The Furious’ Climactic Fight Scene Explained By Director Kenji Tanigaki [Exclusive Interview]

The fight scenes in this movie are so thrilling all the way through, I think because there’s so much variation in the choreography. When you’re watching an action movie that you did not work on, is lack of variation the biggest problem you see?

I’m a movie fan, and I’m the fanboy of the action movie. So when I watch other action movies, I try to enjoy, not be the [critic] or something. I just try to enjoy. So I don’t know how the other movie is, but in my movie, I hope every character has a different aspect, and every action scene tries not to be the same. And the characterization sometimes is very important, as much as a story. So we are so lucky to use their own cultural background, the martial arts background, because our [casting]that process is very important. So I call Joe Taslim and Brian Le, “Hey, Joe Taslim, Brian Le.” [Their] character is totally different than Yayan and Joey Iwanaga. So characterization is very important, and if you have the rich characterization, you can let the action sequences be very unique and different.

Totally. I know that you’ve previously worked as a member of stunt teams and as an action director. So I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about the process of working with the people who served those roles on “The Furious.”

Our action choreographer is Kensuke Sonomura. We are coming from the same school, but different taste, different side. So it’s good, because as you said, we need a lot of different styles in one movie, so it’s very good collaboration with him and we share the stunt team, we use the same stunt team. So they know what the difference is between me and him and the mutual language between us. So it’s a very good collaboration.

I just said we share the same stunt team, but this time, because we shot in Bangkok, we collaborated with a Thai team and the Thai team is amazing, surprisingly amazing. They are so strong and they’re so collaborative and the whole Thai crew is very, very good. They’re amazing. Yeah, I must give some credit to them.