VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Mar. 7, 2002 — The word around the set of Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever is “negative.”
It has nothing to do with the script or the actors or the production itself, but the temperature in Vancouver, B.C., during the nighttime shoot. But although feeling the below-zero (and that’s Celsius) winds turning toes to ice is not so pleasant, seeing three Antonio Banderases walking around helps warm things up.
On closer notice, one Antonio is shorter and thinner than the real thing–a stand-in whose purpose is to wait patiently at his mark while the crew adjusts lighting and camera angles. The second Antonio is a stunt double who has worked with Banderas in many of his action movies because he’s a dead ringer for the star (complete with Spanish accent). And then there’s the third–Banderas himself, dressed like his counterparts except for the puffy black down jacket given to the stars to warm up between shots. He puts out his cigarette, sits in his canvas chair and closes his eyes.
His co-star Lucy Liu arrives on the set soon after, passing by her own identical stand-in and settling into her chair to be made up. Dressed in a black catsuit less sexy but equally slimming as her Charlie’s Angels getup, she huddles in a similar puffy black jacket until their shot is ready to go.
Their first scene of the night, a confrontation inside a giant silo on a shipyard, involves little dialogue and a lot of getting on and off an elevator. But by midnight, six hours into the shoot, Banderas is thoroughly thawed: he’s had an altercation with the movie’s villain (Gregg Henry) and come into some dangerous contact with explosions as he runs between two trains. The crew then breaks for midnight “lunch” and the two stars return to their trailers.
In the action thriller Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever, Banderas plays Jeremiah Ecks, a former FBI manhunter who was once preeminent in his field, but resigned from the agency when his wife was killed in an explosion. He’s convinced to return to service by his former mentor and face off against his sworn enemy, rogue NSA agent code name Sever (Liu). Both are hot on the trail of an ingenious new assassination device that can be injected into an unknowing victim who dies instantly when it is activated. But as Ecks’ pursuit of the agent continues, he finds they may have the same enemy after all. Ray Park and Talisa Soto co-star.
Getting Ballistic, directed by Thai director Wych Kaosayananda (Kaos for short), to the big screen has been almost as complicated a story as the movie itself.
Before the film even went into production, the story was developed into a Game Boy Advance that was released in November of 2001, the same month filming finally began–roughly 9 months after its originally scheduled start.
There was also a drastic character change. Once written for two male actors–Jet Li, Wesley Snipes, Chow Yun-Fat, Sylvester Stallone and Vin Diesel were among the rumored names mentioned–the dynamic changed little when Liu was cast.
“Kaos and I had talked before I signed on and we discussed what I thought worked and what I thought didn’t work, irregardless of the fact that it was going to be a man or a woman,” Liu says, shivering in her coat during a break in filming. “You shouldn’t change the dialogue just because it’s going to be a woman. You should keep it that way because it just makes the character that much stronger and that much more interesting.”
Adds Kaos: “Sever’s not a very sympathetic character. Sever was always somebody who was a killing machine. The nature of the script itself didn’t allow for sympathetic moments, but in essence, Sever is a hero.”
Yet another evolution in the production came with a post 9/11 location change when Kaos decided to set the film in Vancouver rather than Bangkok. While staying close to home calmed the cast and crew’s flying jitters, Liu had one quibble.
“My assistant and I had gone out and gotten about 150 shots,” she jokes. “I got innoculated from here to high heaven and we’re in Vancouver. Luckily if I get typhoid or anything like that I’m OK.”
Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever opens Sept. 20.
