Ke Huy Quan knows a thing or two about jaw-dropping action. From outrunning boulders in ‘Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom’ to throwing multi-versal punches in ‘Everything Everywhere All At Once,’ the Oscar winner has spent decades immersed in cinematic spectacle. Now, he’s taking us on a high-octane journey through his top seven favorite action scenes of all time.
Ke dives into the thrilling choreography of ‘The Matrix,’ the mutant mayhem of ‘X-Men,’ and the electrifying martial arts mastery of Jackie Chan in’ Dragons Forever’ Plus, he shares why the emotional intensity of ‘Love Hurts’ earns it a spot among the greats. With behind-the-scenes stories, deep-cut insights, and Ke’s signature warmth and enthusiasm, this is a must-watch for action fans everywhere.
Ke dives into the thrilling choreography of ‘The Matrix,’ the mutant mayhem of ‘X-Men,’ and the electrifying martial arts mastery of Jackie Chan in’ Dragons Forever’ Plus, he shares why the emotional intensity of ‘Love Hurts’ earns it a spot among the greats. With behind-the-scenes stories, deep-cut insights, and Ke’s signature warmth and enthusiasm, this is a must-watch for action fans everywhere.
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00:00Hi, I'm Kihui Kwan, and I'm here to break down seven of my favorite action sequences.
00:13Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.
00:16Look how small I was!
00:18I actually did it, I actually climbed up the stunt guy and onto the thing.
00:30You know, I was really small then, and I had to run really fast to catch up,
00:35because the minecart actually took off before I did,
00:38and steaming yell action, and I ran as fast as I can.
00:41It was the first time that I saw a combination of miniatures and live action,
00:50and it blended in seamlessly.
00:52And I remember watching it for the first time at our premiere,
00:58seeing it put together with sound effects and music for the first time,
01:02and I was blown away by all of it.
01:06I was only 13 then, and it made me fall in love
01:12with action.
01:18Okay, so when we shot this sequence, I was so scared, and I cried.
01:27And I remember Harrison Ford kneeling down in front of me and asking me if I was okay,
01:33and he said, and I'll never forget this, he says,
01:37I want you to remember, I will never hurt you.
01:42And when he said that, oh my gosh, it just made me love him so much more.
01:49It was incredible.
01:50Here is this, you know, here is Indiana Jones telling me that he's going to take care of me.
01:58This is the famous fanny pack scene.
02:00We shot this in one day, but I trained three weeks with the fanny pack.
02:06Before this, nobody thought the fanny pack would be a lethal weapon.
02:10It didn't have anything in it, because it needed to be light for me to swing it around.
02:22It was a style of martial arts that I've never done before, so it was really tricky.
02:29Everything was universally lit, which means that we can go from one shot to the next very quickly.
02:35There was, you know, very little time in between setups.
02:38And honestly, that is the only way that we could have done this scene,
02:42because it was only scheduled for one day.
02:44We didn't have the budget to do any more.
02:49There it is.
02:50That's camera swing.
02:51It's so good.
02:53We were in a makeshift gym, and the Daniels saw the choreography,
02:59and I remember Dan Kwan taking his phone.
03:02He says, what if we were to shoot this particular choreography, this move, like this?
03:10And he tried it, and it turned out great.
03:13But it was a very difficult shot to pull off,
03:15because it's very different when you do it with just your iPhone versus, you know, a movie camera.
03:20You know, the Daniels are fans of Hong Kong action cinema.
03:30So this is kind of, you know, our way of paying homage to that.
03:34And this is also the scene that they showed everybody halfway through the movie.
03:38It was during lunchtime.
03:40They screened it to the entire cast and crew,
03:43and I remember thinking, everyone was so tired halfway through production.
03:48And when they showed this scene, and everybody saw how good it was,
03:53it really, like, energizes everybody,
03:56motivated the entire cast and crew to work even harder.
04:01And that's how, you know, the movie was shot for, you know, for the rest of the movie.
04:04I know there's someone here. I just can't see him.
04:07This is the exit.
04:11I was on this project. It was my first job after USC film school.
04:16I got a phone call from Koi Yuen, this Hong Kong famous, you know, famous Hong Kong director.
04:22He says, I just, would you come to Toronto and work on this little movie with me?
04:26I got on the flight, and I walked on set, and I see Hugh Jackman.
04:29I met a young Kevin Feige.
04:31And I found myself being part of this incredible production.
04:44Well, this, I remember when we choreographed,
04:47when we came up with this idea, we were so excited.
04:50This takes a lot of practice. It was a stuntwoman.
04:54She was on a wire. She did this.
04:56And we would do it a lot of times.
05:00And we would have the visual effects department.
05:02They're looking at it, making sure everything works.
05:05And then, yeah, we would, you know, we would not be finished until they give us the approval,
05:12knowing that it's going to, you know, it's going to all come together in post.
05:16That was, that was reverse.
05:18That was, again, you know, movie magic.
05:21We shot it, and then we just reversed it in post.
05:32Props is a big department that we collaborate with.
05:37When you're looking at this chain link fence, of course, it can't be perfect.
05:42When you're looking at this chain link fence,
05:44of course, it cannot be a real chain link fence.
05:47It needs to be, it needs to be a replica.
05:50And that was, was plastic. It was just very light plastic.
05:53And then, you know, when Wolverine's claws slide through the, you know, the fence,
05:59that was rigged for it to come apart.
06:01Hugh Jackman, I remember showing him the action choreography.
06:07He doesn't need any of my help.
06:08He's, physically, he's incredible.
06:10But it was just me teaching him the choreography.
06:13And again, if you look at him, he's so fit, and he's so good as Wolverine.
06:20This is the Matrix.
06:32Isn't that incredible?
06:33Look at that.
06:34I remember watching that in the theater for the first time.
06:37I was going to USC film school.
06:39Up until then, you know, there were really no camera tricks.
06:44Everything was done for real, especially the movies that I,
06:48the action movies that I love watching, which, you know,
06:51really came from Hong Kong, the early 80s Hong Kong action cinema.
06:56This is the first time that I watched a beautifully shot,
07:06highly stylistic action sequence where they use the bullet time.
07:12And I've never seen that before.
07:14And I'm sure everybody was blown away by it when this movie came out.
07:17I think I read it where they had hundreds of cameras in a circle.
07:22And you do one move and the shutter is rigged where it happens all at once.
07:30This is classic Hong Kong action right there,
07:33but shot through the lens of Hollywood.
07:36It was so cool.
07:38And I realized then that, wow, you can, you know, if you are creative,
07:43you can make an action sequence very different.
07:47And of course, now, I mean, now the scene is really iconic and highly influential.
07:58This is the big finale fight in Dragons Forever.
08:02Oh, Benny the Jet.
08:06I have probably seen this fight sequence more than any other fight sequence.
08:11Look at this.
08:12It's just two incredible martial artists going full force with one another.
08:19The choreography is incredible.
08:21It's almost for sure that they actually got hit for real.
08:28Sometimes there's no way around making a, you know, a hit look convincing,
08:36either because of the camera angle or, you know, for the, you know, you want that impact.
08:41One way to do it is to, you know, you would have a stunt double to take a hit for real.
08:46Back then for these Hong Kong movies, for a big finale like that,
08:49you have the luxury of spending a lot of time on action sequences
08:53and very little time on the dialogue stuff.
08:56Whereas here in Hollywood, we spend a lot of time on the dialogue
09:01and very little time on the action sequence.
09:06For example, like Love Hurts, you know, we have five big action sequences
09:10and each fight is, you know, it's only scheduled for two days.
09:19This is The Grandmaster by one of my favorite filmmakers of all time,
09:24Wong Kar-wai.
09:25I got the luxury of working with him.
09:27You know, we did a movie called 2046 together.
09:31While we were working on that, he was already thinking for the story for this, for Eatman.
09:37He always wanted to make an Eatman movie.
09:39What I love about this fight sequence is that
09:43even though it's beautifully shot and beautifully choreographed,
09:47it's what the fight is about that makes it really interesting.
09:51It's about these two people falling in love with each other
09:57and it happens through this fight.
10:00And after this fight is over, you can see they're just madly in love.
10:07Love Hurts.
10:08This is my favorite fight in the whole movie.
10:11It's the kitchen fight.
10:13This is also the first fight we shot right in the very beginning of production.
10:18I think this is the second day into production.
10:28He came up with this brilliant idea where, you know,
10:30the fight needs to be about the certificate that he got from his mentor, Cliff.
10:36The certificate is about, you know, it's a validation of his new life.
10:41You know, a fight scene needs to have a story.
10:43It needs to have a narrative.
10:45And we need to learn something about Marvin Gable for this scene.
10:48The audience is here to watch the fight scene.
10:51We have to make sure that we deliver on that.
10:53And that's what we did.
10:54And I'm so proud of it.