroes that exist today, only exist because of Hercules. Hercules was the first superhero," the director said at a press conference for the film in Beijing on Thursday.

Later during a one-to-one interview with the Global Times on Friday, Ratner explained that he himself was always fascinated by the depth of this original superhero and that he believes Chinese audiences will be able to enjoy the film without needing to understand Greek mythology.

"We have him in this movie fighting mythical creatures, but we also want to show you a human being, who is the man behind the hero. He is a man who doesn't believe in himself and has to find the strength in himself to become a hero. That's a story with a global theme."

China connection

"I'm the guy who did Rush Hour. I was the first person here before there was a market. It was a natural thing, because I genuinely love Chinese culture," the director told the Global Times.

The first film in the Rush Hour series came out in 1998, a time when choosing an Asian actor for the leading role of a Hollywood movie seemed a bold yet risky move.

"When you do things without worrying about the box-office, that's when it will become a success," said Ratner. "When we did the movie [Rush Hour], no one expected anything. Chinese star, black star, and it made more money than a Tom Cruise movie or Brat Pitt movie. It became the biggest hit around the world."

Although recent years have seen a few Chinese actors and actresses appear in more Hollywood films, the minor importance of those roles have been widely criticized by domestic audiences. Ratner himself has a different approach, "If I were to work with them, I would do it in a real way, where they have real character, and it's not just something to get Chinese distribution."

He also mentioned that out of the many performers in China, the number one choice that he wishes to work with is actress Gong Li, whose early movie Ju Dou (1990) is one of his favorites.

Ground up 3D

Although he's been making action films for years, Hercules marks the first time Ratner has filmed a movie in 3D. A long time fan of 3D movies, he didn't compromise any details in order to lower production costs. In order to better present the film's grand war scenes and ancient Greek halls, the crew created a set that Ratner described as the "biggest set that I've ever built in my entire life."

"That's why we are so excited about the film, everything you see in the movie was built for real. It was not done by computer. The computer was just used to extend the sets, but we actually built a set as big as a football stadium,"  he said going on to explain the film was designed to be shown in 3D on the biggest screen possible.

"We built in layers, in depth, that immerse the audience into the screen. When you watch the movie in 3D or IMAX, you're going to feel that you're there with them."

Over the years, 3D technology has seemed to create a new rule for the movie industry, requiring almost every movie in cinemas to need glasses to watch. However, not every so-called 3D movie has been designed for 3D from the ground up, as there have been a handful of movies that were converted from 2D to 3D in the last minutes of post-production.

Ratner took these low quality 3D movies to task.

"I think it hurts when a movie that was planned specifically to be seen in 3D is produced in a very rushed and unprofessional way. It makes people not want to see a 3D film because they walk out of the movie theater with a headache."

He believes that these unprofessional 3D movies turn people off to 3D which in turn really hurts the industry. Luckily there are movies such as Transformers, Avatar, Gravity and Hercules that he believes make good use of 3D filming techniques.

"These movies were designed for 3D, this is the experience I want audiences around the world to see. Because when it's done poorly, it hurts the people that sincerely want audiences to join 3D experiences," Ratner said.

'Born to play Hercules' 

Getting his start as a professional wrestler for the WWE, lead actor Dwayne Johnson made the jump into mainstream pop culture through the numerous music videos and films he has appeared in. One of his most widely known characters is Luke Hobbs from the Fast & Furious series.

"The project for me has been somewhat in my blood since I was 5 years old," Johnson said at the press conference, as he related the story of how a poster of Steve Reeves as Hercules inspired not only himself but also many young boys around the world. "I felt I was born to play Hercules."

But delivering this character wasn't that easy at all. "It's physically the most demanding role I've ever experienced before," he said explaining that every day during the 95-day film shoot he worked out twice a day.

But what made everything even harder was Johnson's injury right before shooting began.

"What makes Dwayne so unique is. Dwayne had a very serious injury just three weeks before we started shooting, It was an injury that I guarantee any other actor would have dropped out the movie and waited six months or a year to heal," said Beau Flynn.

Instead of backing out, the actor's determination to see production through greatly impressed Ratner, "Dwayne is a real-life superhero."