Gladiator Underground
Pretty cool to be the thumbnail for my first international film!
This is what I used to dream about
^That’s what I had to keep telling myself throughout this entire trip. Nah but this was such an awesome and unique experience for me, especially since so many of my friends were also on the project, and I feel that it’s helped me grow so much as a performer and as a person. Since I handled all my own booking, I also got to make a trip out of it and stop by where I used to live in Taipei for a bit before heading to Bangkok, and then also Fukuoka & Honolulu on my way back to Cali. Basically it was a pretty sick month for ol F808Z last October.
On set in Bangkok
Originally, I think we were going to have one day per fight scene or two for the bigger ones, but I’ve been around the sun enough times to know we’d probably be lucky to have half of that. I was also supposed to be there for two weeks, as per the shot schedule, but on my first day on set during my prosthetics fitting, I saw I was only on for the next day and that was it. Being of the dirt, as I am, I was trying to save as much money as I could since I knew I’d be covering my costs and not getting paid very much, so I changed my booking to leave a week early (the day after my fight), so the entire actual film experience was only two days for me.
Day one:
Jeffrey Li and I got a delicious nutritious breakfast of chicken butt skewers from a stall by the underpass because we are of the people (and too broke to afford the hotel). After that, we walked over to the hotel where everyone else was staying to wait for the shuttles to set, which was a very bumpy but fun ride. We got there an hour later and walked over to the ring they’d set up for the tournament to see if production needed any help.
I’m not even joking when I say this: the first thing I saw was the setup for the final gag in the Brian Le vs. Gabe Ruan fight, and I was needed to help flip Tristan (doubling for Gabe) from just off camera. So effectively, the very first encounter I had with the actual production of this entire film was helping to sell the shot of Brian biting Gabe’s dick off in the ring. Outstanding, no notes.
After helping out for a couple hours and having fun with all the homies, I was called over to wardrobe to pick out my outfit for my scene the next day and I’m not gonna lie, even when my characters are dressed in rags, the price tags on them are still higher than on any of my own clothes. There was this one shirt that was like a casual net knit or something that you could see through… and it was like $70. Next up was my prosthesis fitting for my dope shark bite scar which took about 5 hours, and I made the best choice with the book I brought with me (Fight Club) because I finished it right as they were sealing the makeup. I guess they didn’t realize it would take that long, so instead of taking it all back off and then putting it on again the next day, they just asked me to sleep with it and they’d just touch it up again in the morning. They told me not to sweat too much or shower… in Bangkok, Thailand… yeah.
Anyway, that was pretty much wrap time, so we just got back on the shuttles and headed back to the city. I got some dinner beneath a different underpass and then just went back to our spot to try not to sweat too much even though I really wanted to go to Muay Thai.
Day two:
I woke and then very carefully put on that netted shirt I borrowed from set because I didn’t want to ruin one of the 5 I brought with me, and then it was time for some breakfasts. Jeff and I were back at it with the chicken butt skewers because they are unironically one of the best food items we had during the entire trip. From there, it was out of the gutter and over to the hotel, but this time we had an hour before the shuttles got there, so we used the names of people we knew were sleeping in to get access to that hotel breakfast. Brother… they were in that kitchen cookin with skraight GREASE. They made western and eastern breakfast, so I was having bacon & eggs with dragonfruit & congee, it was magical.
Next up was a quick shuttle ride to set, a LOT of touch-ups to my scar because there was no chance I was gonna be able to keep that thing clean, and Shark Bite was ready for action. I walked into the ring, it was electric (in my head). I guess they blocked out the first half of the day to shoot the acting, so we only ended up having about 4-5 hours to shoot the scene, half of which we used to shoot more acting. Luckily, working with DY, Andy, Brian, and Joseph Le is great because they are super precise with action, so as long as I was good on the choreo, we only needed a couple takes for each shot. There was, however, one issue. This is the previz we shot in Cali:
Notice how I had daggers here? Yeah that wolverine claws idea was thrown in pretty last minute, but the rule of cool will take you to some interesting places. There was a lot of ground work and some throwing gags in there originally, which is easy enough to do with knives, but those claws made it super difficult and we had to change some things. I still have scars on my knuckles from getting cut by them, but at the end of the day it was cool to see and a fun challenge to do and we take those Ws.
It was definitely a scramble getting the last shots in before EOD, and we had to cut out some cool stuff before Shark Bite [spoilers] bit the dust, but we got it done and had the Martial Club stamp of approval. After that, I did a little fight grunt acapella for the sound guy, and left the ring to go back to makeup to get my scar taken off. It only took like 30 minutes to get it fully off because I had sweat so much in the ring, and the giant light they had overhead made the ring feel like an oven on low, so a lot of the teeth scars had already partially melted off. It felt so good to be able to fully scratch my back and chest again.
One last look at set and then we piled onto the shuttles and headed back into Bangkok for the last time. We all fell asleep on the way back. We celebrated by having dinner at the mall food court (those are bougie in Thailand) and hung out for a couple hours before we went back to our hotels/underpasses to turn in. I think some of us ended up going out later, but I just did some work on my FUNCTION program (which I managed to make entirely during this trip) and then went to bed.
That next day was pretty much just eating, Muay Thai class, eating again, the gym, more eating, and picking up some pants for my friends before I got on a red eye to Fukuoka. I had gotten set sickness (that’s my name for getting a cold after being on set, probably from the dust/smoke/heat/cold/etc.) and I was trying to beat it down with soups and TCM shots, but I was losing that fight. I felt like shit, but I had just done something that my 15 year old self could only ever dream of, and I had made one hundred and seventy-eight entire dollars. I was untouchable.
The rest of the trip
I’m gonna keep it a buck with you, this will be heavily abridged because I kinda just be doing whatever when I travel, and that sometimes leads to things that would make others scrutinize my choices to a degree I’d rather not deal with. Also, as mentioned before, I made an entire program in my downtime, which probably averaged somewhere between 6 and 8 hours per day, so there was also some boring stuff. Anyway:
Taipei
I used to live in Taipei when I was attending university, and I always love coming back and eating all the food and seeing all the sights that made living there so awesome. I arrived at the crack of dawn and always enjoy the high speed rail ride into the city, but couldn’t check into my capsule hostel until evening, so I just put my stuff in a locker at the MRT station and wandered around the city for like 10 hours. I went to my old university, got the OG boba, worked out by the river, and ate a sickening amount of baked goods and street food. After that, I checked in, moved my bags, and went to a night market for even more delicious street food because if you ever find yourself in Taipei, you NEED to go to a night market.
Everyday after that was pretty much just go out for breakfast, go to the gym, film, work for a couple hours at the hostel or at a cafe, then head out for some evening adventures before working again and going to bed. I went to hot springs, a dance club, got dinner with my old rugby team, and climbed a mountain to see sunset over Taipei. I was only there about 5 days, so it went by pretty quick before heading back out to Bangkok.
Fukuoka
Japan is a weird one for me. I’ve been there twice now, though not to any main cities, and I’m always surprised at how racist that country can be. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still a fun country and I had a great time wandering around and eating some delicious local specialties, but god damn do they go hard with the anti-blackness in some places. I got searched twice going into the country and once going out for ‘contraband’ which those nerds didn’t even manage to find. And I was the only one on my flight to get stopped.
Aside from the officials, the people of Fukuoka didn’t really pay me any mind, aside from giving me a wide berth, which I don’t actually mind. I went all around the city, sometimes walking and sometimes by subway, and even got to get a hike and beach trip in during the almost three days I was there. My favorite food was probably either Yakitori or souffle pancakes, and I think I tried like a dozen different cheap drinks from the 7-11s and FamilyMarts. There’s so much space to walk around and plenty of temples all around to hang out in, but my favorite spot to hang out at was the harbor. It honestly blew my mind that you could have an industrial harbor that was so clean that there was no smell and plenty of little fish in the water. It was an amazing spot to just watch the city and eat sashimi.
I stayed in another capsule hotel (which I HIGHLY recommend) and it was so cute and clean. I usually sleep like 10 hours each night because these capsules are just so damn comfortable, I did that the first time I went to Okinawa and idk what kind of witchcraft they use to make me sleep so well, but it usually works. Unfortunately though, my set sickness wouldn’t let me sleep for too long, so I got ramen instead and it was one of those moments where even though I was feeling miserable, I was eating RAMEN in JAPAN after being in a MOVIE in BANGKOK. God I wish young Sam could have seen that, because I did it for him.
Honolulu
Luckily for my skeletal budget, my besto friendo Wen and her boyfriend Nick helped me fly standby back to Hawai’i and then California, and even let me stay with them in their awesome little jungle loft. That first night there though, I crashed super hard for like 10 hours and only then did I realize that since wrapping the film in Thailand, I had only slept one full night before heading to Japan on a red eye, exploring the whole day, barely sleeping that night, exploring the whole next day, getting on another red eye to Honolulu, and then spending the whole day body surfing & hiking, all before getting to rest again. Basically, I had been awake and sick for 3 whole days and through 3 timezones with a ton of physical activity and only about 4 hours of very bad sleep. I usually just thug it out with jetlag, but this time it put me on my ass something fierce… totally worth it though.
One of my thoroughly unproven methods for dealing with light ailments I affectionately refer to as ‘sunblasting’. It’s pretty much exactly what it sounds like: get out under some intense sun and let the radiation cook away the sickness, and it works about half the time. Luckily for me, it worked this time, so I was pretty much good to go for by the second day in Hawai’i. I want to say I was there for about a week, and it was all kind of a blur, but I can say that I did a lot of hiking, body surfing, some free diving, and a ton of eating. I had some new experiences, got some new scars, ate some truly incredible local specialties, and enjoyed my time with my friends. Can’t ask for a better trip than that.
My favorite new core memory: my friends took me for a sunset surf (I am not great at surfing with a board) and even though I was struggling to catch waves in the fading light, I was happy to see my friends tearing it up. Then, just as we were about to go in, the fireworks started, and I just remember laying on the board I borrowed, cheek being splashed by the spray, and watching my friends silhouetted against the magnificent colors of the fireworks both in the sky, and reflected in the black water as the last rays of light surrendered to the night. I caught like 3 waves that whole time and kissed more reef than I’m willing to admit, but that was one of the best nights of the whole trip.
On the last night I was there, I made my friends dinner to thank them, and then headed back to Cali in the morning. Then I got hit by a car on my bike literally the first night back, welcome home I guess?
Conclusion
I don’t really have one, I’ll be honest, but I’ll say this; if you look at this trip through a financial perspective, this trip was an absolute bust, but the memories I made, goals I reached, dreams I lived, and insight I gained are worth more than any money I’ve ever made, and they’ll be with me forever. I’m not saying you should never consider the price tag, just maybe try to see beyond what you can get and instead think about what would make you happy. It took me a good minute to dig my way out of that hole, but I’ll never forget the F808Z experience in the making of Gladiator Underground.
